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That is lesson number three: Don't let inessentials divide you. American Christians need this lesson more than ever today, in the face of a deep national moral crisis. It is the very depth of the crisis that is gaining church leaders like Eugene Rivers a hearing with policymakers—something unthinkable just a few years ago. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, for example, said in a speech in February 1998 that "the social service networks developed by the nation's religious communities are a key element in plans to reverse a shortage of affordable housing" (New World, March 1, 1998).

Wallis himself is completing a year as a fellow at Harvard's new Center for the Study of Values in Public Life. There, with distinguished scholars such as urban sociologist William Julius Wilson and political theorist Theda Skopcol, Wallis tried to hammer out "new social policies to overcome poverty, motivated more by spiritual and biblical insights than by old political categories that have reached a dead end."

W e may very well be inclined to hope with Wallis that "a new agenda, beyond both the Left and the Right, which combines personal responsibility and moral values with a frontal assault on racism and poverty, will be increasingly successful" ("A Time to Act," Sojourners, January/ February 1998). But if this is to happen, Wallis and other leaders must keep their rhetoric rooted in reality.

This does not mean acquiescing to the status quo, accepting the world's way of doing business, but it does mean that vision—however challenging, however countercultural—must always be translatable into practice. The emphasis in Wallis's title—"A Time to Act"—is just right, and when he says that this moment of historic opportunity "puts the ball in your court, you who are pastors and leaders of the local churches in your communities," we should recognize that his "you" includes us as well.

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June 14 1999, Vol. 43, No. 7