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There is a conversation in our place that is ongoing about how evangelical or ecumenical we are, and not all of our folks are as evangelical as I am. But I'm the founder and president still. I'm not dead yet. I went to Trinity because I wanted to have this discussion in the evangelical world. And then for a long time evangelicals weren't really responding to us at Sojourners. Now they are.

What's the change you see? Many observers think it's that a new generation of evangelicals are interested in poverty or other social ills. But that's not new. Churches have a long history of assisting the poor (though they could have done more). What strikes me as new is that evangelical Christians are coupling what they do on the local, person-to-person level with a public-policy initiative.

Right. I recently met with Willow Creek's social justice team. It wasn't the social service team. They knew the difference. The God of the Bible is not just a God of charity. The God of the Bible is a God of justice, and they understood that.

You have been one of the most outspoken evangelical critics of the Iraq war. Has the surge changed your opinion?

I haven't changed my view at all. The war in Iraq was not a just war. It didn't conform to the standards at all. And that's the view of the vast majority of evangelicals around the world. I think it was the worst mistake in American foreign-policy history, with the exception of Vietnam.

Did the surge make security gains? Yes. Is that a lasting solution? No. There's still very little movement on the political front. Is the surge working to reduce the violence? Yes. Does that mean the war in Iraq was a good idea after all? No. But I'm not calling for immediate withdrawal. Now that we've gone in there and made such a mess of it, there has to be a responsible transition, saving and protecting as many lives as possible, and an internationalizing of the security problem.

When the surge was announced in January 2007, you called it criminal. In November, you called for war crimes investigations against Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld after the election. Do you still want them?

Whether investigations are the best thing after it's done, I'm not sure. We need to learn what happened this time so it never happens again. If a Democrat wins in November, will I be standing in line with my first demand of the new administration to put Cheney in front of a Senate panel? I doubt it. I just want him to go back to Wyoming. And I have many other things to say before that, like putting poverty on the agenda. But there are days when I get so angry about the loss of life and the deception that I want Cheney to pay, I suppose. But my better, more Christian self would probably just want to move forward.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Collin Hansen reviewed Wallis's most recent book, The Great Awakening.

John Wilson profiled Jim Wallis in 1999.

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May 2008, Vol. 52, No. 5