Diverse Christians Chart Future of Faith in Politics
"Envision the Future: A Declaration for the Common Good"
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
In an election year when religious leaders are attracting unprecedented media attention, a new and diverse chorus of Christian voices has issued a challenging and provocative declaration on the common good.
Envision the Future: A Declaration on the Common Good calls for a radical rethinking of the role of faith in public life. As the declaration states:
Envision offers new voices in the public square to address the complexities that confront the United States and the world. We are racially and ethnically diverse activists, clergy, lay persons, students, and scholars who are deeply informed by a faith that compels us to participate in God’s work to eradicate poverty, create peace, and build just communities and right relationships with the earth.
The declaration comes out of the historic Envision 2008 conference. Attended by over 500 Christian activists, clergy, lay persons, students, and scholars who gathered in Princeton, New Jersey on June 8-10, the conference brought together an unprecedented diverse group, including such individuals as Richard Cizik, Jim Wallis, Brenda Salter McNeil, Samuel Rodriguez and Shane Claiborne to begin a new movement for peace, justice, and equality informed by their faith and a new vision of common life and community in the United States and the world.
Linda E. Thomas, Professor of Theology and Anthropology at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago says, “In order to fully embrace the Kairos moment in our country’s history we must build new coalitions across a broad theological spectrum. This is vital if all human beings are to flourish and this is possible if we as Christians move toward the common good.”
“What we're witnessing is the beginning of what could be another Great Awakening in which the hunger for spirituality and social justice are fueling a revival and inspiring a movement that will significantly impact politics in the 2008 election and beyond,” says Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners and author of the New York Times bestsellers God’s Politics and The Great Awakening: Seven Commitments to Revive America.
Envision the Future: A Declaration on the Common Good will serve as the focal document for a growing movement of diverse Christians dedicated to a working for of a brighter and better future for the nation and the world. The document will circulate widely and will also be available on the Envision 2008 website.
