May 15, 2000
RELEASE ON RECEIPT

Activist Preacher and Author Jim Wallis to Deliver Oberlin College Baccalaureate Address

Saturday, May 28
4 P.M.

Finney Chapel
(corner of Professor and Lorain streets)

Free Public Event

Sponsored by the Oberlin College Office of Chaplains

For more information call the Oberlin College Office of Chaplains at (440) 775-8103

OBERLIN, OHIO--Jim Wallis, author, preacher, activist and editor in chief of Sojourners--a magazine that reports and analyzes the intersection of faith, politics and culture--will present this year's baccalaureate address at Oberlin College. The title of his talk, which is based on Isaiah 58: 6-12, is "A New Kind of Activist."

Besides editing Sojourners, which Wallis co-founded in 1971 while still a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, he is the chief organizer of "Call to Renewal," a new national federation of churches and faith-based organizations working to overcome poverty, reform welfare, and revitalize American politics. Under his leadership, this broad-based network of people from African-American, Evangelical, Catholic, Pentecostal and mainline Protestant churches has convened four Christian roundtables on poverty and welfare reform, bringing together diverse national church leaders and religious groups. They recently launched a "Covenant to Overcome Poverty"--endorsed by nearly 60 leaders of denominations and organizations--at a rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Two years ago, Wallis was a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School. There, at the Kennedy School of Government, and elsewhere at Harvard, he lectured on faith and politics, ethics and public life, the churches and welfare reform, and economic inequality as a religious issue. He also taught a course, "Faith, Politics, and Society," at the Kennedy School of Government.

Wallis is the author of numerous books, including The Call to Conversion, The Soul of Politics: A Practical and Prophetic Vision for Change, and Who Speaks for God? A New Politics of Compassion, Community, and Civility. Random House published his new book, Faith Works: Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher, this year.

His columns have appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and Newsweek. Time magazine has named him one of "50 Faces for America's Future." He is a regular contributor to MSNBC Online and National Public Radio.

Wallis's social justice work has taken him throughout the world; he has traveled to South Africa, Central America, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and gang peace summits in urban America. Married to Joy Carroll Wallis and the father of Luke, he lives in Washington, D.C.'s inner city.

Media Contact: Marci Janas 5/15/00 #94 mj