Jim Wallis on his book tour

We don't get many authors coming through Tampa, so on the rare occasions that I attend a book signing, I will make an extra effort to document it here.
I saw Jim Wallis speak recently at a book signing here in Tampa. Wallis is the author of God's Politics: How the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. Wallis is what I would call a progressive evangelical; his book makes the case for an anti-poverty, anti-war social movement that would demand accountability from both political parties.
I enjoyed Wallis' speech -- just the fact that he questions the Republican/Democratic dyad made him interesting to me. He took questions afterward. Most of the crowd seemed pretty anti-war. But one woman asked him why he downplayed the evangelical mission of conversion. He said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that you can convert people more effectively when they see you living out your religious convictions consistently.
Here's an excerpt from his book (read more at Wallis' web site here):

The values of politics are my primary concern. Of course, God is not partisan. God is not a Republican or a Democrat. When either party tries to politicize God or co-opt religious communities to further political agendas, it makes a terrible mistake. The best contribution of religion is precisely not to be ideologically predictable nor loyally partisan. Both parties, and the nation, must let the prophetic voice of religion be heard. Faith must be free to challenge both the Right and the Left from a consistent moral ground.

"God's politics" are therefore never partisan nor ideological. But God's politics challenge everything about our politics. God's politics remind us of the people our politics always neglect - the poor, the vulnerable, the left behind. God's politics challenge narrow national, ethnic, economic, or cultural self-interest, reminding us of a much wider world and the creative human diversity of all those made in the image of the creator. God's politics remind us of the creation itself, a rich environment in which we are to be good stewards, not mere users, consumers, and exploiters. And God's politics plead with us to resolve, as much as possible, the inevitable conflicts among us without the terrible destruction of war. God's politics always remind us of the ancient prophetic prescription to "choose life, so that you and your children may live," and challenge all the selective moralities that would choose one set of lives and issues over another. This challenges both the Right and the Left, offering a new vision for faith and politics in America and a new conversation of personal faith and political hope.