FW: What is the main message of Seven Ways to change the World?

JW: We have these big challenges we always talk about like global poverty, half of God’s children living on less than $2 a day, trafficking, degradation of the environment. They’re like huge mountains and seem too much beyond our capacity and scope. I say isn’t that why we call it faith? Because the Bible says that with faith the size of a grain of mustard seed you can move mountains.

The book is about times in our history where faith comes alive, revival breaks out and it changes big things, and moves the mountains that seem impossible to change. It’s about the abolition of slavery, child labour laws, and civil rights. It’s about Wilberforce, Martin King, Desmond Tutu. It’s about these movements that really change history.

I’ve learned in my research for it that until spiritual activity changes something big, it doesn’t get to be called revival. It can be renewal, evangelism, conversion, all those things which are wonderful, but it’s not revival until it changes society.

So I call for commitments – personal, communal or congregational – and then for policy where in the faith community we can become the tipping point on these big questions, where they just tip from being a problem to being a solution. I think we’re really on the edge of something I haven’t seen in four decades – a new generation is coming of age. I find it all over the world; young people are coming alive and seeing their faith make a difference. And I think we’re on the edge of what could be another great awakening, what could be a time of revival.

FW: Seven Ways is written in an American political context. The UK appears to be a very different place for faith to the US, so what message can we take away from the book?

Oh yes. We’ve got people coming to all our events who aren’t Christians at all, they’re not church people. Some would say I’m spiritual but not religious, that’s a big movement in the US. But also here in the UK I find a lot of young people who say they’re spiritual but not religious. So this is for them too. I’ve got people who say I’m agnostic, I’m secular, even atheist, and yet they’re drawn to all this.

The two great hungers in the world are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice. The relationship between the two is the one the world is waiting for, and that’s what this book is about.

FW: We are often faced with the assertion that faith should be personal and be kept separate from people’s politics. Do you really think we are moving back to a place where faith is being seen as a positive force for social change?

When I was 14 I got kicked out of my little church over the issue of race. There I was told that Christianity has nothing to say about race, that Christianity should be personal and race is political. What I learned from that, and what I say in the book is that God is personal but never private. Because God wants a relationship with us, to enlist us for God’s purposes in the world. That’s the whole purpose.

Faith breaks into the world. The Kingdom of God was meant to change our lives. Is God too small to change our neighbourhoods? Our nations? Our world? The Kingdom of God is meant to change everything, and us with it.

FW: How have the American political context and faith agenda changed since you wrote God’s politics?

It’s dramatically different now, because the Religious Right’s era is over, and they’re no longer the dominant force. What’s more visible now is this new movement, which is young people taking on trafficking, taking on poverty, the environment. We’re even working with people from the Religious Right who now have a much broader and deeper agenda than before. Now, it’s no longer thought that God is a Republican, or a Democrat.

I think people of faith should be in no party’s political pocket. We should be the ultimate swing vote. So I know all the candidates running for President, we’re talking to them all, they’re all making commitments to our agenda now on poverty, they’re committing to cutting poverty by half in the US, to work for that in 10 years, and to hit the Millennium Development Goals. So I think there’s this tremendous movement now in the US on these questions.

FW: American politics is big news in the UK at the moment – how are you advising Christians to approach their voting?

By evaluating both sides by their own moral compass. And so you look at Barack Obama or maybe Hillary Clinton, or McCain. I know them all, and we’ve got to really hold them accountable to our values. There aren’t just two moral values. In the past, when I came over here people would say, “My, an American Christian who doesn’t think God is an American, or only a Republican who just cares about abortion or gay marriage.” And they were amazed.

Well now I think that it’s really become clear, that it’s a much broader conversation now. The agenda is way broader than just two issues. So, Christians will vote against climate change, and poverty, and trafficking, and Darfur and HIV/AIDS. These are all big issues.

FW: We’re at the site of the new Oasis Centre – which will be dedicated to promoting debate and partnership between church, government and media. Does anything similar exist in the US?

It’s an exciting notion. Steve Chalke says it’s designed to do what you call changing the wind. I think we’ve really got to help change the dialogue and conversations, so back home we’re trying to do the same thing. Many people are coming together and saying let’s try to change the context, let’s change what we call reality. I think we’re closer to that than before. It’s a very exciting time – so many things are happening.

FW: Do you think this kind of ‘parliament’ or congress can work in the UK?

I like the idea because it’s like what we’re trying to do back home, which is that we create the agenda. We don’t just fit into the government’s agenda, but we try to say how things ought to be, and the more faith groups who are together in that agenda, the more success we’re going to have. They should be coming to us saying ‘how can we be a part of this movement?’ Whoever wins the election in the US won’t be able to change any big things unless there are social movements pressing and pushing from the outside.

FW: What is your advice for Christians who want to engage with government but aren’t sure how?

We get involved by joining movements to change politics. Individual commitments are fine, but what moves mountains and changes history are movements. They really change things. All the best ones have always had spiritual foundations. So I want everybody to join movements, to say take care of your faith, take care of each other, and think movement.

FW: It seems vital that any political leader has to have a faith advisor these days. Do we run the risk of falling ‘into government’s pocket’ if we do this? Or does it bring benefits?

The Religious Right is an example of how it can go wrong, how it can go sour, how they became part of a political party, how they really in some ways sold their souls. So we have to maintain our prophetic independence. We are not a voting bloc, but we are a constituency who wants to live by the values of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. And we’re happy to work with politicians, but only out of being part of that Kingdom of God.

FW: Faithworks is a movement of thousands of Christians from across the UK who are committed to building a better world, motivated by their faith. Do you have any words of encouragement for them?

I’ve been to two of your conferences and I’ve had a great time at both. It just feels so much like home. I love seeing such a diverse range of Christians in church. I always kid that I did a lot of work with gangs, and some of us act like gangs – our church, our turf, our territory, our grievances, our paraphernalia, and now I see the churches in movements like Faithworks dropping their gang colours and coming together around the ones that Jesus called the least of these. That’s what’s going to bring us together.

You find the common ground. Where you agree is the important point. You don’t say let’s find all of our disagreements and focus there – that’s the backwards way of doing it. I think poverty is going to be the new altar call for a new revival, and I love the phrase Make Poverty History. It’s a wonderful altar call.