The Jim Wallis Podcast

Annie Selak joins Jim Wallis to confront the wounds churches too often ask people to hide—and explain why genuine healing requires truth, accountability, and change.

Drawing on her book, The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism, the theologian and Catholic lay minister examines how racism, sexism, and clericalism reinforce systems that protect institutions rather than people. She discusses 

• the sexual-abuse crisis in the clergy, 
• women’s leadership, 
• disability inclusion, and 
• the danger of claiming neutrality in the face of injustice.

At the heart of the conversation is a powerful image: the resurrected Jesus still bears wounds. Selak argues that renewal does not mean erasing painful history, silencing survivors, or asking marginalized people to accept exclusion for the sake of unity. It means tending to the harm and changing the conditions that allow it to continue.

Listen to The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis for a candid conversation about loving a wounded church, demanding reform, and finding a faithful path forward.

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Democracy must do more than survive an election. It must deliver for the people it serves.

Rev. Adam Taylor joins Jim Wallis for a candid post-midterm conversation about relief, renewed hope, and the responsibility to turn an electoral opening into lasting change. After spending Election Day together supporting Faiths United to Save Democracy, they reflect on the work of more than a thousand Poll Chaplains and Peacekeepers, the organizing power of the Black church, and the potential for faith-rooted leadership to challenge Christian nationalism.

But celebration is only the beginning. Jim and Adam discuss counting every vote, protecting the certification process, demanding accountability, and putting food assistance and health care back at the center of the national agenda.

Their central challenge reaches beyond party politics: spiritual renewal must lead to structural change. Drawing on Jesus’ command to love our neighbors and the civil rights movement’s vision of the beloved community, they explore how people of faith can help build a more just, inclusive democracy.

Listen to The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis, share the conversation, and consider your part in the work ahead.

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Podcast Title

Democracy depends on people showing up—and on neighbors making sure no one has to face intimidation alone.

Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner joins Jim Wallis for an urgent, practical conversation about the 2026 midterms, protecting voters, and sustaining hope amid political exhaustion. A co-convener of Faiths United to Save Democracy, Williams-Skinner shares how the coalition has trained more than 1,200 Poll Chaplains and Peacekeepers to 

• offer a calm, nonpartisan presence, 
• connect voters with help, and 
• respond to potential conflict with nonviolence.

She traces the work’s roots in the Black church and Lawyers and Collars, explains why election protection must continue through vote counting and certification, and offers steps individuals and congregations can take now: make a voting plan, understand the ballot, arrange transportation, and help reluctant voters participate.

Download The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis for a conversation about turning faith into action, protecting every neighbor’s dignity, and caring for our own souls while working toward a democracy that serves everyone.

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Protecting the right to vote is an act of loving your neighbor—and Rev. Dr. Katie Sexton is putting that conviction into practice in Arizona.

The executive director of the Arizona Faith Network joins Jim Wallis to discuss how interfaith communities are responding to voter intimidation, political violence, and disinformation with trained volunteers, trusted relationships, and nonpartisan election protection.

Sexton describes the work of Poll Chaplains and Peacekeepers, the importance of staying calm and knowing where to turn for help, and the power of bringing joy back to voting. She also shares practical steps congregations can take—from providing rides and ballot education to speaking against dehumanizing rhetoric—without endorsing candidates.

Their conversation connects voting rights with the everyday struggles of families facing hunger and housing insecurity, while exploring how relationships across religious and political differences can strengthen both faith and democracy.

Download The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis for a grounded, hopeful conversation about protecting our neighbors, resisting fear, and turning concern for democracy into action.

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A grandmother raising three teenage boys lost $700 a month in food assistance after submitting the wrong year’s income statement. She called 100 times in one month to correct the mistake—and never got through.

New York Times poverty reporter Jason DeParle joins Jim Wallis to bring the human consequences of SNAP cuts into focus. Drawing on his reporting in Arizona, where enrollment fell by roughly half in a year, DeParle describes eligible families shut out by paperwork demands, unanswered calls, and overwhelmed agencies.

They examine why payment errors are not the same as fraud, how new state funding obligations can create incentives to restrict access, and what the 2027 SNAP cost shift could mean for the program’s future. DeParle also explains why food assistance protects more than grocery budgets: it helps families pay rent, maintain health, and withstand financial shocks.

Download The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis for a candid conversation about hunger, human dignity, the moral responsibility to feed our neighbors, and the power of journalism to make hidden suffering visible.

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Matthew D. Taylor joins Jim Wallis for a searching conversation about his new book, Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists.

Taylor, an authoritative voice on the dangers of Christian Nationalism and avisiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center on Faith + Justice, examines what happens when Christians harm others in Jesus’ name while claiming divine authority for political power. He traces the long history of Christianity’s entanglement with empire—from Constantine’s conversion through today’s Christian Nationalist Movements—and calls the church back to the anti-authoritarian way of Jesus.

Jim and Matthew discuss 

• the New Apostolic Reformation, 
• the Seven Mountains Mandate, 
• the “gospel of Caesar,” 
• the difference between conquest and service, and 
• why Christian discipleship requires both caring for the victims of empire and defying the empire itself.

Defying Tyrants is a call to reject religious supremacy, confront the abuse of power, and follow Jesus in solidarity with “the least and the lowest.”

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Congressman Jared Huffman, author of No Prophets: A Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism, joins Jim Wallis for a candid conversation about the growing power of Christian nationalism in American public life.

Huffman, the founder of the Congressional Freethought Caucus and the only openly non-theistic member of Congress, describes a movement he believes has moved from the margins to the highest levels of government. He and Wallis discuss 

• Christian nationalism’s role in January 6, 
• the New Apostolic Reformation, 
• the Seven Mountains Mandate, 
• attacks on public education and science, and 
• the danger of using government power to impose religious belief.

Wallis and Huffman also explore the difference between true prophetic faith and religious extremism, the constitutional importance of church-state separation, and why people of every faith and no faith at all must work together to defend religious freedom, democratic pluralism, and equal citizenship.

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In this special live episode of The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis, recorded September 22, 2026, at Georgetown University, Jim Wallis convenes civil-rights and democracy leaders Maya Wiley, Mary McCord, and Vanita Gupta for an urgent conversation about protecting the vote—and protecting the democracy that makes civil rights possible.

The panel confronts the legal, structural, and civic threats facing the 2026 elections: voter intimidation, disinformation, threats to election workers, attacks on voting-rights organizations, the weaponization of federal power, and fears that immigration enforcement or armed federal agents could suppress turnout. They also offer a grounded response: know your rights, vote early, support election workers, resist intimidation nonviolently, and refuse to be a bystander.

Wallis explores the essential role that faith communities can play—not as partisan actors, but as trusted, peaceful, moral presences. Through Faith United to Save Democracy, clergy and community leaders are being trained as “poll chaplains” and peacekeepers to help voters feel informed, safe, and welcome at the polls.

As Maya Wiley says, “You have power. Use it.” This is a conversation about the work of democracy, the duty to protect one another’s right to vote, and the deeper calling to build not merely a restored past, but a more just future.

Recorded live at Georgetown University’s Center on Faith + Justice

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On this episode of the The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis podcast, Rev. Jim Wallis talks with Robert P. Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of Backslide: Reclaiming Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy. Jones explains why the theological language of backsliding offers a powerful way to understand America’s democratic decline and the support of many white Christians for authoritarian politics, Christian nationalism, and Donald Trump.

Jones traces the history behind white Christian nationalism through his own family Bible, inherited from ancestors who took Cherokee land and enslaved Black people. He examines how white Christian identity became entangled with racial hierarchy, political power, and resistance to multiracial democracy.

Jim and Robby also discuss the difference between the older Religious Right and the New Apostolic Reformation, the role of demographic fear, the danger of government retaliation against critics, the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller, and the need for a faithful remnant committed to truth, equal dignity, pluralistic democracy, and love of neighbor.

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Jim Wallis returns to Springfield, Ohio, to speak with Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church and Viles Dorsainvil, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Support Center. Since the end of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, Haitian families in Springfield have faced fear, detention, ankle monitors, lost work authorization, and the threat of deportation to a country many fled because of violence and instability.

Pastor Carl and Viles describe a community living under intense pressure: families afraid to leave home, Haitian church members unable to worship, students unable to continue their education, and pastors detained while serving their congregations. They also share why faith, interfaith solidarity, mutual aid, and the Unshackle Springfield campaign remain sources of courage and hope.

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