The Jim Wallis Podcast

Jim Simpson, writing in the Jim Wallis newsletter God's Politics, draws clear parallels from the genesis of Jim’s activism chronicled in the 1971 essay Post-American Christianity to the threat we face today under the Trump regime:

Jim names some of the major challenges facing the contemporary society moment: racism, materialism and consumerism, economic inequality, mistrust in corrupt institutions and systems, unjust and destructive war, a culture devoid of connection and focused on hollow success, and an anemic, captured Christianity.

It reads eerily similar to what we are still experiencing now our current moment. Though I would contend that the version of these threats we face today are, in many ways, even greater than those in the early 1970s.

In this timely replay recorded immediately after the re-election of Donald Trump in November of 2024, Jim calls for hope, which he considers a choice that we have the power and authority to make. Wallis counsels that it is appropriate and healing to feel grief and to lament where we find ourselves as a nation. But he warns against falling into despair.

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While Rev. Jim Wallis is on sabbatical, his colleague Dr. Kathleen Bonnette has authored a Substack column in his stead entitled, Beyond Patriarchy as part of the Post-Christianity America series.  To complement that essay, we are offering a replay of the podcast interview Jim conducted with Jennifer Walker Thomas, the co-executive director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, a faith-based community of women committed to peaceful civic engagement and the pursuit of just ethical leadership.

Jennifer Walker Thomas, who is also the co-host of the Proclaim Peace podcast, explores how faith communities can actively resist political violence and promote ethical leadership amid division. 

Following a tragic mass shooting at a Michigan Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Jennifer shares powerful stories of empathy, outreach, and nonpartisan moral advocacy among Mormon women and discusses the urgent need for faith-driven action that transcends party lines. 

Join Jim and Jennifer for an honest, hopeful conversation on peacemaking, spiritual resilience, and the essential role of faith in advancing justice and healing in today’s polarized America.

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Reverend John Edgerton of Old South Church in Boston explains the campaign to divest from Citizens Bank and resist the presence of ICE in local communities. Edgerton shares how the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization used pledged deposits, disciplined strategy, and public actions to challenge Citizens Bank’s financing of CoreCivic and GEO Group, two private prison companies that operate immigration detention centers.

The conversation explores how congregations, municipalities, and coalitions can cut a problem down to size, organize people and money, and act in line with biblical teachings about caring for the vulnerable. Edgerton draws on Numbers 27 and the daughters of Zelophehad, street protests, and labor organizing to show how faith communities can structure public life to protect immigrant neighbors rather than profit from their detention. 

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Senator Tim Kaine discusses what it means to be a faith-forward Democrat in a political moment when more Democrats are openly reclaiming religion as part of their public witness. Kaine reflects on Jesuit formation, Catholic faith, and his Honduras experience that shaped his vocation. He explains how those commitments influence his work on immigration, civil rights, war powers, tariffs, and the defense of democracy.

The conversation also explores why public faith matters now, how Democrats can speak about motivation without imposing belief, and why standing up to authoritarianism requires courage, character, and active citizenship. Jim and Kaine discuss specific examples of faith in action, including Kaine’s Senate speech in Spanish on immigration reform, his War Powers Resolution on Iran, and his argument that defending democracy takes more than just voting.

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Pastor Mike McBride discusses the meaning and mission of the Freedom Summer Revivals: a movement designed to awaken faith, strengthen Black churches, and organize moral courage for the struggle for voting rights, justice, and liberation. The conversation centers on why these revivals are needed now, how they connect to the history of the Black freedom struggle, and what they hope to accomplish in this season of crisis.

Pastor Mike explains that the revivals are meant to revive the prophetic fire of the Black church, deepen multiracial solidarity, and turn spiritual renewal into public witness and action. Jim and Pastor Mike also discuss the “packed and cracked” assault on Black political representation, the dangers of Christian nationalism, and how showing up, standing up, and fighting behind enemy lines can help build a freer future.

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From the producers of The Jim Wallis Podcast, here is Patriarchs — a six-part audio drama about the most consequential friendship in American history, the one between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. As we emerge from the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Patriarchs invites listeners into the founding era with dramatic force, historical depth, and moral honesty, asking not only how America began, but who paid the price and what kind of republic it became.

Written by award-winning playwright Jim McGrath and featuring Stacy Keach as Thomas Jefferson and Edward Gero as John Adams, the series opens in Philadelphia in 1776 and concludes on Independence Day in 1826. Every scene is drawn from real letters, speeches, and memoirs, bringing to life the friendship, rivalry, animosity, and reconciliation that shaped the early United States.

Along the way, Patriarchs also gives voice to Abigail Adams, whose letters cut through ego and ideology, and centers Sally Hemings not as rumor but as a speaking, thinking presence whose life illuminates the brutal realities of slavery and sexual exploitation in the founding generation. This is history as drama, but it is also history as reckoning.

Listen and subscribe to Patriarchs on your favorite podcast apps:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/patriarchs/id1896832143

https://open.spotify.com/show/033o4ZbOWxJjM3yHZ8cuBV

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/1e3165a6-b42f-471a-b5c6-ede68b01dcbf/patriarchs

Please subscribe, rate, and review Patriarchs on your favorite podcast app so more listeners can discover the series and join the conversation.

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Jim Wallis speaks with Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author America, America: A New History of the New World, about the 250th anniversary of the United States and the nation’s ongoing struggle with race, democracy, memory, and truth.

Glaude argues that America has a “divided soul,” torn between its ideals and the reality of white supremacy, and that July 4th can only become meaningful if the country tells the truth about slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, immigration, and the long backlash against multiracial democracy. The conversation also asks what faith, prophetic imagination, and “blues-soaked hope” require now, especially in a time of authoritarian politics, white Christian nationalism, and attacks on voting rights, immigrants, and the truth itself.

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On this episode of the Jim Wallis Podcast, Jim Wallis speaks with Melissa Rogers, former executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under President Obama, about the opening of the Obama Presidential Center and what it means for moral values, leadership, hope, democracy, and faith in public life.

Rogers describes the Center as a living work, not simply a museum, one that highlights dignity, empathy, bridge-building, religious freedom, and the importance of bringing people together across differences. The conversation also connects Obama’s legacy to current challenges, asking how courage, love, conscience, and the refusal to weaponize religion can guide the country forward.

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Jim Wallis talks with Ron Adams, longtime NBA coach for the Golden State Warriors, about how sports can unite or divide us in a polarized culture. Their conversation begins with the emotional power of the Knicks’ championship run and then moves into deeper biblical and ethical questions about community, identity, humility, sacrifice, and hope.

Ron Adams reflects on what makes teams truly connected, why great players still need one another, how sports teach acceptance of the neighbor, and why character matters as much as talent. The episode also explores the role of athletes in public life, the moral responsibility of fans and leaders, and how sports can either become a spectacle of aggression or a witness to the common good.

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On this episode of the Jim Wallis Podcast, Jim Wallis talks with David Beckmann, longtime anti-poverty leader, former president of Bread for the World, and author of Poverty Abolitionists, about why poverty is solvable, how faith communities can help end it, and why the Trump administration has created a major setback for low-income people in the U.S. and around the world.

Beckmann argues that progress against poverty is possible through political action, legislative advocacy, charitable work, cross-partisan cooperation, and a deeper theology of a forgiving God. He also explains how cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, foreign aid, and USAID are already hurting children, families, and vulnerable communities, and why Christians should treat poverty as a moral and political emergency.

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