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Tavis: Jim Wallis is the founder of the Christian group Sojourners, where he also serves as the editor in chief of "Sojourners" magazine. The prolific public speaker and author has launched a new campaign aimed at those trying to use God for political purposes in this election.' The campaign is running in newspapers throughout the country with full-page ads stating, 'God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.' Jim Wallis, nice to have you on the program.

Jim Wallis: Good to be here.

Tavis: Let me just--there are a couple of quotes here that you use at the top of this ad that really get my attention and I suspect anyone else who's seen this ad, and these ads have been in papers all across the country.

The first is a quote from Jerry Falwell: 'It is the responsibility of every political conservative, every evangelical Christian, every pro-life Catholic, every traditional Jew, every Reagan Democrat, and everyone in between to get serious about re-electing President Bush.' That's Jerry Falwell.

Wallis: That's what he said.

Tavis: I like this even better.

This is Pat Robertson. I love this one. 'I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. The Lord has just blessed him...it doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad...'

This is some scary stuff here.

Wallis: It's one thing to endorse a candidate, but they're ordaining here. They're ordaining President Bush as God's candidate for the election. They're saying--and Jerry says it--all good Christians and Catholics and Jews have to vote for him. Now, we're saying that, you know, there is no ordaining. This is a theologically outrageous statement.

The ad says that people can and will vote for President Bush or Senator Kerry for deeply held reasons of faith. And so this is really crossing a big line here. It's one thing to say, 'My values point me this way.' Another thing to say that there's no other choice for people of faith. You feel sometimes like your faith has been stolen in the public arena. Somehow the faith of Jesus all of a sudden becomes pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American. So how do we rescue that? So, we're talking about how do you take back the faith from that kind of distortion.

Tavis: Never mind one's political ideology--left, right, conservative, liberal. What's wrong with using one's faith as a barometer for who one wants to cast his or her vote for? What's wrong with that?

Wallis: Nothing. And where would we be if Dr. King had kept his faith to himself? Where would we be? So, it's one thing to say, 'My faith shapes my values and then shapes my politics.' I think that's good.

The question is, what are our values? So, you have--the other thing the ad says is, 'We are not single-issue voters.' So that all of Christian ethics and values can't get reduced down to one or two hot-button social issues, as if abortion and gay marriage are the only religious values, issues in this campaign. The ad says caring for the poor and vulnerable is a religious issue. How we go to war is a religious issue. Caring for the environment, God's creation, is a religious issue. Truth-telling, human rights--all these things are religious values, questions.

I think it's a good thing if people of faith say, 'Here are my values. How do they shape how I vote?' That's a good thing. You don't vote for who's the most religious. You don't vote for who goes to church most often. But you should look at a candidate's moral compass. You know, how their sort of inner lights and their own personal convictions shape their policies.

Tavis: But, Jim, all around us there are signs that we live in 'One nation, under God.' On our money, 'In God we trust.' So that if a particular candidate is unafraid or unabashed, willing to talk about his faith in the public arena, in the public sphere--if one guy's willing to do that in this election--Bush more than Kerry, quite frankly--and the other guy is less willing to do it--Kerry more than Bush--what's wrong, then, with evangelicals or anybody else going with the guy who is unafraid, unabashed, unashamed of 'the Gospel,' as the Bible would say?

Wallis: Because--I think that's the right question. Because it shouldn't be how often a candidate talks about God. It should be what it means for their leadership or for their policies, for their direction. 'What does this mean,' is the important question. So, I want to know what a candidate's religious, moral, or spiritual values are that might shape the way they make important decisions. That's the critical thing.

Lincoln, I think, had this right. Lincoln said, 'Don't be always saying God is on our side, God's blessing on our policies and our practices, but worry, worry earnestly, if we are in God's side.' And King did it best. King had this way of the Bible in one hand, Constitution in the other hand, saying--reminding us of God's purposes in the world, for justice, for peace, and for what he called 'the beloved community.' Finally, those left out and left behind get a front-row seat. So, King had this powerful religious vision, and he translated that into a movement that caused America to turn upside down.

Tavis: I don't mean to put you in an uncomfortable position, having to speak for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but just work with me on this. How do you think they juxtapose in their own minds, in their own hearts... Maybe I should invite them on the program at some point. I've talked to Jerry Falwell many times, never to Pat Robertson. But how do you think they justify, juxtapose in their own mind standing with President Bush on a couple of these issues, to your earlier point--gay marriage, abortion. How do they juxtapose standing for him on those issues with all the other things that people see him do with regard to his other public policy positions that do not consider the least of these, if you can put it that way? How do they juxtapose that?

Wallis: You once had Jerry and I on a show--

Tavis: On the NPR show.

Wallis: And you asked him what was our short list of values, questions. His list was very short. It was one: gay marriage. Does he really want to say that's the only issue from a Christian point of view that you should be concerned about?

I mean, the cry of the poor is from cover to cover in the Bible. 'God hears the cry of the poor.' Why don't we? Do the candidates hear that? I don't hear Jerry ever talking about that. This is the biggest political issue in the whole Bible. The Bible is full of God's concern for the poor. What about the environment? What about what's happening to God's creation?

And the war in Iraq. The issue here is not whether we like George Bush or not. I know George Bush. I've talked to him. We've met about faith-based initiatives. I was supportive of that, at the beginning, but you know, most church bodies in the world, most church leaders--the pope included--the pope is not a liberal religious leader, yet all of us, many of us, were opposed to the war in Iraq. The president wouldn't speak to us about the war in Iraq. Tony Blair did meet with some of us. President Bush didn't. He should have. So, on Iraq, on the census showing poverty rising every year for the last 3 years--these are religious issues. So, if we can broaden the discussion so religion isn't just about gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell, but about poverty, the environment, and war, then we'd have a good religious conversation.

Tavis: Let me flip it on you. I asked you how the Republicans, how Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson could juxtapose in their own mind their supporting a guy who's right on some things and wrong on other things. The other side: how do African Americans, how do Democrats, more broadly, juxtapose and justify invoking their own faith and their own morality in their decision-making? On the one hand, they want a candidate who does in fact care for the least among us, those who are socially, politically, and economically disenfranchised. That's the mantra of what you get from the Democrats: 'We stand for the disenfranchised.' At the same time, African Americans to the nth degree--stood behind a guy in the White House who was having sex with somebody who wasn't his wife. So, the right says, 'How do you juxtapose that?'

Wallis: You know, you should ask Jerry some time if he disagrees with the Republicans as much as I do with Democrats, because I do. I disagree with the Democrats, for example, on abortion. I think that you could come to a much better place, where pro-choice and pro-life people together tried to reduce the abortion rate practically. Teen pregnancy, adoption reform, the stuff that matters. Supporting low-income mothers to help reduce the abortion rate. It's too high. I think the Democrats are not clear enough about that at all. So, I'm a big--I'm a new dad. I've got a 6-year-old and an 18-month-old son. Family values are important to me. Parenting's important. The Democrats should talk more about strengthening marriage and family. So, I think we've gotta be able to speak both ways on these questions. I think religion, when it gets ideologically predictable or loyally partisan, compromises its integrity. We are better when we are being prophetic, that biblical notion of being prophetic, meaning you can speak to the left or the right from consistent moral ground.

Tavis: But, Jim, since increasingly people don't seem to know where that line is--I'm talking now about the left or the right, Republicans or Democrats. Since there is a muddying of the waters, a blurring of the line, as some people see it, how do you respond to folk who say, 'We just ought to take God completely out of it. It's not just a matter of separation of church and state, politically, but just in our political discourse in the body politic, in campaigns, we ought to just take God out of this, take church, take religion out of this, and let's talk about the issues.' That wouldn't make you happy, either, would it?

Wallis: If you look at American history, God's been tied up in politics from the start, that language. I think it's not a matter of whether, but more how. And I think if you do it in the way Lincoln warned against--God on our side--that leads to self-righteousness. It leads to triumphalism, overconfidence, and often dangerous foreign policy.

Tavis: But respectfully, though, isn't the 'how' the problem? If you say it's not what, but how, that's where you get in trouble, because when you talk about the 'how,' it's subjective. Everybody has their own way about how they think it ought to be done. Robertson has his way. Falwell have their way. You have your way. Atheists have their way.

Wallis: The how question, I think, is where Lincoln and King get helpful again. 'Cause if we look at 'Are we on God's side? Do we care about--' if we're people of faith--we all aren't in America. Those of us that are should ask that question. That leads to accountability, to penitence, to repentance, and to reflection. I think those are important values, and I think the issues are the issue.

The question is how we arrive at the issues we care about and what should be our direction. That's why I care about a candidate's moral compass more than how often they go to church. A Jew shouldn't vote for Jews, Christians for Christians. It should be who do we think has the kind of moral compass, the kind of reflective capacity, the kind of values, the kind of humility, the kind of ability to listen, and who has core values that'll take us in the right direction?

Tavis: So, who does God want to win this election?

Wallis: Well, God is not a Republican or a Democrat.

Tavis: Oh, great line. I've heard that somewhere before. Yeah.

Wallis: I want people to really ask... All the values that we say are religious ones should motivate this campaign, and I think you're gonna see a lot of people saying, 'How we went to war in Iraq and what's happening now is a terribly, terribly troubling thing for me religiously. I think what's happening to poor people is troubling religiously.' Lots of folks are deeply troubled about the sort of consistent ethic of human life, which is abortion, but also capital punishment and also HIV-AIDS. I mean, Bono was at both conventions, like we were, talking about HIV-AIDS and making the connection between how we deal with that kind of circumstance and global poverty and terrorism. I mean, you can't deal with terrorism without dealing with the kind of misery and resentment that give rise to it. So, how do we connect these issues and offer a different kind of leadership?

Tavis: We might well disagree on who the next president ought to be, Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry, but maybe Jim is onto something. Maybe we can agree on this. 'God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.' Jim, nice to see you.

Wallis: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Thanks for coming on. Up next on this program, talented acting couple Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Parker. Stay with us.