The time has come for a new great awakening, and Jim Wallis has written a book about it, which is what I assume to be the Fifth Great Awakening in the United States.  Following in the footsteps of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, Dwight Moody, and the Jesus Movement comes the Fifth Great Awakening of political upheaval and every politicians favorite word: change.

''Faith is coming back to life as a force for progressive social change, despite how the Religious Right has discredited its role in politics,'' Wallis insists. This revival will bring people together to find solutions, transcending ideological debates by moving the conversation to higher ground.

Calling on the power of hope and action, Wallis says: ''Imagine politics being unable to co-opt such a revival but being held accountable to its moral imperatives. Imagine social movements rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the world, as Wallis inspires us: ''Don't go left or right, go deeper.  Find the moral choices and challenges just below the political debate.  Faith is not just for the next life, the hereafter; it is precisely intended to transform this world in the here and now.'' 

Wallis, known for his book God's Politics, has branched out and wrote a sort of manifesto for Great Awakening, aptly called The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America will be released January 22, 2008.

In a politically dicey climate where Christians have no uncompromising vote, when a pro-life vote is a vote for unfair taxation of the poor and a vote for the environment is a smack in the face of Christian social values, Christians should start living politically, not for the United States but for the kingdom of God. 

This book is a step in the right direction.