Olasky on the Wallis/Soros connection (cont'd)

Marvin Olasky in World on a continuing back-and-forth about Jim Wallis and George Soros...

The web version of this essay now opens with Wallis apologizing for what follows and asking for Olasky's (granted) forgiveness...

Jim Wallis has been the subject of some recent blogosphere humor. Hugh Hewitt wrote, "Most folks who receive donations from billionaires tend not to forget them, so pray for Jim Wallis's memory"...

This all grew out of my mention halfway through a July 17 WORLD column that Soros gave money to Sojourners. It didn't seem like a big deal. Of course, Soros would find the religious left useful...Nor was it surprising that Jim, trying to keep his organization afloat, would take the cash. Yet Jim last month told an interviewer twice, "We don't receive money from George Soros."...

Jay Richards wrote in National Review Online, "I have physical copies of these pages, which is good, because these pages seem to have disappeared from the OSI website (I'm sure that's just a coincidence)"...

OSI's Form 990 for 2004?...On page 225: Sojourners..."To support the Messaging and Mobilization Project: Engaging Christians on the Importance of Civic Involvement." October 2004: $200,000.

Want to see for yourself? Go to The Foundation Center website. Type in Open Society Institute, New York, fiscal year 2004. Go to page 225....the 2006 grant [is on] page 125...[and] page 114 of the OSI 990 for 2007: another $100,000 grant to Sojourners...

As more evidence emerged, Sojourners communications manager Tim King acknowledged that his organization had received funding from Soros....

We'll take him up on his statement that "our books are totally open." We'll welcome the opportunity to examine Sojourners' financial records.

None of this says that Sojourners is beholden to secular leftists and pro-abortionists. Grants from Soros, Barbra Streisand, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund—Jay Richards has recently discovered these other donors—are evidence that individuals and organizations supporting abortion and other unbiblical goals find Sojourners useful. As a person who has worked to keep alive financially some small Christian groups, I know the difficult decisions Jim Wallis has to make about whether to accept such funds....