Gary North

Aug. 19, 2010

Dr. Marvin Olasky, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas (Austin), is also editor of World Magazine, a conservative Christian news magazine. He wrote an article on July 17 in which he mentioned that Jim Wallis's Sojourners organization had received $200,000 from left-wing Jewish billionaire George Soros. When asked about this in an interview, Wallis replied: "It's not hyperbole or overstatement to say that Glenn Beck lies for a living. I'm sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing. No, we don't receive money from Soros."

First, what has Glenn Beck got to do with Marvin Olasky? This: they have both targeted Wallis. He is sensitive to this, as well he should be. Public exposure is a threat to people whose public persona do not coincide with the reality of their practices.

Wallis attempted to smear Olasky through guilt by association. Beck is a Mormon and a media celebrity. Olasky is a Presbyterian and the author of numerous scholarly books. Wallis was trying to undermine Olasky. It's a common trick of someone who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Anyone who calls attention to this jar and my hand is a liar!" Or, as attributed to Groucho Marx, "What are you going to believe? Me, or your own eyes?"

Second, Wallis had a problem. Sojourners had taken the $200,000. This had been posted on the website of the Open Society Institute, Soros's charitable foundation. Olasky had a printout of the page.

Then the page disappeared from OSI's site.

How was it that this document disappeared? Are we to believe that Wallis did not tell someone in his outfit to call Soros's foundation and ask to have it pulled? Yes, we are. Wallis thinks we should believe this. Here's why.

Others had copies, too. They sent Olasky these copies. But, being a good journalist, he dug deeper. He has summarized what happened next.

The Open Society Institute did not respond to a phone call asking why its pages were disappearing. So it looked like we were left with Jim's word against others, including me, plus the evidence--yet people would be unable to look for themselves and see. . . .

A stalemate? No, wait--the contribution to Sojourners was gone from the Open Society Institute's website, but what about OSI's 990 for 2004? IRS forms cannot be so readily scrubbed, right? Yes, the Foundation Center website has it. Wow, 283 pages. Let's dig in. Hmm, lots of income statements, some of them printed upside down. Legal fees. Program-related investments. Expenditure responsibility report--no Sojourners. Grants to other organizations--no Sojourners. Grants to U.S. Public Charities . . .

Yes! On page 225: Sojourners, 2401 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009. To support the Messaging and Mobilization Project: Engaging Christians on the Importance of Civic Involvement. October, 2004. $200,000.

Wallis had imitated Bill Clinton. "I did not have monetary relations with that man, Mr. Soros." But the report from OSI to the IRS was equivalent to Monica Lewinsky's unwashed, semen-stained dress, plus DNA testing. Wallis was trapped. Here is how he responded.

Sojourners communications manager Tim King has now acknowledged that Sojourners received funding from George Soros. King released a statement from Jim Wallis in which Jim says he "should have declined to comment" until he had checked the facts. Now that Jim has, he sees there were grants "from the Open Society Institute that made up the tiniest fraction of Sojourners' funding during that decade--so small that I hadn't remembered them."

Ah, the old lapse of memory routine. But how?

The first of the three grants, for $200,000, came at a time when Sojourners, according to its 2003 audited financial statement, had "incurred a significant amount of net losses" leading to "a negative asset balance" of $57,324 and had "adopted a strategy to generate additional sources of revenue and to reduce expenditures." Those phrases are from "Note G" of the audited financial statement, which can be downloaded here, under the heading "Going concern." -- Marvin Olasky

Wallis is a welfare hustler. He has spent his whole life playing the game of getting the government to steal from the rich to give to the poor, minus 50% for handling. That he accused an honest man of being a liar is typical of any politician who gets caught. That he tried his best to cover it up is also typical.

He forgot about the IRS. As Tallyrand quipped so long ago, that was worse than a crime. It was a blunder.