Wallis — a progressive evangelist who is a member of President Barack Obama’s new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships — encouraged the roughly 200 students, faculty and community members in the congregation to reflect on the intersection of religion and politics in America.

Emphasizing Christianity’s commitment to social justice, Wallis argued that faith-based social movements pave the way for political change.

To foster the growth of social movements, Obama created the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to serve as a resource for both secular and religiously affiliated community organizations. The Office’s top four priorities, Wallis said, are reducing poverty, reducing abortion, strengthening fatherhood and facilitating interfaith dialogue. Those issues, Wallis said, offer new possibilities for finding common ground between conservative and liberal theologians and politicians.

But Sarah Ruden, a visiting scholar at the Yale Divinity School, argued that Americans should be wary of the government-backed, religion-inspired social programs supported by Wallis’ office. “God is in charge,” Ruden said. “Politicians are not in charge.”