Speaking the truth about poverty
by Jim Wallis
[5-27-02]
Jim Wallis of Sojourners reports on Call to
Renewal's Mobilization in Washington, DC, which focused on
"Speaking the Truth About Poverty." The gathering featured
visits to senators from 42 states, to urge "a compassionate and
just reauthorization of welfare reform."
Source: SojoNet 2002 (c) http://www.sojo.net
The best role for faith-based initiatives in America is not only in the
provision of social services, but also in the shaping of public policy
to secure social justice. We learned that lesson this week in
Washington, D.C.
Call to Renewal's Pentecost 2002 Mobilization was
called "Speaking the Truth About Poverty." It drew more than
300 faith-based leaders from 42 states to press their senators toward a
compassionate and just reauthorization of welfare reform. Out of 84
potential Senate visits, we had 83 - a remarkable accomplishment in this
town. Twenty national church and organizational leaders had a very
positive dialogue with a bipartisan group of senators, and the key
Senate staff members who are crafting a bipartisan welfare bill met with
our whole group to discuss their progress and what the most important
issues ought to be.
Over and over again, our delegations heard this
response from lawmakers: "We can't do this without you." They
wanted to hear stories of what is working in local communities and on
the street. They wanted our facts, research, and experience. And they
were told about the human face of poverty.
Those who came were pastors and lay people, executive
directors of faith-based organizations and heads of denominations,
community organizers and service providers, and former welfare
recipients who came with moving testimonies of how they have escaped
poverty. They run shelters and food banks, do job training and economic
development, provide health care and education, lead councils of
churches and interfaith coalitions that address the most basic problems
in their communities. We said that the mostly single mothers trying to
move from welfare to work needed and deserved the adequate child-care
support that really enables moms to take care of their kids, especially
if work requirements are increased. We said that education and training
should be generously counted toward the definitions of "work"
hours so that parents will get the jobs they need to support their
families. We said that legal immigrants who work and pay taxes should be
eligible for the assistance they need too. We said that successful
programs to support healthy marriages and families will help overcome
poverty, as long as we protect against domestic violence and adequately
fund other programs - that we must stop making false choices between
being pro-family or pro-funding. We testified how faith-based
initiatives are finding real solutions to poverty, but that churches and
congregations can't succeed without good public policy. And the Senate
listened.
Each night, in the tradition of Call to Renewal, we
joined in worship with great choirs, preaching, and testimonies. One
night we processed to the U.S. Capitol, where delegation members huddled
around their state signs to pray for prophetic boldness and open ears.
At a dramatic and inspiring prayer breakfast, Congressman Tony Hall was
given our first annual "Joseph Award," for a person in a
position of influence who feeds the hungry and serves the poor. Tony
told us how Christ and watching people die in Ethiopia had changed his
life forever. Then Reverend Darren Ferguson received the "Amos
Award," given to a person from humble beginnings who becomes a
prophet of justice. The former Sing Sing inmate and now Harlem youth
minister moved the entire audience to both tears and hope for a whole
generation of urban youth and offenders who are most often forgotten and
invisible in official Washington.
In my opening remarks I reminded the faith-based
leaders that our vocation is not only to "pull people out of the
river, but to go upstream to find out what or who is pushing them
in." This week, the faith-based providers came upstream. In the
midst of a debate on historic social welfare legislation and on the
occasion of the church's season of Pentecost, the timing seemed right.
The result of the coming of the Spirit in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, says
the book of Acts, was an economic sharing so transformational that
"there was not a needy person among them." For another
generation of Christian disciples in Washington, D.C., last week, that
became not only a prayer, but a commitment. As the quiet voices of
prayer were mingled on the west lawn of the Capitol on Monday night, a
participant was heard to comment, "This is what Pentecost must have
sounded like."
