ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100015
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM WALLIS
EVERYTHING the churches have learned about the biblical demand of justice for the poor is about to be put to the test. Every indication is that the lives of low-income families and individuals are about to become even more brutal. As the reality of the new welfare bill unfolds, the ones whom Jesus called ``the least of these'' appear to be in great jeopardy.
As the law now stands, people will be cut off from welfare benefits without any provision for jobs, adequate child care or national standards of accountability for the welfare plans states are now devising. The severe consequences of these momentous decisions are about to hit local communities.
Our most urgent need is for new centers of moral conscience and accountability in the public debate, to monitor both federal policy and state programs. More important, we must help develop an entirely new approach to truly overcoming poverty.
Both conservatives and liberals seem to accept widespread poverty in the richest nation in the world. Ideological battles over a welfare system that few believed in anymore obscured a deeper reality: Sometime during the last few decades, we stopped even talking about ending poverty.
The arguments have been about maintaining the poor or abandoning them, rather than the harder question of why such massive and persistent poverty exists in the United States. With the current devolution of social-welfare policy, those deeper issues will come even closer to home.
Therefore, it is time for the churches across the conservative to liberal spectrum to step forward and offer moral leadership for the sake of the nation's poor. If the Bible is not clear about the primary responsibility of God's people for those who are poor, then it is not clear about anything. The crisis now faced by poor people calls the churches to renew that responsibility.
Conversations with religious leaders have convinced me that the crisis now facing poor people in all of our communities might be the catalyst that brings us together. Compassion and justice for the poor is the first principle of biblical politics and has the capacity to bring us together across denominational, racial, ethnic and even interfaith lines.
Service-providing institutions must come together with the religious community. These nonprofit organizations, like the religious sector, can sometimes be disorganized or competitive with one another. Such internal strife is no longer tenable in the face of the hurricane of need we are about to confront.
Once united, what should the religious and other nonprofit communities say and do? First, we must make our message very clear. Contrary to the dangerous talk of some, ``churches and charities'' cannot, and should not, bear alone all responsibility for poor people. We must insist that government not abdicate its legitimate role.
But even without adequate resources, religious and other community organizations have been successful at fighting poverty in many areas. People across the political spectrum believe it is time to expand both the role of the nonprofit sector and the resources available to get the job done. At this moment of crisis and transition, the religious community especially could play a crucial leadership role to rally the larger society to its responsibility for our poorest citizens.
Advocacy begins at home, with each of us in our families and churches taking personal and communal inventory of our resources, time, energy and commitments. If the churches are to help lead the way in taking responsibility for overcoming poverty, we must lead first of all by example. That is required of all of us, despite our political differences.
Conservative churches that believe that most of the answers will come through one-to-one relationships need to enter into those relationships with people who are poor on a scale that makes more than a symbolic difference. If they believe personal and church-based initiatives will be most effective, it's time for the biggest and richest conservative churches to devote their significant resources toward community development.
Liberal churches who speak of social concern must put their words into action, offering their budgets, facilities and pension funds for community-based economic development. It's time to reconnect all our churches with poor communities.
The crisis the poor in America face cries out for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit so powerful that once again it might be said of Christians, as it was of the early Christians after the first Pentecost: ``There was not a needy person among them'' (Acts 4:34).
JIM WALLIS is convener of the Call to Renewal, a new coalition of evangelical, Catholic, historic black churches and mainline Protestant denominations. He is also editor in chief of Sojourners magazine, and author of the books ``Who Speaks for God?'' and ``The Soul of Politics.''
- KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
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