c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Jim Wallis is convener of the Call to Renewal, a coalition of evangelicals, Catholics, historic black churches, and mainline Protestant denominations. He is also an author and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine.)

UNDATED _ The nation’s social welfare policy is changing dramatically, and the religious community will play a vital role in the transition to something new. Around the country, many church-based groups working with the poor are deeply concerned about the scale of need they fear they may soon confront.

Millions of poor people, who were dependent on old welfare programs, will soon be in desperate need of alternatives. Religious groups that haven’t worked (or even spoken) with one another for years are beginning to cooperate. Why? Because they believe a hurricane is coming. And when a hurricane is coming and you’re passing sandbags, you don’t ask the next person if they are a liberal or a conservative.

Welfare has yet to be changed into something different _ that is still emerging in states around the nation. Most religious leaders who opposed the welfare bill strongly believed that an alternative should have been created before the old system was destroyed. In state forums around the country, churches and service providers that fought the bill are now hurriedly trying to put those alternatives in place.

Many of the religious groups that supported the welfare bill say Christians now have a moral obligation to respond to those in need. If they don’t, the National Association of Evangelicals recently said, conservative Christians will rightly be judged as “hypocrites.” Because those from both sides of the welfare debate are now vitally interested in creating alternatives, some common ground may be emerging.

It is significant how many conservatives who campaigned for the welfare bill now appear to be quite sobered. The old system, with all its controversies, has been destroyed. Government programs can no longer be blamed for poverty, and the poor will soon be at our doors _ at all our doors, regardless of past political persuasions.

Key conservative evangelicals, some of whom have long opposed government welfare programs, are now quite worried about what is going to happen to the poor. Many are calling their constituents to respond in new ways.

Recently, one very conservative evangelical leader said to me, “Christ calls us to serve the poor,” and he’s determined to press his business friends to hire welfare recipients.

The Christian Coalition’s new “Samaritan Project” is designed to combat poverty, a priority at the top on the group’s agenda for the first time. Even though many Democrats and liberal religious groups denounced the effort as an insincere political trick, others welcome the coalition’s initiative without endorsing their particular legislative agenda. They have invited the conservative group to the table, and will hold them accountable to their words.

A religious roundtable is now being convened in conjunction with the Presidents’ Summit On America’s Future, planned for Philadelphia later this month (April 27-29). The roundtable promises to bring together the widest spectrum of Christian groups yet assembled to confront the critical situation facing America’s poor.

The discussion will be a working meeting that brings together 30 to 40 participants from key constituencies _ evangelicals, Roman Catholics, the historic black churches, Pentecostals and mainline Protestant denominations. It is the beginning of a crucial collaboration to respond to the crisis faced by those whom Jesus called “the least of these.”

The discussion points are these: churches must lead by example; they should rally the larger society to take increased responsibility for our poorest citizens, and they must hold the government and public policy morally accountable for how it treats the most vulnerable among us.

The framework for the discussion will center around the belief that churches can, and should do more; that government at all levels also has a critical role to play; and that new partnerships between government, business, churches and service providers are a vital part of the solution.

The number of impoverished families, children, and isolated individuals are too staggering to be justified in America _ regardless of our political differences. To “repair the breach,” as Isaiah calls us to do, will require a new mobilization across old dividing lines.

But it is time to join together, because a hurricane is coming.

MJP END WALLIS