c. 1998 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ A dozen of some of the nation’s best-known preachers showed up at the U.S. Capitol on Monday (June 1) for a daylong”preach-in”in which they hoped to remind lawmakers they have an obligation to use their positions of power to meet the needs of the poor.
The Rev. James Forbes, senior minister of New York City’s Riverside Church, described Jesus’ words about being anointed by God to”preach the gospel to the poor”as an”emancipation proclamation”to end poverty.”We have all been under a powerful mandate,”he said.”Ever since Jesus said that, it is illegal in the sight of God to have any economic system that factors in the inevitability of a permanent underclass.” Forbes, like many of the clergy gathered in the Gold Room of the Rayburn House Office Building, spoke fervently about the need of lawmakers as well as fellow Christians to do more for the poor in the wake of recent welfare reform.
The event, sponsored by Call to Renewal, a broad coalition of church groups concerned about racism and poverty, was a nine-hour preaching marathon aimed to redirect political and moral attention to the plight of the poor. It came just days after President Clinton proclaimed what he called the”stunning results”of welfare policies he signed into law in 1996, dramatically reducing the number of people on public assistance.
Leaders of Call to Renewal contend, however, that forcing people off welfare rolls doesn’t solve the problems of poverty.”Yes, our people are getting off welfare but we don’t know where they are,”said the Rev. Jim Wallis, the group’s convener, at a news conference during the event.”The poor in America have become missing persons.” He estimated that between half and three-quarters of people who are no longer on the welfare rolls have not been tracked.”Or to say it another way, they have been dumped by this nation,”he said.
Several speakers hoped their preaching would shift morality’s current emphasis from scandal to social equity.”The message is that God is calling us to talk about morality _ but not the morality of the president _ the morality of living in a nation where we allow people to live without decent jobs and decent housing and without adequate health care,”said the Rev. Yvonne Delk, executive director of the Community Renewal Society, a mission agency in Chicago founded by the United Church of Christ.
Wallis said the coalition plans to hold a”Call to Renewal Roundtable”in September to establish a nonpartisan policy agenda to assist those at the lowest economic levels in the country. It also plans a January summit on how churches have responded to welfare reform by addressing the needs of the poor at the grassroots level.
But the clergy gathered in the gold-trimmed room stressed that churches and charities alone cannot fill in the gaps they believe welfare reform has overlooked.”It is a pernicious fiction that churches by themselves can address the problems in our cities,”said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers of Azusa Christian Community in Boston, whose work among the poor was the subject of a Newsweek magazine cover story June 1.
Rivers and other clergy preaching at the daylong event that transformed the House meeting room into a worship service _ featuring musical choruses by Christian singer Ken Medema _ spoke from personal experience about reaching out to the poor in their communities.
The Rev. Cheryl Sanders, senior pastor of Third Street Church of God here, described how her congregation conducts a daily prayer breakfast for the street people in the church’s neighborhood.”Our critics say we are fostering dependency … that preaching to them is not going to change their condition,”she said.”Preaching to the poor, feeding the poor, healing their illnesses and disabilities is exactly what Jesus did.” The Rev. William H. Willimon, dean of the chapel at Duke University in Durham, N.C., said the nation’s political leaders could learn from the church’s emphasis on the poor.”The Christian test for politics is not national economic indicators,”he said.”It’s not the number of bombers and carriers. The test that has been laid on us by Jesus is the least of these, the poor, the voiceless and the faceless. … We’re here in Washington because some of us believe that we are flunking the test.” Despite the location, no lawmakers appeared to be in the audience of 50 or so staffers, preachers and community members during the morning portion of the event.
Wallis said he expects the preach-in to be just the beginning of discussions with people on Capitol Hill.”We’re going to be patient, but we’re going to be persistent,”he said.
In response to possible criticism about reducing the separation between church and state, Wallis said the efforts by Call to Renewal aim to help the needy without proselytizing the poor.”We will not allow us to have a new debate about church and state while people get poorer and poorer,”he said.
Willimon and other leaders expressed pleasure in seeing the range of Christians _ from Catholics to mainline and evangelical Protestants to historically black congregations _ coming together on one issue.”We’ve never seen a coming together like this since civil rights,”Willimon said.
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