| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fredric L. Rice" |
| Date: |
01 Feb 2005 06:32:01 AM |
| Object: |
Waring Christanic Kook Factions |
One More 'Moral Value': Fighting Poverty
By John Leland
The New York Times
Sunday 30 January 2005
During the inaugural festivities in Washington this month, three
evangelical Christian groups sponsored a black-tie "Values Victory
Dinner," where they celebrated the electoral strength of "moral
values" as a factor in the campaign. In the shorthand of postelection
polls and analysis, that meant opposition to abortion, gay marriage
and stem cell research.
But many religious leaders, including some evangelicals, think the
current focus on moral values has created a platform to talk about
other issues, especially poverty, as both political and moral
concerns. "The good news about the bad news was that the spin doctors,
whether they got it right or wrong, have said that values are so
important to our political system," said Robert Edgar, general
secretary of the National Council of Churches, an association of
liberal denominations that represents more than 100,000 congregations.
"They've given an opportunity for us to say, 'We're people of faith,
too, and we're going to talk about what the Bible says about poverty.'
When nine million children are living in poverty, that's a moral
value."
Mr. Edgar and other religious leaders across the theological
spectrum are trying to shift the debate. Last week, Mr. Edgar
announced an ecumenical summit meeting, sponsored or supported by more
than 30 religious groups, to promote world peace and the elimination
of global poverty.
Evangelical organizations, whose views were often stereotyped after
the election, are also seeking a broader definition of moral values.
"We've let not evangelicals, but the right wing determine what moral
values are," said David J. Frenchak, president of the Seminary
Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education, a nondenominational group
that helps develop urban ministry programs at 12 seminaries or
divinity schools around the country.
In Chicago last weekend, Dr. Frenchak joined a gathering of 20
Christians, mostly evangelicals, to produce a book defining moral
values to include a focus on poverty. At the meeting, one man held up
a Bible from which he had cut every verse that addressed poverty.
"There was hardly anything left," Dr. Frenchak said. "He said, 'I
challenge anyone in the room to take their Bible and cut out every
verse about abortion or gay marriage, and we'll compare Bibles.' "
Dr. Frenchak said he had been involved in more conversations about
moral values in the past two months than ever before. "We meet to
discuss how poverty got left out of the discussion of moral values.
The question is, 'How do we talk about what we do as a moral value,
rather than as an assumed good?' I don't think a day goes by that I
don't get some communication about rethinking an understanding of
moral values."
In postelection analyses, "values voters" were often equated with
evangelical Christians, just as "values" were equated with opposition
to abortion and gay marriage. But evangelical churches and seminaries
have become increasingly mobilized around poverty both in the United
States and abroad.
"This is the great secret story," said Jim Wallis, a progressive
evangelical who runs Sojourners magazine and Call to Renewal, a
network of religious groups committed to combating poverty.
"The perception of evangelicals is that all they care about is
abortion and gay marriage, but it isn't true," he said. "It hasn't
been for years."
Mr. Wallis has long tried to assemble a coalition of progressive or
moderate evangelicals and Roman Catholics with mainline Protestant
organizations on moral issues like poverty. Though his voice has
sometimes been a lonely one, his new book, "God's Politics: Why the
Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It," enters the New York
Times best-seller list this week at No. 11. Mr. Wallis, Dr. Edgar and
other religious leaders, including Rabbi David Saperstein, director of
the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, met with Democratic
members of Congress to advise them on how Democrats could inject their
faith and moral values into discussions of their policies, including
those intended to help the poor.
"There's serious new common ground to explore on poverty, across
theological and political lines," Mr. Wallis said. "Poverty is front
and center, and not just among mainline Protestants, but at Fuller and
Wheaton," he added, naming two of the nation's largest evangelical
schools.
Glen Stassen, a professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological
Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., said his students, who were largely
conservative, agreed that poverty should be part of the moral values
discussion.
"A lot of Christians who are worried about abortion see poverty as a
pro-life issue, because if you undermine the safety net for poor
mothers, you'll increase the abortion rate and infant mortality rate,"
Dr. Stassen said. "We've seen that happen since welfare reform, just
as the Catholic bishops predicted."
Dr. Stassen, who describes himself as "pro-life," added that many
evangelicals, including his students, want to change the current moral
values rhetoric because they think it drives people from, rather than
to, the church. "They're both offended and worried that it will
persuade people concerned about justice that they should not be
Christians," he said.
At Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a liberal school,
students this year developed a nine-day course called the Poverty
Immersion Experience to provide a practical grounding for the moral
values discussion.
"How do you preach on poverty?" said Amy Gopp, one of the students
who developed the course. "People rely on theological apathy - 'The
poor will always be with us' - things that don't demand that we do
anything."
On a blustery January morning, Ms. Gopp and 10 classmates piled into
a rented van to meet with a group of formerly homeless people in
northeast Philadelphia who had organized to protest their condition.
The intent of the course is to get students to think "beyond the
soup kitchen" or charity work and consider how religious institutions
can address the underlying structure of poverty, said Willie Baptist,
who is a scholar-in-residence at the seminary. A community activist
and organizer, Mr. Baptist had been homeless in this Philadelphia
neighborhood. "We're not just crying crocodile tears about poverty or
singing 'Kumbaya,' " he said. "We're making contact with an organized
section of the poor that's doing something about poverty."
The students visited neighborhoods where drugs are sold on street
corners. They met a woman who described her experiences living in a
tent city, including bathing her children in water from a hydrant. The
woman is now on the staff at the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, an
organization started by poor people in the neighborhood to call
attention to their plight.
For some of the students, it was their first close look at urban
poverty. "I've done academic work on poverty, but here is a chance to
meet poor people firsthand," said Paul Gremier, 23, who said he might
use his education to become a minister, a social worker or a
professor.
On the ride back to New York, Ted Pardoe, a former Wall Street
executive, said the trip had given him ideas about ways to work with
the poor through not-for-profit agencies. "Yesterday I was skeptical
about reality tours," Mr. Pardoe said. "Now I'm not skeptical at all.
Each person we met was more impressive than the one before."
There was little discussion of God or church on the trip, but lots
of talk about values and responsibility. Andrea Metcalfe, who is
studying to become a Lutheran minister, said she was frustrated that
the issue of poverty had received so little attention in all the
recent talk about values and voting. Ms. Metcalfe blamed a reticence
among liberals to connect their faith publicly with their actions.
"There's this tendency for liberals to say, 'We don't want anything
to do with mixing church and politics,' " Ms. Metcalfe said. As a
result, she said, liberal Christians and their concerns have not
entered the values debate.
Elizabeth Theoharis, a doctoral student and community activist who
was leading the class with Mr. Baptist, challenged the students: "How
do we move from the idea of poor people being sinners to poverty being
a sin?"
That, she said, was a moral value, and the students agreed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
Christians Give Bush Ultimatum to Ban Gay Marriage
By Philip Sherwell
The Sunday Telegraph U.K.
Sunday 30 January 2005
Conservative Christian leaders who played a key role in securing
President George W Bush's re-election have given the White House an
ultimatum over outlawing same-sex marriages.
In an indication of tension among Mr Bush's backers, a new coalition
of powerful Christian groups issued their warning last week in a
letter to Karl Rove, the President's chief adviser.
Mr Bush has said that "nothing will happen" for now on the proposed
federal amendment leading to a constitutional ban on gay marriages. He
did not mention the amendment in his inaugural address and the issue
was not listed in the 10-point legislative agenda unveiled by
Republican leaders in Congress last week.
The Arlington Group, comprising some of the President's most
important conservative backers, reacted by threatening to withhold
much-needed support for one of his top domestic initiatives -
overhauling America's pensions system - if he does not vigorously push
their own political cause.
"We couldn't help but notice the contrast between how the President
is approaching the difficult issue of social security privatisation,
where the public is deeply divided, and the marriage issue, where
public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side," the leaked letter said.
"Is he prepared to spend significant political capital on
privatisation but reluctant to devote the same energy to preserving
traditional marriage?
"If so, it would create outrage with countless voters who stood with
him just a few weeks ago, including an unprecedented number of
African-Americans, Latinos and Catholics who broke with tradition and
supported the President solely because of this issue."
The debate was raging ahead of the annual State of the Union address
on Wednesday, in which Mr Bush will outline plans to introduce
personal investment accounts to part-fund pensions, reform America's
complex tax code and curb soaring compensation claims.
The Arlington Group has played a sharp political card in threatening
to withhold support for social security reform. It is a priority for
Mr Bush and Mr Rove, but several leading Republicans in Congress have
questioned whether the system is heading for bankruptcy and needs a
radical revamp, as the White House argues.
Same-sex marriage was a key issue during the presidential election
campaign, when 11 states backed local votes to ban it. Mr Bush drew
strong support from conservative voters for backing a renewed attempt
to pass a federal amendment that failed at its first attempt in the
Senate last year.
Shortly after the election, Mr Rove said that the President would
place the proposed amendment at the top of his domestic agenda.
To the Arlington Group's dismay, however, Mr Bush recently told the
Washington Post that he would not aggressively lobby senators on the
ban. He said that many believed that the Defence of Marriage Act
(DOMA), an existing law, which allows states not to recognise gay
marriages enacted in other states, was sufficient.
"Senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA is deemed
constitutional, nothing will happen," Mr Bush said. "I'd take their
admonition seriously."
In a further signal that he does not want to be bogged down in
controversial social policies, Mr Bush has given little indication
that he will pursue anti-abortion legislation.
Thousands of protesters who gathered in Washington last week for the
annual March for Life rally, were disappointed to receive only a
telephone message of support from Mr Bush.
Gary Bauer, the president of the conservative group American Values
and a Republican presidential candidate in 2000, told The Sunday
Telegraph last week: ``Many of us did a great deal to help with
President Bush's re-election. One of the reasons we could motivate so
many people was because of his strong stance on same-sex marriage."
He said: "If the White House wants us to rally our troops like they
need for social security reform, a subject on which our people are
very divided, that is going to be very difficult if the President does
not come out strongly in favour of the constitutional amendment."
Mr Bauer said that many people, whom groups such as his persuaded to
vote for Mr Bush, were from lower middle-class and working class
families, and ethnic minorities. These, he said, were most worried
about the introduction of stock market investments to the pensions
system.
Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said that Mr Bush "remains
very committed to a marriage amendment" and "was simply talking about
a situation that exists in the Senate, not about his personal
commitment or willingness to push this issue".
At the recent Christian Inaugural Eve Gala, however, many guests at
the black-tie party expressed frustration that the President in office
was not the President Bush they had seen on the stump last autumn.
James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and one of the
leaders of the Arlington Group, warned of future battles.
"If Republicans do what they've done in the past, which is say,
'Thanks so much for putting us in power: now we don't want to talk to
you any more', they will pay a serious price."
---
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"The basis of your cockeyed political beliefs is some sort of damage to
your ability to remember anything but Clinton's *****." -- Carlos
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