Ecumenical Group Pushes Obama for Larger Welfare State

Christian leaders representing the bodies that comprise a new ecumenical organization, Christian Churches Together (CCT), released a statement on poverty and spoke of their cooperative endeavors with the Obama transition team.  Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, introduced the statement, explaining that “the very first issue we [CCT] chose to focus on is poverty.”  Former National Council of Churches President Leonid Kishkovsky, a Russian Orthodox priest, also noted that while each of the five families has “liberals and conservatives… it was our [consensus] as we discussed… to focus on the issue of poverty. Our being together has deep significance and can give us spiritual power on moving on the issue of poverty.”

Left to right- Rev. David Beckmann of Bread for the World, Dr. Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky of the Orthodox Church in America, Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins of the Disciples of Christ

CCT is a coalition of Mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and some mostly liberal evangelicals founded, in part, to fill the void left by the decline of the National Council of Churches.  The implied assumption of the CCT press conference was that the primary solution to poverty is even greater spending on the federal welfare state.

Wallis said, “We have just come from a meeting with the [President-Elect Barack Obama’s] transition team.” There, he recalled, the ecumenical group urged members of the transition team to include assistance for poor people in the plans for any economic stimulus package. “Biblical [mandate] commands that the stimulus must focus on the low-income and poor… [they] must not be left behind in this [economic] crisis; they are already in crisis.” Wallis lauded Barack Obama for already making the “ambitious” commitment “to cut poverty in half and end hunger [in the United States].”

Not so with the out-going administration, however. The Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, noted that Bush asked for suggestions from the faith community when planning his first inaugural speech. Despite certain groups requesting that he make promises to deal with poverty, Michaelson cited that, “in the United States 4 million more people now have fallen into poverty,” since the beginning of Bush’s administration in 2001.

Left to right- Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw of the National Baptist Convention USA, Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson of the Reformed Church in America, Dr. James Leggett of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta

The Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw, President of the National Baptist Convention, contended that poverty was not just a religious but a national problem, because “The founding document in the nation says that all men are created equal.” He said that “nobody has been talking for the underclass, the poor.  Stimulus plans… have got to include the poor.”

While Dr. James Leggett, the presiding bishop of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, said that there is a growing sense among Evangelicals and Pentecostals that “the whole Gospel demands” greater attention to the poor. Dr. Ron Sider, the director of Evangelicals for Social Action, similarly noted the increased number of evangelical organizations and congregations “walking with the poor.” Similarly, Jim Wallis said that this was really “a moment of generational change” where young Christians are “pushing for the kind of faith that really” makes a difference.

In contrast, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta stated, “This is not a new commitment for the Catholic community.” Gregory attested that, for many Catholics, there were “areas of agreement and disagreement with the administration and Congress,” but that church bodies would “work together where we can… [because] business as usual will not get us there.”

Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners

Whether one’s church is new to poverty related work or not, the Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) said that “now is the time” to commit to cutting poverty in half in the next ten years. Watkins confessed that “it seems never to quite be the right time; there always seems to be another priority that rises to the top,” but said that the member bodies of CCT “join together to say it is always the right time to reach out” to the poor.

While all speakers reassured the attending press that CCT was a religious body and would not advocate specific legislation, some of the representatives did appear ambiguously favorable towards government healthcare programs, extended unemployment insurance, minimum wage increases, and other legislative concerns. The “Statement on Poverty” cited four pillars of their work in the area, including: strengthening families and communities, reducing child poverty, making work “work” (ensuring that it “offers a realistic escape from poverty and access to health care”), and strengthening the educational system.  It also asserted that, “overcoming poverty requires both more personal responsibility and broader social responsibility, both better choices by individuals and better policies and investments by government.”