A Religious War on Poverty

Marty E. Coleman and Rich Cizik have lived in distinctly different Christian worlds for what sometimes seems like eons.

A longtime social justice minister for All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Coleman has marched for higher wages for the working poor, lobbied city officials for fair labor laws, and been arrested for protesting nuclear testing. Cizik is an official with the National Assn. of Evangelicals who helped stage President Reagan’s famous “evil empire” speech on the dangers of the Soviet Union.

Now Coleman and Cizik are linked in a growing national network of faith-based organizations that are overcoming entrenched political and theological differences to sound the same call: putting the poor on the public agenda.

The network is Call to Renewal, a movement-in-the-making of Christians appalled by persistent poverty in the midst of America’s unprecedented prosperity.

Rejecting poverty as immoral, just as earlier Christian activists fought slavery and segregation, members are embracing a biblical imperative to care for those Jesus called “the least of these who are members of my family.” The network hopes to connect churches, amplify their voices in the public arena and help them develop anti-poverty resources, ranging from program ideas to funding tips.

Network members are armed with powerful faith, organizing savvy, years of experience in charitable service--and a trove of discomfiting data. The strongest economy in the wealthiest nation in history, they say, still leaves 14 million children hungry, 44 million Americans without health insurance, at least 2.3 million adults and children homeless at least once during a year. Even as welfare rolls are cut, demand for emergency food and shelter is growing precipitously.

Offering Lessons in Activism

“Poverty is becoming the leading issue for churches,” said Jim Wallis, Call to Renewal’s leader, whose latest book, “Faith Works,” offers a road map for social transformation though faith-based activism.

The book details 15 lessons culled from Wallis’ own journey through more than 30 years of activist ministry here and abroad--from brokering truces between inner-city gangs to suing for peace in Nicaragua to protesting apartheid in South Africa. In town forums across the country, the silver-haired Wallis--who has chosen to live in one of Washington, D.C.’s poorest neighborhoods with his wife, Joy, an Episcopal minister, and their 22-month-old son, Luke--has convened town, gown and church to share stories and solutions.

Some of Wallis’ lessons: “Throw away labels. Make new allies.”

That has happened in a striking way with the rapprochement between liberals and conservatives. According to Wallis, liberals have tended to stress the institutional causes of poverty, such as racism or bad policy, while conservatives have more heavily focused on personal responsibility for bad choices--teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, failure to pursue education.

But the welfare-to-work reform bill of 1996, which has cut the welfare rolls in half, has shifted the often acrimonious debate to a common commitment: helping people climb out and stay out of poverty, especially the millions of working poor.

“The Cold War between religious groups over the poverty issue is over,” Cizik declared.

Putting the Issue in the National Spotlight

Earlier this year, more than 60 leaders from across the religious spectrum launched a campaign to collect 1 million signatures affirming Call to Renewal’s “Covenant to Overcome Poverty.” The covenant declares that “biblical norms and Christian reflection” dictate that people should have affordable health care and housing, safe neighborhoods, a living wage for responsible work, equal educational opportunities and strong families, among other things.

The group is aiming to influence the November election. Wallis said “voter scorecards” are being prepared to evaluate candidates on their commitment to the covenant’s anti-poverty goals.

And, in a splashy effort to highlight the issue in the glare of the national spotlight, Call to Renewal plans to hold a “shadow convention” to discuss poverty during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in August. The convention will feature a “Poverty Day” of provocative workshops and speakers.

“If Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore want to be our partners, they need to put poor people on the agenda,” Wallis said.

The shadow convention is emerging as an organizing tool for Call to Renewal’s Southern California network, which is just beginning to take off. Unlike self-contained cities, the Southland’s geographical sprawl and distance from Wallis’ Washington, D.C., base have made it a more challenging place in which to rally churches around a national network, Coleman said.

But plenty have answered the call: Bobbie Westcott, for instance. Along with Bill Doulos, urban ministry pastor of All Saints Church, Westcott runs eight “sober living” homes in the San Gabriel Valley to give people coming off drug or alcohol abuse affordable homes and a supportive community to help them stay clean.

“Call to Renewal can get together a lot of folks, which most of us just don’t have the time to do,” said Westcott, director of the venture, Jubilee Enterprises Inc. “I’m always looking for another idea, another connection and support.”

David Mayeranderson and Carlene Gebner help ease people from welfare to work through Pace-Net, a program of the progressive Christian organization called Mobilization for the Human Family. Gebner helps her clients, as she calls them, find jobs and child care or hunt down shoes and suits for interviews. She worms out of them their checkered life stories and cheers on her brood with a lovingly blunt manner: “Admit it, quit it and move on.”

The most striking recruits, however, are the evangelical groups.

March for Jesus, an Atlanta-based evangelical group that brings praise, worship and prayer to cities around the world, shifted its focus to the poor in its annual Jesus Day last week. Inspired by Call to Renewal, the march redesigned its program to include feeding the hungry and other services “to make a day on Earth like a day in heaven, where no one goes hungry or suffers alone,” said President Tom Pelton.

Big changes are also afoot at the 30-million-member National Assn. of Evangelicals. For the first time, an association president--Kevin Mannoia, who was elected last year--put a commitment to the poor in his ministry platform. The group also plans to shift its $20-million World Relief program to a focus on urban ministry. And last week, 26 churches gave out free food and offered AIDS testing, children’s activities and other help to inner-city families in Washington after the evangelical association’s national convention there.

“Evangelicals have to admit that the Bible makes it clear we can’t ignore the poor and downtrodden,” Cizik said. “It will be a tragedy if we don’t assume our rightful responsibility.”