WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Alliance of Baptists and the American Baptist Churches are joining arms with a national Christian anti-poverty group to call attention to poverty issues in an election year.
The Baptist groups joined the Washington-based group Call to Renewal and dozens of other Christian ministries in a “Unity Statement on Overcoming Poverty,” signed May 24.
CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal, Alliance of Baptists Executive Director Stan Hastey and ABC General Secretary Roy Medley were among several Baptist leaders who signed the statement during an ecumenical conference in Washington May 23-25.
Among other things, the document says, “As Christian leaders in the United States, we recognize that we live in a time when political and social issues threaten to divide the church. Although there are issues on which we do not agree, we come together to affirm that justice for those in our society who live in poverty is, for all of us, a deeply held religious belief on which we are firmly united.”
It calls for religious leaders to “ensure that all people who are able to work have jobs where they do not labor in vain, but have access to quality health care, decent housing and a living income to support their families.”
The statement also resolves to make combating poverty “a bi-partisan commitment and a non-partisan cause, one that links religious values with economic justice, moral behavior with political commitment.”
Dozens of Catholic, evangelical, and mainline Protestant leaders also signed the statement, including National Association of Evangelicals Vice President Rich Cizik, Paul Bollwahn of the Salvation Army, and Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship sponsored a breakfast during the convocation, which drew hundreds of denominational executives, ministry leaders and Christian activists. At the breakfast, the director of the group's national rural-poverty initiative said the Fellowship couldn't avoid getting involved. Tom Prevost outlined CBF's “Seeds of Hope” project, an initiative involving Fellowship missionaries and churches working to alleviate poverty in 20 of the nation's poorest counties.
“I do not know that we will succeed [in reducing poverty],” Prevost said. “I do know that we are called to try.”
Conference participants also were encouraged to promote the “Isaiah Platform,” a statement based on Isaiah 65:20-25, which calls for:
— Tax and spending proposals to be “evaluated with a publicly available analysis of how they assist people in overcoming poverty;”
— Committing, as a society, to “supporting all who work and those unable to work” with a living wage, quality health care, affordable housing, adequate nutrition and educational opportunities; and
— Supporting a national foreign policy that “sees just trade, effective international aid and reducing the debt of impoverished nations as central to our national and global security.”
In a statement released by CBF, Vestal said his organization was ready to be part of such an effort. “It's time for CBF to be involved in a coalition with other people of faith to address public-policy justice issues relating to poverty,” he said. “This is a noble document calling on politicians to make poverty in America a touchstone for the political campaigns.”
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