Yonce Shelton,

February 13, 2007

It’s good to be here today, in large part because I feel at home. I was raised in east Tennessee in the city of Kingsport. In preparing to be with you, it was an added plus to work with Jim McKay, who I learned grew up in east Tennessee as well.

It’s also good to be here because much of my work in Washington has allowed me to stay connected to this region. I worked for several years for Congressman Rick Boucher, who represents southwest Virginia. I learned from him what it means to be a strong voice in Washington for an area suffering more than most from economic challenges.

I got to see what is required to navigate the legislative process in order to help people back home. I gained an appreciation for the effort required to help ensure basic things I always took for granted, like clean drinking water for all families.

During my years of work with Sojourners/Call to Renewal, I’ve continued to learn what it takes for public policy to benefit struggling families. I’ve worked with committed staff from Senator Rockefeller’s office to ensure Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare) benefits are available to those in need. In fact, our work on TANF reauthorization in 2002 was started by my predecessor, Nathan Wilson, who served for a time as executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches.

I’ve worked with some great leaders in Washington, and I’ve observed how many struggle with the challenges they take on. Take John Carr, for example, who works for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. He recounts often that during one meeting of the bishops, he was in a hotel elevator where a couple was looking at him and whispering. Eventually the lady asked him to confirm that, as his nametag said, he was indeed the “Director of Social Development and World Peace” for the USCCB. He confirmed his role. She then turned to her husband and said: “He’s not doing a very good job!”

I’m guessing some of you feel like that at times. It’s tough work to meet vast social needs when poverty rose for five straight years from 2000 to 2004. It’s tough to know how to translate your conviction to act on behalf of struggling families and children into successes, when you are often an underdog. This gathering should help. Hopefully my perspective and ideas will help.

We all know that if you and your colleagues around the state stopped working tomorrow, it would only take a little while for the state to fall apart. You are part of the fabric of this country that often goes unnoticed but that is so critical. As you do the practical things that change lives for the better, don’t forget the vision that should ground you, guide you, and sustain you.

* * *

When addressing public policy, the questions that should guide us are: How does a policy affect the common good? How does it speak to the best values of our society? When we consider ideas, the moral argument should be part of that discourse. Whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, or other, one’s argument in public settings should be grounded in morality. We must take our vision and motivation and test our ideas against outcomes and how they would affect the common good. Isaiah 65:17-23 (NRSV) captures the vision of Sojourners/Call to Renewal:

“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

“They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—and their descendants as well.” (emphasis added)

This is what I want for everyone in this nation and world. This is a vision of life, community, family, opportunity, and hope. It’s a vision of people being able to provide for their families. Sometimes people can do that on their own. Sometimes they need help.

When they need help, communities and faith groups often pitch in. Christians and those of other faith traditions are called to meet needs in people’s lives. Sometimes that is intimate – sharing a message of faith, counseling, helping someone through personal loss, providing food and clothing.

Sometimes it is more systemic – raising money to help sustain a community in Sudan that has lost all or building a house through Habitat for Humanity. And then there are the times when we step up to the plate because the need is so great, like taking in a foster child because that’s the thing to do.

But sometimes charity is not enough. When it comes to meeting human needs, we need charity and justice. We need community outreach and sound public policies. The challenge, therefore, is taking Isaiah’s vision and engaging with the forces of politics when personal effort isn’t enough.

Much of the work of Sojourners/Call to Renewal seeks to influence the federal legislative process, educate people of faith across the country about poverty reduction, and prompt greater public awareness for the causes of, and solutions to, poverty. Sojourners/Call to Renewal convenes a diverse “table” of churches and faith-based organizations focused on overcoming poverty.

Because of our focus on the biblical imperative to overcome poverty, we are able to convene partners who often don’t agree on other issues. We have liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. When coming together with one voice, our message can be powerful because of the diversity of experiences of those sharing it.

We believe in looking for solutions to poverty. That means acknowledging that poverty is due to both personal and social factors and choices; both public and private action or inaction; both community and government influence. Poverty reduction requires a “both/and” – not either/or – approach. We argue to elected officials that poverty reduction could be a major commitment leaders from all across the political spectrum could come together around. Overcoming poverty should be a nonpartisan issue and a bipartisan cause.

That’s our vision, and we accept the challenges that come with professing it. You are doing the same by being here today and looking for tools to help you actualize your vision. But lest we feel all warm inside, let’s take the step of connecting the visionary with the practical. That’s challenging in terms of faith, but also with regard to public policy. But there are openings that should inspire us and provide hope – as well as confirm the need for strategy.

I have hope for a deeper conversation – and outcomes – about economic security and opportunity for our poorest families. Here’s why.

First, many leaders in Washington are talking more about poverty. They were buoyed by the movement at the state level last fall to raise the minimum wage in several states. The results of those ballot initiatives were not brought about by elected officials. Those wins were due to people being organized. Some of you may have helped secure the increase last year in West Virginia. Those results gave some leaders in Washington momentum – and pressured others – to pass a federal increase in minimum wage, which hopefully will become law soon. Now, political leaders are asking about additional ideas for poverty reduction and strengthening families.

They are talking to us and many others about how to structure discussions and agendas that can result in outcomes. The House Ways and Means Committee has already held one hearing on poverty and plans to hold many more. Also, top leaders are thinking about whether to make a substantial commitment to a “children’s” agenda or a “poverty” agenda. I’d be happy with either! Of course, talk is just that. Elected leaders and those seeking office need to feel pressure from us, which raises that important question of strategy once again.

Second, many states are considering major changes and commitments to health care. Governors and state legislators in both parties and most states - notably Missouri, California, Louisiana, Minnesota, and New York - have made expanded medical coverage a priority.

A state policy expert at the Center for Health Transformation says states are experimenting more with health policy than at any time since the 1980s, and that legislatures are often simultaneously adopting policies that appeal to conservatives and liberals, avoiding the deadlock between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

States often lead the way on major public policy wins. Your efforts tomorrow and in the future can take advantage of state leaders’ openness to additional ideas for reducing child poverty.

Third, SCHIP is up for reauthorization this year. Your governor and many others are paying attention to how much money they need to provide health care to children in need. We are asking legislators in Washington to make commitments that will allow state leaders like Governor Manchin to cover more children, as I understand was agreed to last year.

My pollster friends in Washington tell me that increased investments in child health care resonate with people even if they have problems with the notion of universal health care. Some people understand this as a commitment to “the least of these” that reflects on our basic moral values. Some don’t buy the common good argument, but understand that keeping kids healthy is a smart investment for society.

Preventive care can eliminate the need for costly publicly financed health care later in life. As a staffer in the Senate recently told me: “kids are cheap!” That’s not the kind of quote he would want taken out of context, but his point was well taken.

In fact, last month the Center for American Progress released a report making an economic case for reducing child poverty. It shows that children growing up in poverty are more likely than non-poor children to have low earnings as adults, which in turn reflects lower workforce productivity. They are also more likely to engage in crime and to have poor health later in life. Their reduced productivity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy. The results suggest that the costs to the U.S. associated with childhood poverty total about $500 billion per year.

Finally, I have hope because strange bedfellows – labor, AARP, the Business Roundtable, Pfizer, Wal Mart – are coming together in new ways around the crisis of health care. This new coalition – the Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured – includes the largest physician, hospital, business, insurance, pharmaceutical, and consumer organizations. They have committed to pursuing universal coverage. The coalition is also pushing for expansion of children’s health coverage through additional money for SCHIP and automatic enrollment of low-income children when they are eligible for other social supports. In the future, the coalition will focus on uninsured adults.

This kind of coming together across traditional differences does not happen every day. It reminds me, coincidentally, of a story I heard at a retreat in Hedgesville, West Virginia about a homeless advocate and local business person coming together to reduce homelessness in town. Both had different motives – one was morally driven by concern for well-being, the other by keeping homeless people from sleeping in front of stores and hurting business – but they were able to bring about a result.

These are models we should build on to develop creative solutions for reducing poverty and helping families and children. As the adage says, “no permanent friends or enemies; just permanent causes.” I think of myself as a “Christian idealist; political realist.” I read the Gospel and see a vision for wholeness and fairness very foreign to this world. I am grounded by that vision, and my faith moves me to engage the political arena.

Even though I understand the realities of this world and human nature, going into this arena is part of my calling and that of others – hopefully many of you. Once there, we seek to remain grounded, guided, and sustained by faith, but also realistic about how to navigate the policy realm. That is not weak faith, it is smart strategy.

There is no one equation telling us how advocacy will work in all circumstances. But to stay out of the game because we don’t know it all, or are afraid of the challenges, is to neglect our calling to engage the powers of the world. There are enough “bad” people in politics that we need “good” people willing to step out on faith, be held accountable by others, and hope that we can have a positive influence on the process through our witness.

* * *

The Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured is especially interesting to Sojourners/Call to Renewal because our major anti-poverty platform – “From Poverty to Opportunity: A Covenant for a New America” – aims to bridge divides and produce solutions. Part of the faith community’s calling is to raise the moral questions about how a society is doing.

Let’s review some figures. 37 million people live below the federal poverty line, meaning a family of four (two parents, two children) makes less than $19,806 per year. 37 million people represents 12.6% of the population, and an increase of 5.4 million in the last five years. Nearly 13 million children (17.6 % of children) live in poverty - an increase of 1.5 million over five years.

In West Virginia, 16.2% of residents are poor and 22.6% of children are poor. This is why raising the minimum wage, increasing health care coverage for children, ensuring better nutrition, improving access to education, and taking many other steps to help families with basic needs is important.

But we also need a bolder vision for setting goals that political leaders and the nation can rally around. Programs are important, but a mind shift in how we change our nation’s tolerance of poverty is needed. We have the means to drastically reduce poverty – we just don’t have the moral and political will. The “Covenant for a New America” seeks to prompt this will.

Our conviction, expressed in the Covenant, is that throughout the Bible, God shows a special concern for those in poverty and acts in history to lift them up. As Christians who are called to be the people of God, we share that concern.

Our vision is that we can overcome poverty, but only if we act together and are willing to be held accountable to outcomes. Restoring the hope of our poorest families will require nothing less than a national change of heart.

Our strategy is gaining commitments from religious and political leaders to:

1) Make work “work” and provide for family economic success and security. Those who work responsibly should have a “living family income” in which a combination of a family's earnings, and supports for transportation, health care, nutrition, child care, education, housing, and other basic needs provide a decent standard of living.

2) Eliminate child poverty. We will never end the cycle of poverty if we continue to allow lack of opportunity to be the formative aspect of a child's life. As a start, our nation should develop and commit to a plan that reduces child poverty by half over 10 years. Other countries have made similar commitments. We should too.

3) End extreme global poverty. The U.S. should support effective aid, good governance, just trade policies, and debt cancellation in order to lift billions of people out of extreme poverty. The U.S. should honor our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, designed to cut global poverty in half by the year 2015.

That’s our challenge to policy makers. And it’s a good one. But as important as policy ideas are, how they are discussed determines if they gain traction. In case it has escaped you, Washington has become a pretty partisan place. When political discourse suffers, so do good ideas, creative thinking, and policy making. But I still have hope because of an effort we led a few years ago.

As I mentioned, in 2002, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) was supposed to be reauthorized. In that context, Call to Renewal convened an off-the-record “Senate dialogue” group to try to find solutions to help families become more self-sufficient. Every week for half a year, my boss, Jim Wallis, and I met with a handful of top Senate staff from both sides of the aisle to talk about the moral aspects of TANF reform; how to make poverty reduction, not just caseload reduction, a goal.

These staff came because, they said, it surfaced deeper issues and prompted better conversations, it helped them understand the concerns and convictions of the other side, and it was civil – which is a rarity on the Hill. They said they behaved because they were afraid to act up in front of religious leaders!

That “dialogue” was a high point for Call to Renewal because the staff involved bought into the idea that such a conversation could help a complicated process. And, the process helped produce a good bill in the Senate. But having an effort like that succeed now is becoming harder and harder.

So what does that mean? It means there are many ways to impact the policy process, and we must think creatively and strategically. We continue to work on the “inside” to influence policy, but work on the “outside” to organize people and raise a strong voice about priorities that hurt the common good is also critical. Over the past several years, we’ve found that what is needed more and more is a moral voice addressing misguided national priorities. That has been manifest most clearly in our assertion that budgets are moral documents.

* * *

Just like a family budget, a government budget shows us where we place our priorities as a nation; what we care about; what we value first and foremost. When Congress passes tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the super rich – and actually intentionally leave out lower income working families – we should see a moral problem. That’s what happened in 2003 when, at the last minute, congressional leaders removed the child tax credit from the $350 billion tax cut bill primarily benefiting the wealthiest Americans.

It would have only taken one percent of the bill’s cost - $3.5 billion - to provide the child tax credit to low-income families making under $26,000. Similarly, when Congress decides – as it did in January 2006 – to cut billions for social supports that help move people out of poverty, and at the same time pass more tax cuts for the super rich, we see a moral problem with priorities.

We are called to name this problem. We are called to speak out when efforts to protect our children and strengthen families are in danger of being derailed – and not just when programs with “children” in the title are being addressed. That’s what over 300 people from across the country – including many social service providers – did in December 2005 when they joined us on the steps of a U.S. Capitol building to protest a misguided budget and go to jail as a witness of faith. After a year of advocacy, letter writing, meetings with legislative staff, prayer vigils, and op-eds, that kind of public witness was almost all there was left to do.

I mentioned some reasons why I am hopeful, but fears must also be named. Nearly 40 years ago, in his April 1967 speech at New York City’s Riverside Church, Dr. Martin Luther King talked about the war in Vietnam, its impact on our national character, our people, and the people of that country. We are remiss, when talking about commitments to children and economic progress, if we don’t hear his words and think about the realities and ramifications of the war in Iraq. Dr. King said:

“And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

* * *

Last week, President Bush proposed a budget that makes total military spending higher (after taking inflation into account) than it was during the Vietnam War or the Korean War, extends tax cuts for the wealthiest, and cuts health care for low-income elderly and children. Despite all the energy around strengthening health care for kids, his budget would make it harder for states to enroll more children in SCHIP, as well as force states to terminate coverage for hundreds of thousands of children. This is inconsistent with efforts by Republican and Democratic governors to expand health coverage to the 9 million children who are uninsured today. We are called to name this moral values problem.

Spending on social programs isn’t the only way to measure concern for the poor, but we all know money talks. In fact, Sojourners/Call to Renewal supported the President’s “faith-based initiative” for years until we drew the conclusion that it was asking churches and community groups to take the place of sound social policy. We simply never saw evidence of the President’s claim in 2001 that:

"Government has an important role. It will never be replaced by charities. … Yet, government must also do more to take the side of charities and community healers, and support their work. … Government must be active enough to fund services for the poor -- and humble enough to let good people in local communities provide those services." (Notre Dame Commencement)

You all are doing good work. You are providing services. But you need help. You – we – need better leadership, better vision, and elected officials who take the side of community healers and the poor. I think Dr. King presents a better vision; a vision for a true “faith-based initiative.”

According to the National Priorities Project, taxpayers in West Virginia will pay $1.2 billion for the cost of the war in Iraq. That amount of money could have provided: over 364,000 people with health care; or over 530,000 children with health care; or over 187,000 Head Start places for children; or over 25,000 elementary school teachers; or over 37,000 public safety officers. The list goes on.

For these reasons our nation is in need of better vision. It’s also why we must be able to take Isaiah’s vision of “new heavens and a new earth” and do what is in our power to ensure that “no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.” Put another way, as John Howard Yoder says, “The church is called to be now what the world is called to be ultimately.”

There is a time and place for acts of charity. Just as important, there is a time and place for political activism in the name of justice. Securing justice comes through the tough and sustained work of changing inequitable systems that oppress “the least of these.”

Working for justice is hard because it requires me to evaluate from a biblical perspective systems of government, my elected leaders’ priorities, and, most importantly, my priorities. That becomes tougher when we can’t just focus on economic justice and ignore other pressing moral questions of the day. And it really gets tough when we know we have to speak out, as uncomfortable as that may sometimes be.

* * *

People in West Virginia need you. They need you to lead. They need you to stick your neck out and speak in ways that are unpopular. The political arena is tough. Democracy is getting tougher. Promoting a full range of moral values in our culture is tough. Will you lift a voice that leads? Will you tap into a vision that helps you take one step at a time?

Just as Isaiah challenges me with a “big” vision for change, the author of Luke 18:1-8 (NRSV) shows me that “little” things are important.

“Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself,

“Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’”

This is often referred to as the parable of the persistent widow, but I prefer to think of it as an advocacy commission. We can “bother”, “continually come”, and take many other steps to educate and influence leaders and society. Sometimes we can see a change, sometimes not. But if we profess a vision like Isaiah’s, faith entails acting because it’s the right thing to do – not because we completely understand the ripple affects of that action.

* * *

Faith keeps me going, but so do examples of vision in action that remind me what is possible with commitment. The Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota, when completed, will be a three dimensional “in the round” carving on a mountain of the Sioux leader measuring 641 feet by 563 feet. Crazy Horse’s head alone, at 219 feet, is several times the size of Mt. Rushmore.

A vision and commitment by the Sioux people and a talented sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, got the project underway in 1947. By himself, he cleared the uninhabited area around the mountain, made roads, built a log cabin to live in, and made steps up the mountain. Two years later, he started carving the mountain, by himself, with some tools, a small jackhammer, and gas compressor. Today, his wife and several of his children continue the work.

His dying words to his wife were: “You must work on the mountain – but go slowly so you do it right.” The foundation that supports the work, which also supports the Crazy Horse museum and will support the building of the medical college at the base of the mountain, states as its mission: “Steady progress on all humanitarian goals – as well as carving.”

This project has no time frame for completion. The family has turned down grants from the federal government for $10 billion dollars - twice - in order to prevent distraction from the way they have defined progress. Its progress is not measured in the usual ways, and its vision is not confined to even one lifetime. Progress and success are measured each day by staying true to the grand plan; by doing the right thing.

* * *

Now that’s a model of vision, commitment, and trust. Tomorrow, you’ll advocate. Hopefully you’ll take a vision that sustains you. Hopefully you’ll sense that you are making progress by doing what you can. However you feel, know that you are not alone. People in Washington and all over the country share your concerns and are walking with you. The staff at Sojourners/Call to Renewal certainly does, and sends blessings for you work.

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