Our 'framing' stories aren't serving us well. But there is an alternative: the good news of Jesus.
Economic Justice
Jonathan Mendez 10-18-2007
MLK said that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." New York Faith and Justice believes that poverty anywhere is a threat to God's shalom everywhere. Which is why when we were invited by the UN Millennium Campaign to host a local event in support of the Millennium Development Goals, we quickly accepted. The MDGs are some pretty decent things. When world leaders come together in a covenant-like promise to halve extreme global [...]
Jim Wallis 10-12-2007
Last evening I attended a reception and dinner in Washington for evangelical Christian leaders, which is not an unusual event here. But the topic and, especially, the main speaker would seem highly unusual to many. The event, called "A Global Leaders Forum," was hosted by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Micah Challenge, a global advocacy campaign focused on achieving the Millennium [...]
Julie Polter 10-12-2007
Mamta, a winsome, wide-eyed girl of 12 moves through her daily chores in a poor household in India. Although still a child, her life has little play, and she will too soon be bearing the full responsibilities and burdens of an adult woman: Mamta was married at the age of 7. At puberty she will quit school and move to the house of her husband, who she's had no contact with since her wedding night [...]
Aaron Graham 10-01-2007
New York Faith and Justice was inspired into being by Sojourners/Call to Renewal during their annual Pentecost Conference in 2006. It started with just a handful of committed Christians in New York who were focused on discovering how God was leading them to respond to the issue of poverty in their city.
As Becky Garrison reported last week, their mission is simple but profound: "Following [...]
Becky Garrison 9-28-2007
When I got an invitation to attend the launch of New York Faith & Justice (www.nyfaithjustice.org), their mission statement caught my eye. Simply stated, their goals are: Following Christ, uniting the church, and ending poverty in New York through spiritual formation, education, and direct advocacy. Grounded in the words of Isaiah 61, this movement [...]
Ted Parks 9-01-2007
A black-and-white movie about the bleakness of life in Watts, California—shot for $10,000 about 30 years ago and never intended for theaters—doesn't exactly fit the Hollywood formula.
Rose Marie Berger, Jonathan Mendez 8-01-2007
Promoting "green industry" can foster an economy that benefits all Americans and is strong enough to lift people out of poverty, according to "Community Jobs in the Green Economy," a new report fro
Christina Cobourn Herman 8-01-2007
Asserting that "it takes two to tango," the Jubilee movement argues that it is high time lenders assume their share of responsibility for the debt crisis.
Christina Cobourn Herman 8-01-2007
Corruption is a problem in Kenya and many countries. Where corruption is intractable, trust funds can be used to ensure that money freed by debt cancellation is used to benefit the poor.
Bart Campolo 7-10-2007
I'm not friendly with the white-shirted drug dealers who work the corners near my house yet, but at least they acknowledge me as a neighbor now, instead of looking me over as a prospective buyer
Susan Watkins 7-01-2007
One thing missing from "A Nuclear Surge" (by Frida Berrigan, April 2007) is the money source.
Molly Marsh 7-01-2007
Encountering the Holy
The Life of Meaning: Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World, edited by Bob Abernethy, host of the PBS show Religion & Ethics N
Valerie Weaver-Zercher 7-01-2007
In a land of asphalt, malls, and picket fences, how do we serve God and neighbor?
Jorge Mariscal 6-01-2007
Craig Wactor / Shutterstock
RECENTLY I STUMBLED upon an online exchange about why young people join the military. One participant who claimed to be "on the Left" made the following assertion: "Disenfranchisement is the reason why kids join the military and they know going in that it gives them the opportunity to legally and with the blessing of our government kill, torture, and hate other people in order to give an outlet to their hostilities toward society."
Among the many youth I have met over the years as an educator and counter-recruitment activist, I have never met anyone who enlisted so that he or she could "kill, torture, and hate." While "disenfranchisement" may be an accurate word for why some youth enlist, the claim that working-class youth sign up so that they can "legally kill and torture other people" at the very least betrays a profound misunderstanding of why young people join the "all-volunteer military" and at worst reveals biases that separate Americans due to differences of class and race.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum, the conservative claim that most youth enlist due to patriotism and the desire to "serve one's country" is equally misleading. The Pentagon's own surveys show that something vague and abstract called "duty to country" motivates only a portion of enlistees. But the vast majority of young people wind up in the military for different reasons, ranging from economic pressure to the desire to escape a dead-end situation at home to the promise of citizenship.
WHEN MANDATORY MILITARY service ended in 1973, the volunteer military was born. By the early 1980s, the term "poverty draft" had gained currency to connote the belief that the enlisted ranks of the military were made up of young people with limited economic opportunities.
Today, military recruiters react angrily to the term "poverty draft." They parse terms in order to argue that "the poor" are not good recruiting material because they lack the necessary education. Any inference that those currently serving do so because they have few other options is met with a sharp rebuke, as Sen. John Kerry learned last November when he seemed to tell a group of college students they could either work hard in school or "get stuck in Iraq."
President Bush led the bipartisan charge against Kerry: "The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots—and Sen. Kerry owes them an apology."
In reality, Kerry's "botched joke"—Kerry said he was talking about President Bush and not the troops—contained a kernel of truth. It is not so much that one either studies hard or winds up in Iraq but rather that many U.S. troops enlist because access to higher education is closed off to them. Although they may be "plenty smart," financial hardship drives many to view the military's promise of money for college as their only hope to study beyond high school.