Bishops renew, advance their initiative on children, poverty
5/4/2001
NOTE: For additional coverage of the United Methodist Council of Bishops' meeting, see UMNS stories #219, #223 and #224.
By Tom McAnally*
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (UMNS) - United Methodist bishops have renewed their dedication to a churchwide initiative on children and poverty that they launched in 1995.
During their semi-annual meeting April 29-May 4, the Council of Bishops issued a letter and 10-page document calling church members around the world to a "deepened level of reflection and action toward life together with the poor."
The document, "Community with Children and the Poor," is to serve as a means to "advance our lives and ministry and to reshape the church and world" and to encourage reflection and action.
One of six calls for action at the close of the paper declares that "actions and witness are one," a point made early in the meeting by Catholic layman John L. Carr, director of the Department of Social Development and World Peace for the United States Catholic Conference.
Carr urged the bishops to promote "citizenship, not cynicism" and to counter politicians who say the solution to today's problems is either better values or better policies. "The church is particularly suited to cut through the polarization of false choices," he said. "Both (values and policies) are needed."
The mission of the church is in the halls of Congress, Carr said. "We can bring values to those who make decisions and share our vision."
The church may not have the assets of the National Rifle Association, he said, but it has its own assets including a "consistent set of moral principles" that doesn't change from year to year. Pointing to the church's myriad of ministries, such as health care, food pantries and education, Carr said, "It's not just what we say but what we do that gives us credibility."
Carr oversees the Catholic Conference's policy development and advocacy efforts on poverty, health and housing, human rights, religious freedom and development, environment, arms control and peacemaking.
Advocacy must be "anchored in Scripture," and must be woven in the fabric of congregational life in preaching, worship and service, he said. "Social mission is not a program. It is an expression of who we are and what we value."
He urged the production of resources to help pastors and parishioners do their job, adding that people need help practicing "everyday Christianity" such as raising children and dealing with consumerism.
For those concerned that the church is inappropriately involved in politics, Carr said "we're in the business of persuasion. ... We need to be political without being partisan ... principled, not ideological ... civil without being soft."
He warned against assuming that advocacy is something to be done by other, better-suited individuals, church agencies or institutions. "No bishop can say, 'This is not my job'," he declared.
Carr's concerns showed up in the final draft of the document adopted by the bishops. "As we seek to build community with children and the poor, we must also forthrightly speak on their behalf in the halls of power and policy making," the council said. "Our advocacy for the poor is an extension of our proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ."
A task force of bishops, led by Bishop Ann Sherer of Missouri, developed the letter and document. The document will be distributed throughout the church not as a plan but as a "stimulus for thinking and action," the bishops said.
Projected resources will include a study guide, informational and motivational videos "which will enable children and the poor to speak," a special issue of Circuit Rider magazine featuring local implementation models, and guidelines for action-oriented advocacy.
"The crisis among children and the impoverished continues unabated as we enter a new millennium," the bishops said. "With increasing urgency, we hear the voice of God calling us to respond to the cries of the vulnerable and violated."
The three goals of the initiative when it was launched in 1995 remain: · "Reshaping the United Methodist Church in response to the God who is among 'the least of these,' and the evaluation of everything the church is and does in the light of their impact on children and the impoverished. · "Provide resources for understanding the crisis among children and the impoverished, and enabling the church to respond. · "Evangelization: the proclamation in word and deed of the gospel of God's redeeming, reconciling and transforming grace in Jesus Christ to and with the children and those oppressed by poverty."
The Council of Bishops includes 50 active bishops from the United States, and 17 from Europe, Africa and the Philippines. About 60 additional retired bishops attend the semi-annual meetings of the council but do not vote in business sessions. Bishop William Oden of Dallas presided over the Scottsdale meeting. He completed his one-year term as president of the council on May 4. The new president is Bishop Elias Galvan of Seattle.
In their document, the bishops confessed that their own lifestyles often reflect being in community with the affluent rather than the poor. "The benefits we derive from the very economic system that leaves others impoverished undercuts the credibility of our witness. We stand in need of conversion and yearn and commit ourselves to live, like Jesus, in more complete community with the poor."
A major portion of the document described the current state of children and the poor. "What is remarkable is that most of the severe problems facing the world's children and the poor are readily solvable," the bishops said. "What is lacking is the moral will, the theological vision and political commitment to respond."
One of the greatest problems, according to the bishops, is the disparity of wealth -- a problem that is not restricted to developing and least-developed economies. "In the United States of America, the gap between the rich and poor has been growing to reach levels of inequality never before known in that country. The number of poor children in the United States exceeds the number of inhabitants of the largest metropolitan area in the nation."
The bishops noted that this growing disparity of wealth most severely affects children. "More than 25 percent of U.S. children live in poverty, the highest rate among industrialized nations," they reported.
Economic values are "contrary to the interests of children and the poor and with the purposes of God revealed to us in Scripture and in Jesus Christ," the bishops declared.
Reflecting on Methodist history, the bishops noted that "our Wesleyan heritage calls us into community with the poor. John Wesley believed that the Methodists could be a community that transcends divisions of class and social standing. Throughout his long life and ministry he sought to constitute the Methodists as a community with and among the impoverished."
By the middle of the 19th century, U.S. Methodists began to move consciously from the back streets to the main streets, according to the bishops. Plain meeting houses gave way to more ornate sanctuaries, and circuit riders were replaced with settled and limited itinerate clergy who assumed pastoral power from local laity.
"The missionary movement, though exceedingly helpful in taking the gospel to many lands and establishing schools and hospitals and churches, also exported American individualism and economic capitalism," the bishops said.
Expressing hope, the leaders said the church "may yet be a visible and tangible presence of Christ's victory over the powers of domination, division and death, by the power of God through the Holy Spirit, if we seek obediently and humbly to constitute community with and among the impoverished. This will never be easy, for we struggle against systemic sin, the principalities and powers that seek to rule this planet."
The paper's "call to action" section includes a call for prayer, suggestions of specific ways to witness, and encouragement for establishing new congregations, particularly among the indigent and working poor.
The bishops also called for a review of every aspect of church life, including: · "how we compensate, evaluate, and appoint clergy and employ church staff; · how and where we form new congregations; · the design and location of church facilities; · the definition and practice of evangelism; · the recruitment, nurture and deployment of pastoral leaders; and · how boards and agencies are structured and how they determine priorities."
They also suggested linking congregations across national and cultural boundaries.
The letter and document will eventually be available at www.umc.org online.
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*McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service, the official news agency of the United Methodist Church.
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