The Role Of The Church In Creating A Just World For All

This week’s post is written by the Rev. Dr. Patrick G. Duggan, Executive Director of the United Church of Christ Church Building & Loan Fund. Since 1995, Rev. Dr. Duggan has also served as senior pastor of the Congregational Church of South Hempstead in South Hempstead, New York.

 

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On Long Island (where I live) poor people reside in neighborhoods where nearly everyone is poor, low income, and/or working class. Sociologists call this “concentrated poverty”. Pockets of concentrated poverty on Long Island communities with 70% working and middle-class homeowners and  30% poor people, mostly renters, amidst larger communities of affluence and extreme wealth tend to be populated primarily by African Americans, Latino Americans, and other people of color. This pattern of segregation and poverty is typical of almost every region in the United States where 40 million poor Americans live.

Source: http://www.Pixabay.com

Some political theorists pontificate that poverty is a result of bad personal choices, dysfunctional families, and inherent inferiority.  Others state that American poverty is the result of decades of failed policy at all levels of government. The facts are clear that poor communities have low proportions of business investment, a lack of banking services, few full-service supermarkets, or other places to purchase fresh produce, and in the current economic crisis, the highest rates of COVID-19 deaths and deaths from police brutality. These are not unintended consequences or the results of character flaws or human disfunction. Poverty in the USA is the result of generations of effective policies designed to uphold racism and white supremacy. In the richest country in the world, poverty exists today as the intended result of centuries of stolen labor, subpar education, poor health care, lack of access to employment opportunities, and barriers to wealth creation all directed against African Americans, people of color, and low-income white people. 

Another characteristic of communities with concentrated poverty is the high proportion of places of worship. One such community near me has a population of over 10,000 people and nearly 100 congregations. Most of these congregations are small (under 40 members), they represent the diversity of the communities they serve, and they are led by clergy of color. In terms of meeting human needs, these congregations are arguably the most important institutions in the region. They have longevity, they provide services and spiritual guidance, they have experienced and effective leadership, and collectively they raise millions of dollars each year to conduct community-serving activities, employ local residents, operate their buildings, and pursue a divine calling to mission and ministry. In this season when most congregations were forced by COVID-19 to suspend the use of their facilities, a number of congregations have transitioned to live stream gatherings and repurposed their space into food distribution centers and coronavirus testing sites; this despite substantially reduced revenue due to the suspension of in-person gatherings.

Clergy that lead congregations in poor communities are local advocates for justice, community organizers, protest leaders, and sometimes elected and civic officials. In the historic Black church, speaking truth to power is a regular element of bible study and Sunday morning sermons. Clergy activism, preaching, and teaching that gives voice to subversive truths are essential to the psychosocial health of the people who are served by churches in poor communities. However, just as the racial justice movement has shifted to a new level of effectiveness, faith leaders, especially those in communities of concentrated poverty, must now lead their organizations to a new level and kind of creative justice-making.

Source: http://www.Pixabay.com

We are living in a unique time for faith leaders and congregations everywhere in this country, especially where segregation and concentrated poverty exist (because they are at ground zero of the devastation wrought by a global pandemic and racism/white supremacy). Newly adopted policing policies and a seismic shift in the political climate, both happening at lightning speed, have proven the effectiveness of sustained “Black Lives Matter” uprisings, organizing, protest, and advocacy. People of faith have played an essential role in this aspect of the fight for justice and should continue to do so.

Even when effective, however, protest, because it is issue-focused and episodic, is not a comprehensive justice strategy. A movement requires many different types of participants each directing their individual and organizational strengths toward shared goals. The strength of congregations is that they are stewards of at least three kinds of capital built up over decades, or centuries (one church in our community was founded before the 13 colonies) that faith leaders can leverage for inclusive development:

• Missional Capital – for churches, the Gospel mission, and the particular mission of each congregation which expresses the particular way that each local church intends to transform the world. 
• Social capital – a network of relationships with residents, civic and political leaders, local businesses. 
• Financial Capital – religion generates $1.2 trillion annually to the U.S. economy. Many faith institutions own their properties. Wealthier churches have endowments. Denominations own pension funds, credit unions, institutional investment funds, insurance companies. This financial capital is bound by the mission of each faith tradition to be used to the glory of God and the service of humanity.

In the ongoing cycles of economic expansion, depression, and recession since the birth of our country, the so-called “free” market economy has proven itself to be so committed to racism and white supremacy that it habitually bypasses investment in poor US communities and seeks investment in developing countries with inferior education, nondemocratic governments, and poor business infrastructure. Faith leaders and institutions are right to support and be involved in episodic, organized demonstrations of resistance to what Walter Brueggemann refers to as ‘the empire’. But faith leaders must break out of the narrow understanding of justice work as participating in a demonstration, organizing voter registration, posting on social media, signing petitions, writing to elected officials, or preaching from the steps of city hall. This is essential work, but episodic justice work does not access the full capacity of the church to make a difference in the world. 

Faith traditions are older than nearly all other systems and structures in the world. Longevity, captured and communicated in wisdom, text, and ritual, is the religion’s most formidable weapon against intractable forces of evil like racism and white supremacy. Faith leaders must convey justice as a long-term undertaking of faith traditions and use that long-term view to pursue present strategies and tactics designed for the goal of a just world for all. Congregations must create faith-driven ministries and ventures that leverage missional, social, and financial capital to create pathways and remove barriers to education, health care, employment opportunities, and wealth creation in poor communities. As leaders and organizations with a historical commitment to the poor, faith leaders and congregations must see the rebirth of their communities as not something to be done in addition to ministry, or something that only the” big churches” do,  but as an essential element of mission and ministry. Creating access to wealth in poor communities is justice work. And most of all, it is the kind of sustained justice work that God has called and uniquely equipped congregations to do. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because….