Writers Note: This post was originally published on my site on March 6, 2005 in response to the news that the US Supreme Court would review Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. That case will be heard in October. PBS’ Religion and Ethics News Weekly covers the story this week on television and their web site. With the case being heard soon it seemed like a good moment to revisit the issue.

The US Supreme Court recently decided to review a Bush Administration challenge to Oregon’s death with dignity act. The law was approved by voters in 1994 and reaffirmed by an even larger majority in a subsequent election. Both times I voted for the bill. The law is designed to help those who are terminally-ill end their life through medical intervention after a process of discernment involving the patient and medical professionals. Research has shown that the law is evoked infrequently and by those suffering from a great deal of pain and suffering.

In 1991, the United Church of Christ 18th General Synod passed a resolution entitled "The Rights and Responsibilities of Christians Regarding Human Death." An excerpt from the resolution states "the Eighteenth General Synod supports the rights of individuals, their designees and their families to make decisions regarding human death and dying...."

Religious support for the law is limited. The United Church of Christ is one of the only religious bodies to affirm the right of people to make end of life decisions. That is unfortunate. Sometimes the only path to healing is through death – and Christians make the faith claim that death is in reality only an illusion. Allowing individuals to make their own decision is the most humane path available to us in an era where our tendency is to try and keep people alive no matter the circumstances. Sometimes people are kept alive in terrible pain and without hope of relief (I’ve witnessed this firsthand). Pain medicines do not help everyone and that means people often linger in agony. That is who this law was meant to help.

There are many safeguards built into Oregon’s law to keep people from making rash decisions. People with terminal-illnesses obviously took their lives before the law was passed. Voters responded to that reality when endorsing the act. Oregonians now have a humane alternative available to them. Sadly, George W. Bush wants to take away that alternative.

This is one of those issues where Christians can have honest disagreements. But why allow the courts or the Bush Administration to interfere with such a personal decision? Why not let the decision rest with the one suffering? Overturning the law will not stop people from taking their own lives. It will only take away the one alternative they have. Oregonians debated the issue – twice – and came to a moral conclusion - one consistent with Christian ethics. I hope the law will stand the administration’s challenge.

“(If) you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

- Former Reagan / Bush Aide and Right Wing Activist (and noted gambler) William Bennett

Click here to read the full quote and / or hear the audio.

Racism is alive and well in the ranks of the right-wing in America.

US Representative John Conyers has asked Bennett’s network to suspend his program.

While we all support First Amendment Rights, we simply cannot countenance statements and shows that are replete with racism, stereotyping, and profiling. Mr. Bennett's statement is insulting to all of us and has no place on the nation's public air waves. The fact that Mr. Bennett later acknowledged that such abortions would be "morally reprehensible," but added again that if it was done "the crime rate would go down," is equally outrageous.

Let’s hope that Salem Radio Network follows Conyers’ advice.

Read the comments on this post from Street Prophets

Those crazy Southern Baptists...

Related Post:  Can We Stop Trying To Evangelize Jews Now?

The good folks at People for the American Way had this to say today in response to the vote to confirm John Roberts:

John Roberts has been confirmed to a lifetime position as Chief Justice of the United States. We opposed his confirmation and are disappointed at the vote. However, now that he has been confirmed, we wish John Roberts well, and hope that he will use his intellect and his abilities to serve all Americans with a fair and even hand.

With John Roberts confirmed, attention now turns to the upcoming nominee to fill the vacancy being created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Every Supreme Court nominee should be held to a high standard, which includes a demonstrated commitment to protecting Americans’ fundamental rights, liberties, and legal protections. Given the pivotal role that Justice O’Connor has played in recent years, the stakes with her replacement are enormous.

If you’re not already signed up to get our alerts, click here, and we’ll keep you up to date and in the action on the next nominee.

22 United States Senators stood up for a better America today when they voted to reject the nomination of John Roberts as Chief Justice. 

Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)

Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)

Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)

Read the comments on this post from Street Prophets

Former Bush FEMA director Michael D. Brown (and still FEMA employee) told a Congressional committee yesterday that anyone and everyone whose name isn’t Michael D. Brown was the one at fault for the federal government’s incompetence in responding to Hurricane Katrina. His biggest problem at the helm of FEMA during a national disaster:

"I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. I just couldn't pull it off."

The Center for American Progress reports the facts:

In testimony yesterday before a special congressional panel investigating the response to Hurricane Katrina, former FEMA director Michael Brown made a "fiery appearance" that attempted to shift blame away from the federal government. There were few facts to back up Brown's testimony, so consequently, he engaged in revisionist history. Overall, Brown's testimony illustrated he was an incompetent administrator who never should have been hired in the first place.

BROWN REPEATEDLY CONTRADICTS HIMSELF: Brown made a number of statements in his testimony yesterday that conflicted with previous statements he had given. For instance, Brown said that FEMA was stretched beyond its capabilities because, "over the past few years, [the agency] has lost a lot of manpower." But in September 2004, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Brown whether his agency was prepared to deal with hurricanes hitting Florida. Brown said, "We absolutely are. We have all the manpower and resources we need. President Bush has been a very great supporter of FEMA." Also, Brown defiantly stated, "FEMA doesn't evacuate communities." But in the midst of the hurricane aftermath, Brown said on CNN that FEMA was conducting "rescue missions" and would "continue to evacuate all of the hospitals." Furthermore, Brown said FEMA suffered "emaciation" because anti-terror operations had become a priority for the administration. But on CNN (8/16/04), Brown said, FEMA had "proven [in Florida] that we're up to the task" of responding to both terrorism and natural disasters.

BROWN'S BIG LIE: Under questioning by Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN), Brown suggested that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) had failed to issue an emergency assistance declaration for Orleans Parish, which includes New Orleans. Buyer asked, "Since you went through the exercise in Pam, was that not shocking to you that the governor would have excluded New Orleans from the declaration?" Brown said, "Yes," and that FEMA had questioned Blanco's decision. But Blanco's emergency declaration on August 27 was for all "affected areas" in "southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area."

All evidence points to a massive failure on the part of the Bush Administration in dealing with the crisis. The Republican Congress – in turmoil because of criminal indictments against Tom DeLay and investigations against Bill Frist – cannot be trusted to investigate the Bush Administration. America needs an independent 9/11-style commission to determine what went so wrong.

Church leaders, who have been on the front lines in responding to Katrina, are asking the president to support an independent investigation. The National Council of Churches USA reports:

New York, September 27, 2005 -- Keenly aware of the spiraling effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on millions of Americans, the National Council of Churches USA Governing Board formed an NCC commission to work for the "just rebuilding of community" on the Gulf Coast.

The board, meeting in New York September 26-27, also passed unanimously a resolution to call on the U.S. government to create an independent commission similar to the 9/11 Commission to investigate deficiencies in the response of rescue and relief workers following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and in other devastated areas of the Gulf.

NCC President Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., Christian Methodist Episcopal bishop of Louisiana and Mississippi, said he would appoint Church World Service representatives and others with special expertise to the NCC commission on Katrina and he asked NCC member communions represented at the meeting to recommend persons who could serve. Church World Service is the humanitarian and relief agency of the communions that are members of the NCC.

The Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, who proposed the formation of the commission, noted that millions of hurricane victims "were left behind, not by the rapture but by the rupture of the social contract."

Hoyt said he was also mindful of the hidden human tragedy of Katrina, including the alarming number of suicides of rescue workers and "people who lost everything." The board received for a second reading a resolution on "Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Support," which will be passed on to the NCC General Assembly for approval. The General Assembly meets November 8-10, 2005, in Hunt Valley, Md.

The Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, released a statement today also calling for an independent commission:

I know the depth and breadth of the devastation Hurricane Katrina brought in her wake. While serving as president of The Interfaith Alliance, I also serve as the pastor of a Baptist congregation in Monroe, LA. Since Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, along with members of my congregation, I have worked on securing housing, medical care, food, and basic necessities for the 5,000 to 7,500 displaced people in our city.

The disparity between the response of the faith community to that of the government was inconceivable. When the government was nowhere to be found, houses of worship were there. We weren't there to pick up the pieces. We were there because the work we do is a part of the fabric of our being, our identity, and our "calling." It's ironic because I thought this was the same type of motivation for government relief efforts.

Because of all that we witnessed, The Interfaith Alliance joins with Representatives Charlie Melancon (D-Louisiana) and Gene Taylor (D-Mississippi) in urging you to create an independent, non-partisan commission to investigate the failures endured during and post-Katrina. Hard questions need to be asked and honest answers need to be given. The countless victims of the hurricane deserve nothing less from the same people who seem to have let them down. I believe it is an act of morality and religion to keep the government honest and responsible. Therefore, I also urge you and those on the commission to heed the lessons learned so that we do not find ourselves in this position again.

I would also be remiss in my responsibilities as president of The Interfaith Alliance, whose membership is comprised of over 150,000 people from 75 different faith traditions and no tradition, to express concern over the potential manipulation of this American tragedy to garner support for and advance your long-proposed Faith-Based Initiative.

Frankly, we do not need a Faith-Based Office in the White House or anywhere else in the United States Government. We have millions of faith-based offices across this nation from which incredibly good work is being done. And we--members of the church that I serve as pastor and people who value the independence of religion in the nation--do not want federal money to do our ministries. If the government will do its part in this relief effort, the religious community will do its part. But the government needs to take care of its business and not attempt to work through the religious community.

Send the president a message and tell him to support an independent commission.

Related Post: America Left The "Least Of These" Behind In The Wake Of Katrina

This summer I studied at Aquinas Theological Institute – a Dominican school in St. Louis. Aquinas has a wonderful reputation for serious theological education and a strong commitment to ecumenicalism. As a progressive Protestant student (one of several in attendance this summer), I was warmly received.

During a class session one of my United Church of Christ colleagues mentioned (proudly) that our denomination was the first to ordain a gay person to ministry.

That elicited a lot of laughter from the Catholic priests and nuns in the course. The Dominican teaching the course responded that the Roman Catholic Church has been ordaining homosexuals to ministry for much longer than the UCC has even been in existence (ok, but we were the first to do it openly…).

It is certainly distressing to watch the Vatican respond to the sex abuse scandals in their church by going after gay seminarians. There is certainly no correlation between a homosexual orientation and sex abuse.

DignityUSA is a gay rights movement made up of Roman Catholics. Their message to the Vatican is right on.

Washington, DC – DignityUSA today strongly condemned the new Vatican apostolic visitations of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States in search of “evidence of homosexuality” and faculty members who dissent from church teaching. A twelve-page document is now being distributed to seminarians and faculty as part of the review, as reported on the front page of The New York Times on September 15, 2005.

“The Vatican continues to be obsessed about homosexuality, misguided about human sexuality, and misdirected regarding the sexual abuse crisis in the Church, stated Debbie Weill, Executive Director of DignityUSA. “While a review of seminary programs may be appropriate in the aftermath of the sexual abuse crisis, an apparent witch hunt for homosexual seminarians and supportive faculty is not. The Church is fostering a climate of hostility towards some of its very best priests and bishops. This is not the Church Christ called us to be,” Weill added.

“While the Vatican fails to address the core issues relating to the sexual abuse crisis, DignityUSA reminds Church leaders of several key points:

1. “sexuality experts have reportedly instructed the Vatican that there is no link between pedophilia and homosexuality,

2. “gay priests are not the cause of the sexual abuse crisis in the Church,

3. “Church leaders have not accepted responsibility and have not been appropriately reprimanded by the Church for their failures to deal appropriately with the still ongoing sexual abuse crisis in the Church, and

4. “candidates for the priesthood should be evaluated in terms of sexual maturity and their likelihood to be celibate, not sexual orientation,” Weill continued.

DignityUSA is the nation’s foremost organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics, their families, friends and supporters. Founded in 1969, it is an independent nonprofit organization with members and chapters across the country. DignityUSA works for full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in the life of the Church and Society.

Perhaps the worst part of this “witch hunt”: it will not address what brought about the sex abuse scandals in the US and that leaves the Roman Catholic Church open to new and equally disturbing periods of crisis that will continue to impact all Christians negatively.

Read the comments on this post from Street Prophets

For the last week I’ve been posting on the new blog Street Prophets (which was mentioned in Newsweek, btw). Material from this blog is being cross-posted over there when appropriate and I’m also writing some original content (like last night’s Pro-Choice Christians Are Everywhere). It’s a great site and if you haven’t visited yet please do so. It is modeled after Daily Kos – actually it is a spin-off of Daily Kos – and allows you to create your own online dairy and is much more interactive than the average blog.  Take a look.

No one disputes that the most powerful nation on earth is the United States of America. But does the USA use its awesome power to pursue peace, justice, food, shelter and safety for all? And if not, what is role of U.S. Christians in bringing moral clarity to U.S. interactions with its global neighbors? These and other urgent questions are the focus of For the Peace of the World: A Christian Curriculum on International Relations released Sept. 26 by the National Council of Churches USA. The 87-page book, edited by Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, Associate General Secretary of the NCC for International Affairs, examines the issue with in-depth essays and Bible studies, and includes prayers, litanies and other worship resources for use in congregational settings. The curriculum challenges Christians from all traditions to do what writer Dr. Peggy L. Shriver calls “soul-sized thinking about world affairs.”

A battle is brewing between local residents, environmentalists, and a natural gas company that wants to site a pipeline and storage terminal on the Columbia River near Puget Island, Washington and Bradwood, Oregon. Leading the charge to stop this disaster in the making is Wahkiakum Friends of the River, a grassroots organization co-chaired by Judy Bright (my mother). The Oregonian reports:

It (the pipeline and storage terminal) could get the go-ahead as early as this time next year, depending on how its federal application proceeds, said Gary Coppedge, Northern Star's vice president of permitting and development.

Ships would deliver natural gas, super-cooled to liquid form, about every three days. The terminal would have the capacity to hold 7 billion cubic feet of liquid natural gas -- enough to fill two tanks roughly 12 stories tall.

After vaporizers heat the liquid back to gas, the terminal could send up to 1 billion cubic feet of gas daily through its proposed pipeline. A third tank may be added in the future. The pipeline would connect to the main supply line that runs along the Interstate 5 corridor.

But grass-roots critics have lined up against the proposals. Local groups have sponsored guest speakers to discuss the hazards of liquid natural gas, passed out bumper stickers, and distributed lawn signs and posters.

Wahkiakum Friends of the River was formed specifically to fight the Bradwood project. Opponents hope to persuade federal officials at Thursday's meeting that the lower Columbia River isn't an appropriate place for a terminal, said Judy Bright, co-chairwoman of the group.

Residents of Puget Island in Washington would be most directly affected by the terminal, Bright said. They fear it will interrupt fishing and boating and put the area at higher risk of a terrorist attack.

But more importantly, she said, the area has almost no emergency resources in the event of an accident. Washington's Wahkiakum County has no hospital, she noted.

"All emergency responders are volunteers," she said. "Our health department has a staff of four people. On Puget Island, there are two ways out -- the ferry, which lands very close to Bradwood on the Oregon side, and a narrow bridge. Even if there were time to evacuate the island, it would be limited and very slow. But the reality is, if there was an accident, there wouldn't be time to evacuate anyway."

The Thursday meeting mentioned in the article will be where federal agencies will hear plans from Northern Star and concerns from residents of the area. Visit Wahkiakum Friends of the River to learn more.

Related Link: Columbia River Vision has additional information on their site.

One of my great concerns – after working for 17 years on issues of homelessness and affordable housing before entering seminary – is access to public education for children experiencing homelessness. Many communities have until recently refused to admit homeless children and even started segregated schools for their sure. Recent federal law – passed over the president’s objections but with bi-partisan support – have outlawed segregated schools for homeless children and required local school districts to provide access and resources for kids and their families living on the streets.

Sadly, the Bush Administration and Republican leaders in the House and Senate have used the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina to try and give schools waivers which would exempt them from following federal law in this area. The result: school districts would once again be allowed to set-up segregated schools for homeless kids and for all those made homeless by Katrina and Rita. Separate is not equal.  Senate leaders have backed off the idea but House leaders and the White House have not.

Visit the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth to learn more.

Religious leaders from the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Presbyterian Church USA wrote a letter this past week to Congress and the president urging them not to “politicize” the rebuilding of our public school system in the Gulf Coast. Check out the letter and pass it along to your friendss and send your thoughts to your Congressional delegation.

Related Post: Oregon Schools Open Doors To Katrina Evacuees

Written by J. Bennett Guess, Reprinted from United Church News

Saturday, 24 September 2005

The Rev. Bill Royster finds himself thinking a lot about a church in southeast Texas – now likely submerged in water – that was considering leaving the UCC because of General Synod’s vote in July to support same-gender marriage equality.

“I realized that they and the building were most likely the first group, area, or building to be covered by storm surge waters, and I thought, ‘Oh goodness, that is so sad,’” said Royster, the UCC’s South Central Conference Interim Minister. “I called, I offered our help and care, and I urged the secretary to print the brochure [from the UCC’s Insurance Board] telling folks how best to prepare themselves and their property for a storm. She was busy packing to leave, and she said, ‘I’ll download and print it. Thank you.’”

Royster said it reminded him of how important it is for the church to remain connected, to understand that our unity matters.

“How wonderful to be the church and to know that others join us in care and concern,” Royster said. “When I think of our Conference, I know how vital is our connection and covenant with each other.”

Royster said that, just as after Hurricane Katrina, the most recent hurricane is teaching us that “stories of pain and frustration, of survival and struggle, of hope and compassion abound."

“Many of our sisters and brothers in the UCC joined countless other people of every faith in providing 24/7 care for people who lost everything,” Royster said. “It was an experience of awesome proportions, as told by those who should have been so weary, but were instead were energized by their ‘well-doing.’”

The response from the wider church has been remarkable, even overwhelming, Royster said. “The response from people, churches, Conferences all across the United Church of Christ has been superb, beyond expectation,” he says. “Our National Disaster Response Team, as well as our president [John H. Thomas] and other national staff have been with us – not just in spirit, but in person as well.”

While he knows recovery will be a long-term process, Royster sees a commitment among UCC people to offer their assistance.

“People of the UCC everywhere are chomping at the bit to do all that they can to help. Funds are being collected, work parties are being organized and e-mails and phone calls offering support in every form are almost more than we can respond to in a reasonable time,” Royster said. “Thank you for being the church of Jesus Christ!”

--Contribute online to Hurricane Katrina Relief
--Hurricane resources

Related Story:  Prayer requested for UCC churches, members of Southeast Texas

Are you anti-Semitic if you favor putting pressure on Israel’s government to protect human rights and to end their occupation of Palestine?

That is the charge some political and religious activists have thrown at the World Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) after these Christian bodies adopted resolutions either calling for divestment from companies profiting from the occupation or calling for the use of other economic leverage tools to achieve the aim of pressuring Israel.

You cannot get around the fact that the conflict in the Middle East has strained tensions between some Jews and Christians. That is a tragedy. Christians bear a great deal of responsibility for many of the horrors inflicted on the Jewish people and it has only been since World War II that a rapprochement between the two faiths has been possible.

Jews, however, are as diverse as Christians and hold different positions on political matters. Some groups – like Jewish Voice for Peace – have applauded the pro-peace actions taken by Christian bodies. There are those on the right who would love to see the partnerships between Jews and Christians on issues such as civil rights collapse under the weight of disagreements over policy in Israel.

But a group of prominent Christians and Jews – many of whom have taken different positions in regards to Israel and security concerns – are determined not to allow that to happen. For the past two weeks they have been traveling in the Middle East and today released the following statement:

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN LEADERS on mission OF PEACE to Jerusalem

Leaders of the mainline Protestant Christian and Jewish communities of the United States have been working for over a year constructively to address issues that concern the two communities, of which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is among the most serious. Standing on the rich tradition of working together to address questions of social justice, sixteen of these leaders representing eight Christian denominations and national organizations and six national Jewish organizations and religious movements spent the past five days together in this land that is holy to all Abrahamic faiths.

We came to see and we came to listen – and to try to understand the human dimensions of an unholy situation in a land most holy. We each encountered the voices of individuals, organizations and officials that we had never heard before. In session after session, we confronted the realities on the ground and gained new understandings of, and an appreciation for, the deep complexities of the conflicts that consume Israelis, Palestinians and us alike.

As representatives of mainline Protestant Churches and the American Jewish community, we have demonstrated that Christians and Jews can work together to seek peace even when there is disagreement on specific policies and solutions. As a result of these days, we will now be even more effective advocates for a secure, viable and independent Palestinian state alongside an equally secure State of Israel, affirming the historic links that both the Jewish People and the Palestinian People have to the land.

Upon our return, we are committed to:

Deepen our engagement with each other and expand the number of Jews and Protestants committed to interfaith dialogue on the local level as advocates for peace.

Mobilize each of our communities of faith across the United States in a concerted effort to bring reconciliation and peace to Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Together, we seek to mobilize elected officials and our American fellow citizens on behalf of a negotiated peace settlement.

Effectively support those Palestinians and Israelis who are courageously working for reconciliation and a two-state solution with concrete actions that will help sustain their work.

A trip that started from many different places has brought us closer together in hope and faith. While there were many difficult moments, our trust in each other deepened. We sustain hope and faith in each other as agents of peace. We affirm hope and faith in our two religious communities as partners and advocates for a two-state solution. We also have a renewed hope and faith in the future of this holy land and these two peoples.

On this day, we together affirm our partnership with God in bringing about justice, compassion and peace.

The Jewish and Protestant leaders who made this journey represent the Alliance of Baptists, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National Council of Churches of Christ, Presbyterian Church (USA), Religious Action Center of the Union of Reform Judaism, United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Click here for the delegation's pre-trip statement.

Let us use the occasion of their safe return to pray for their work and for peace between Israel and Palestine. Click here to learn more.

Read the comments on this post from Street Prophets

Religious conservatives have been trying for years to change federal law to allow faith-based agencies that receive federal funding to discriminate against people based on their religion when hiring staff. Yesterday they scored a victory in the US House. The Interfaith Alliance reports:

The School Readiness Act (H.R. 2123), a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Head Start program, was passed 48-0 in committee. However, during floor debate Thursday, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-LA) added an amendment allowing Head Start providers to exercise religious discrimination in choosing teachers and volunteers. As a result, the final vote on the bill (231-184) was stripped of the unanimous, bipartisan support displayed in committee.

“The Interfaith Alliance is very disappointed in the members of Congress who insist on reacting to one crisis by beginning another one,” said the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of The Interfaith Alliance. “The Boustany amendment is a prime example of political opportunists taking advantage of a national tragedy to institute policies that are unconstitutional and have been previously rejected by the Congress.”

The Head Start funding bill was even opposed by Head Start.

The Interfaith Alliance was joined by more than 50 organizations in opposition to the bill’s passage if it contained the Boustany amendment. The National Head Start Association, which represents more than 2.5 million children and families, program staff and volunteers that comprise the Head Start and Early Head Start community, came out against the entire bill if the Boustany Amendment was attached saying:

“In spite of its positive provisions, if HR 2123 contains a religious discrimination amendment, we must reluctantly oppose the bill.”

A funding bill for Head Start has been passed by the Senate – without the religious discrimination provision – and will therefore be sent to a conference committee for debate. Senators must be urged to reject the discrimination provision .

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism issued a statement last night saying:

As a religious organization, we recognize the importance of faith in our society and support all those who come to our synagogues in search of spiritual fulfillment. But for those houses of worship that also serve their community as a Head Start center, there must be a clear division between religious mission and secular service. The constitutionality of permitting religious discrimination in hiring when using federal tax dollars remains an open question, yet on a policy level it is clear that such discrimination is simply misguided. Throughout its history, the over 20 million children served by Head Start have been taught by teachers qualified in early childhood education – not theology.

To now overturn more than three decades of proven public policy ensuring religious non-discrimination in Head Start is foolish at best and reckless at worst. Congress would better spend its time focusing on legislative efforts to improve American public education than considering how to use public funds to divide pre-schoolers along religious lines. We call on the Senate to reject any similar effort to include religious discrimination in Head Start and ensure that our nation’s children are provided with the best education we are capable of providing.

Contact your senators.

No Way Out: Many Poor Stuck in Houston

This news from Bread for the World (the Christian anti-hunger group) came in this afternoon:

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Every member of Congress will receive a letter today from a prominent group of Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders asking representatives to protect the Food Stamp Program from funding cuts during the federal budget reconciliation process. This letter is the next step in the anti-hunger efforts of leaders who came together on June 6, 2005, for the first Interfaith Convocation on Hunger at the National Cathedral, representing more than 100 million people of faith, to call on Congress and the President to make a new national commitment to fight hunger. This diverse group of signers includes His Eminence Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Catholic Archbishop of Washington D.C.; Commissioner W. Todd Bassett, National Commander, The Salvation Army, United States; Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Rt. Rev. Philip R. Cousin, Sr., Senior Bishop, African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The text of the letter follows:

Care for hungry people is a mandate for every major religious tradition. As leaders from many of these traditions, we appeal to you to protect the Food Stamp Program from cuts in the current budget process.

Food stamps are the frontline defense against hunger for many of the most vulnerable members of our society. More than 50 percent of food stamp beneficiaries are children. Virtually all of the rest are seniors, people with disabilities, or those making the transition from welfare to work. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the first actions authorities undertook was distribution of food stamps, tapping a program that has helped curb hunger for 40 years.

Although we understand the challenge you face in finding $3 billion in savings from the Agriculture Committee, budget constraints do not release us from our obligation to care for poor and vulnerable people. It would be a moral failure to take those cuts from the Food Stamp Program. The number of people experiencing hunger in the United States has been on the rise and our national nutrition programs are as important as they've ever been. The unprecedented destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina will force many more people to depend on the federal nutrition programs.

On June 6, 2005, many of us participated with a group of more than 40 religious leaders in the first Interfaith Convocation on Hunger at the Washington National Cathedral. This event was unique in U.S. religious history because of the diversity and level of responsibility of the religious leaders involved. All of us were able to come together to call for an end to hunger. This issue is one on which we all agree.

In a deeply religious country like the United States, it is no surprise that the majority of Americans also believe that fighting hunger is an issue of utmost importance. A recent poll conducted by Jim McLaughlin for the Alliance to End Hunger found that 75 percent of likely voters say that even in a tight budget year, the Food Stamp Program should be protected from cuts.

More than one in six children (13 million) in the United States live in households that struggle to put food on the table, giving us the highest rate of childhood hunger in the industrialized world. We implore you to reject a budget that would deprive more working families of food for their children. Any such reductions would break our national commitment to help hard-working people who struggle daily to feed their families and build better lives.

The budget must reflect the best of our nation's moral values: our resolve that poor and vulnerable people not go hungry.

Sincerely Yours,

Dr. Thomas E. Armiger, General Superintendent, The Wesleyan Church
Commissioner W. Todd Bassett, National Commander, The Salvation Army, United States
Rev. David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World
Dr. Peter Borgdorff, Executive Director of Ministries, Christian Reformed Church
The Right Rev. John Bryson Chane, D.D., Bishop, The Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C
Rt. Rev. Philip R. Cousin, Sr., Senior Bishop, African Methodist Episcopal Church
Rev. R. Randy Day, General Secretary of Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church
Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches USA
Rabbi Jerome M. Epstein, Executive Vice President, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Mr. Joseph Flannigan, National President, Society of St. Vincent De Paul
Mr. Bob Forney, President and CEO, America's Second Harvest: The Nation's Food Bank Network
Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary, Reformed Church of America
The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church, USA
Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Rev. Dr. Stan Hastey, Executive Director, Alliance of Baptists
Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim Chaplain, Georgetown University
Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)
Dr. Jan Love, Deputy General Secretary, United Methodist Women's Division
Ms. Joanne Lyon, Executive Director, Baptist World Aid
His Eminence Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Catholic Archbishop of Washington D.C.
Rev. Brian D. McLaren, Founding Pastor/Minister-at-large, Cedar Ridge Community Church
Ms. Mary Ellen McNish, General Secretary, American Friends Service Committee
Rev. Dr. Roy Medley, General Secretary, American Baptist Churches USA
Mr. Paul Montacute, Director, Baptist World Aid
Dr. Glenn R. Palmberg, President, Evangelical Covenant Church
Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank, President, Rabbinical Assembly
Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick III, The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Bishop Monroe Saunders, Jr., Presiding Bishop, United Church of Jesus Christ, Apostolic
H. Eric Schockman, PhD, President, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
Dr. Carl Sheingold, Executive Vice-President, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
Dr. Ronald J. Sider, President, Evangelicals for Social Action
Rev. Dr. John Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ
Dr. Daniel Vestal, Coordinator, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
Sister Christine Vladimiroff, President, Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Bishop George Walker, Senior Bishop, A.M.E. Zion Church
Rev. Jim Wallis, Convener, Call to Renewal and Editor, Sojourners
Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Mr. Jim Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President, Union of Reform Judaism

Wash yourselves; makes yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. - Isaiah 1:16-17 (NRSV)

The president has been on television this morning defending his Iraq policy. It is safe to say that most people – in the United States and across the globe – now see his invasion as both unjustified and a failure. Christians world-wide have spoken out clearly and often against America’s war in Iraq.

In May, religious leaders wrote the President and Congress with this message:

First, our nation entered into the war on false pretense and fear and violated international law. Religious leaders from every faith tradition opposed the preemptive war on the people of Iraq because of half-truths, our administration's haste to make war, and the reckless abandonment of democratic processes. The facts remain clear and evidential. After over two years, there has been no discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and there was no Iraqi connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

Second, the continued presence of American troops in Iraq only heightens the risk to the newly formed and fragile government of Iraq. The rising insurgency in post-election Iraq is a symptom of the occupation. The over 1500 U.S. casualties and over 15,000 injured American soldiers combined with the innumerable Iraqi lives lost and destroyed continue to bring dishonor to the precious name of democracy.

Third, against this backdrop of violence and manipulation, the current federal budget, with its cuts in social programs and attempt to privatize Social Security while increasing tax breaks that reward the wealthiest citizens, represents a domestic war on the poor and middle class. This budget supports the dual violence of war, which is the use of resources to kill abroad while depleting social programs at home. We raise this concern for justice for the poor of the world as one great unifying theme in the religions of the world which call for those in power to care for the most vulnerable among us.

Those who signed the letter called for an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. “It is with our faith in a higher power and our traditions of religious dissent that we strongly urge our government to honor the voice of the faithful and bring our troops home now. Out of our faith commitments, we will continue to speak out about the immorality of the war and occupation of Iraq,” they wrote. (Disclaimer: I was one of the original signers of the letter).

You can read the full text here.

Many religious people – including folks from the United Church of Christ (my denomination) – will be participating in a major march on Washington this weekend in the hope of continuing to draw attention to this administration’s moral failures in Iraq. Christian denominations continue to be nearly united in their opposition to the president’s actions. Don’t let the political activists on the religious right tell you otherwise.

A new blog – Street Prophets – has opened up for business. It has been put together by The Rev. Dan Schultz, a United Church of Christ minister, and is built on the same model as Daily Kos. I’ll be one of the writers and encourage you to drop by. Over 1400 people have already registered to participate on the site and I’ve made my first contribution.

Even before Hurricane Katrina the Bush economic policies had driven up poverty rates in America and turned an inherited national budget surplus into the nation’s largest budget deficits. The president’s war in Iraq, one made under false pretenses, and tax cuts for the richest Americans have been the heart of the economic problem we face. Now the nation is set to cut taxes millionaires – again – despite the fiscal crisis we all face.

The non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports:

Even before Hurricane Katrina, large deficits were projected far into the future, with the nation’s debt burden ultimately swelling to unsustainable levels. The relief and recovery from Hurricane Katrina is estimated to cost $100 billion to $200 billion, adding to the nation’s mounting debt. Debate has now begun about whether in the face of these costs and the grim long-term fiscal outlook, some belt-tightening and “shared sacrifice” are in order.

The budget reconciliation bills that Congress is slated to consider this fall will not help. Taken together, the two bills will increase deficits by more than $35 billion over five years. Under these bills, $35 billion in cuts in programs such as Medicaid and food stamps will be used not to reduce the deficit, but to offset a portion of the $70 billion that the reconciliation tax-cut bill will cost.

On September 16, President Bush said further budget cuts will be needed. The Administration presumably intends these cuts to come primarily in domestic programs. One obvious step, however, is being overlooked: Two tax cuts enacted in 2001 that are not yet in effect — and will only start taking effect on January 1 — could be reconsidered as a way of helping to defray some of the costs of Katrina relief and recovery. These two tax cuts will benefit only high-income households (primarily millionaires), will do little for the economy beyond further increasing the deficit, and were not even requested by President Bush in the first place. (They were added by Congress.)

The highly respected Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center reports that households with incomes of more than $1 million a year — the richest 0.2 percent of the U.S. population — already are receiving tax cuts averaging $103,000 this year, before these two new tax cuts take effect. The Tax Policy Center finds that the two tax-cut measures in question will give these “millionaires” nearly another $20,000 a year in tax cuts, when the measures are phased in fully.

This raises the question of whether the nation should proceed with these tax cuts at a time when many Katrina survivors remain in difficult straits, when huge sums are being discussed for Katrina relief and recovery, and when cuts in domestic programs — including programs for the poor — are slated for Congressional consideration this fall as part of the reconciliation bills.

Click here to read more.

Eliminating these tax cuts for millionaires will not fix our entire economic picture – only a complete reversal of the president’s failed economic policies will do that – but this would be an important start.

Related Post:  Would Jesus Pass Tax Cuts For The Rich And Leave The Least Of These Behind?

There is growing concern among religious leaders, public policy makers, and anti-poverty advocates that the Bush Administration has chosen a path in the Gulf Coast region that puts ideological allegiance to right-wing political goals ahead of relief. These concerns are mostly embodied in controversial social programs advanced by the administration (not to mention tax policies). It seems clear that this administration – which has witnessed poverty and hunger climb under their watch – is on a path to failure that will result in further harm to our nation. The Center for American Progress is tracking this disaster in the making:

KATRINA
Ideology Over People

The Bush administration turned Iraq into an ideological playground for right-wing economic policies. The results were disastrous. Now, as the people of the Gulf Coast face their own critical reconstruction needs, the White House plans more of the same. The Wall Street Journal reports the administration and its allies are plotting to use "relief measures for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf coast to achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond." Rep. Rahm Emanuel summed it up nicely: "They're going back to the playbook on issues like tort reform, school vouchers and freeing business from environmental rules to achieve ideological objectives they haven't been able to get in the normal legislative process." The victims of Hurricane Katrina deserve better.

“SEPARATE BUT EQUAL” EDUCATION: The Wall Street Journal reports that Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will ask Congress to waive a federal law that bans educational segregation for homeless children. The Bush administration is arguing, along with states like Utah and Texas, that providing schooling for evacuees – who, in this case, are likened to homeless children – will be disruptive to public school systems, so they want to have sound legal backing for creating separate educational facilities for the 372,000 schoolchildren displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The State of Mississippi is opposed to waiving the Act because it argues the law helps evacuees enroll in schools without red tape.

LOWER WAGES FOR HURRICANE RECOVERY CONSTRUCTION WORKERS: On Sept. 8, 2005, President Bush suspended application of the Davis-Bacon Act, a federal law governing workers’ pay on federal contracts in the Hurricane Katrina-damaged areas. According to the Washington Post, the Act “sets a minimum pay scale for workers on federal contracts by requiring contractors to pay the prevailing or average pay in the region. Suspension of the act will allow contractors to pay lower wages.” Congressman George Miller (D-CA) said, “In effect, President Bush is saying that people should be paid less than $9 an hour to rebuild their communities.”

LOWER WAGES FOR HURRICANE RECOVERY SERVICE WORKERS: The Washington Post reports, “the White House was working yesterday to suspend wage supports for service workers in the hurricane zone as it did for construction workers on federal contracts last week.” The article notes that anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist “is among those lobbying the White House to suspend wage supports for service workers in the hurricane zone.”

LIMITING ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH CARE: Medicaid, “the federal-state health program for the poor[,] has emerged as the main way to provide medical coverage for many evacuees.” But the Journal reports that the “White House appears cool to any expansion” of Medicaid for Katrina survivors, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was “not convinced” it was needed. “To me, each day that passes without us knowing … exactly what the Medicaid relief package is going to include is adversely affecting not only our state … but other states who are getting our evacuees,” said J. Ruth Kennedy, deputy director of Louisiana’s Medicaid program, which provided health care to one-quarter of the state’s population before the hurricane.

THE GHETTOIZATION OF KATRINA VICTIMS: There are hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and need housing. The victims of Hurricane Katrina could be given housing vouchers so they could rent apartments and integrate with the rest of society. But Section 8 housing vouchers, a program that was started by Richard Nixon, doesn't fit in with the Bush administration's ideological agenda. Instead, the Bush administration is planning to build giant trailer parks. The Washington Post reports, "Mobile-home manufacturers, responding to pleas from FEMA, are adding shifts for workers to supply tens of thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes." The administration is also "considering converting many of the nation's retired steel shipping containers into temporary mini-housing units."

THERE IS A BETTER WAY: The reconstruction and recovery of the Gulf Coast should be guided by commonsense policies that benefit people, not just political movements. American Progress has some ideas: 1) Guarantee adequate health care to all of Katrina’s victims by expanding the Disaster Relief Medicaid program; 2)Integrate the Gulf’s poor—residentially, economically, and otherwise by expanding Section 8 housing and improving mass transit; 3) Maximize employment of Katrina victims in reconstruction projects and provide training; and 4) Stop disaster profiteering through independent oversight and vigorous enforcement of laws against price gouging by oil companies, gas stations, and financial institutions.

Reposted from Disaster News Network - written by Heather Moyer

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (September 20, 2005) —
The threat of a huge negative environmental fallout in the South after Hurricane Katrina is very high, say some environmental groups.

To Derek Malek-Wiley, an environmental justice organizer with the Sierra Club in Louisiana, the health risks from the contaminated water, soil and air are not being taken seriously enough.

"The (Environmental Protection Agency) monitoring is inadequate," said Malek-Wiley, who is also a resident of New Orleans. "The concern is that this is not the first time we've seen something like this happen - this is like Sept. 11."

Residents and workers in New York City are still dealing with health issues due to the toxins in the air after Sept. 11. Community groups are still arguing with the EPA over proper clean-up methods for buildings that the community organizers say were never cleaned properly in the first place.

"Four years down the road - are we going have an outbreak of disease traced back to this?" said Malek-Wiley, continuing the comparison to post-Sept. 11 issues. "There are a whole range of public health issues that are not being adequately addressed. It's tough because there's a desire to get back home and get back to business, but it's so strong that environmental and health concerns are being put to the side."

The picture being painted by the EPA is one of a contaminated region. More than 19,400 "orphan" containers of household hazardous waste have been collected. Some 44 oil spills have been found by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Officials from the EPA say they are doing all they can. The EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality are monitoring air, water and soil contamination around New Orleans. Last week the EPA collected air samples around New Orleans to test for pollutants like benzene, toluene and xylene. According to an EPA news release about the sampling, "These screening data were evaluated against the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) air short-term health standards in order to provide an initial assessment of air quality. The screening results indicated that chemical concentrations in most areas are below ATSDR health standards of concern."

The EPA sampling also found higher levels of those chemicals in the air near the oil spill at the Murphy Oil facility in Chalmette, and the release states that "These initial results represent the beginning of extensive sampling efforts and do not represent all air conditions throughout the area. As this is a dynamic situation, general conclusions should not be made regarding air safety based on results from this snapshot of data."

That statement in itself angers Malek-Wiley, who says it points to the exact problem. "The contamination is hard to quantify. The EPA talks about its sampling program, but when you take a sample it's just from that time and place. What we need is a movie of what's going on throughout New Orleans."

He is also concerned that there is no sampling plan talking about how the contamination hazards are modified by being trapped in sediment. Another news release from the EPA discusses 18 sediment samples taken last week in New Orleans:

"Preliminary results indicate that some sediment may be contaminated with bacteria and fuel oils and human health risks therefore exist from contact with sediment deposited from receding flood waters. E. coli was deteced in sediment samples but no standards exist for determining human health risks from E. coli in soil or sediment. The presence of E. coli, however, does imply the presence of fecal bacteria and exposure to sediment should therefore be limited if possible."

The same release states that some semi-volatile organic compounds such as diesel and fuel oil "were detected at elevated levels and may persist in the environment," and then lists numerous possible health effects from coming in contact with or breathing in such compounds - such as peeling skin and increased blood pressure. Long-term effects from breathing in fuel vapor include kidney damage and lowering the blood's ability to clot.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced on Sept. 15 that it "would be coordinating technical support for federal responder and federal contractor safety and health during cleanup and recovery operations along the Gulf Coast of the United States."

Yet under the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) recently activated Worker Safety and Health Support Annex of the National Response Plan, that leaves state and local governments responsible for their own workers during the cleanup. According to a U.S. Department of Labor document on the Worker Safety and Health Support Annex:

"Private-sector and Federal employers are responsible for the safety and health of their own employees. State and local governments are responsible for worker health and safety pursuant to State and local statutes, and in some cases...Worker Protection. This responsibility includes allocating sufficient resources for safety and health programs, training staff, purchasing protective clothing and equipment as needed, and correcting unsafe or unsanitary conditions."

An OSHA spokesperson said local and state governments can apply to OSHA and FEMA for money to support the cleanup if it is necessary. Yet people like Malek-Wiley remain worried about a unified response from all agencies involved. Will the emergency workers and the public be properly protected?

"The scale of the environmental health catastrophe just keeps growing," he said. "I think there are a lot more questions than answers as far as what people's risks are going to be and how this will impact folks. Should there be a warning for pregnant women in the city? People and health officials don't know. The guys down there working to clean it all up - what kind of training do they have and what is their protective gear? Are they just wearing jeans and waders? There are all sorts of occupational exposures we need to worry about. There are so many unknowns that I think we need to be better safe than sorry."

As far as moving back into the affected areas across the Gulf Coast, another issue residents must face is drinking water. The EPA and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals are assessing and monitoring the drinking water systems. According to the EPA, more than 490 drinking water systems are now operational and 26 drinking water systems are operating with boil water advisories.

For those with wells, the potential contamination may be a daunting foe. In Mississippi, the state department of environmental quality is urging all residents in flooded regions to have their wells tested for contamination.

The National Ground Water Association (NGWA) is issuing well disinfecting guides to local governments and the public. Cliff Treyens, the director of public awarness for the NGWA, said residents need to be vigilant and remove all contaminated water from their wells.

"When flooded water gets into the well, the well then becomes a pathway for that contaminated water to get into the aquifer," he said. "It's like a sponge, and then it's there."

That is why it is so important for residents to pump water from their wells until the water is clear, Treyens said. He added that almost all methods of killing the bacteria within wells also include chlorinating the entire well system of one's residence.

Treyens said he's not as worried about contaminated soil affecting groundwater. "The ground actually filters the water. So by the time the water reaches an aquifer, if it's sufficiently deep, the ground has filtered out and broken down a lot of the bacterial elements and even chemical contaminants if it's deep enough."

Many NGWA members are signing up via a national professional services volunteer registry to go into the hurricane affected regions and assist the public and local governments, added Treyens. "We'll also be looking at other potential responses for our organization."

Posted September 20, 2005 4:10 PM

The big reason for my trip back to Portland was to take my ordination exam before the Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ’s committee on ministry. Before taking the exam candidates for ministry must write a rather large paper explaining their theology, grasp of UCC polity, and explaining their understanding of ministry. The exam takes place near or at the completion of seminary and after all other references and related materials have been collected and reviewed. A committee of ordained clergy and lay leaders conduct the exam (which is really more like a one-hour interview). You can read more on the process – if interested – by downloading the UCC Manual on Ministry (a PDF file).

The good news is that I received word this morning from our conference minister that the committee will be recommending that I be ordained pending a call to ministry.

That recommendation is now sent to an ecclesiastical council. This council, which will represent a larger group of people in the Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ, will review the decision of the committee on ministry, hear a presentation from me and ask questions, and will then make a final determination as to whether or not I get ordained. The ecclesiastical council may be called as early as next month.

Being back in Portland also afforded me the time to meet with Mayor Tom Potter and tour the center where Katrina evacuees are being processed in Oregon. The mayor and I had a good discussion about poverty in the Multnomah County area. I continue to be impressed with how on top of things he and is staff are. The work at the Katrina center, which is being coordinated through several governmental and non-profit agencies, was also impressive.  Dona Bolt, Oregon's homeless education coordinator, arranged the tour.

Of course, being back in the Northwest also gave me the chance to visit with many of my family and friends.

The trip home was not so great.

This map shows how my flight should have gone:

This map shows the actual route taken:

My flight should have landed in the early afternoon on Monday.  But I actually arrived after 2:30 am this morning.  Delta is getting another really nasty letter from me.

But I'll leave you with a happier photo of some of my family and friends.

This was from a nice dinner party at my mother's.

We're looking forward to being back in Portland in October and moving back for good in December.

You can now download the sermon that I delivered this Sunday at Portland's First Congregational United Church of Christ here:

Download ChuckCurrieSermononPhilippians.m4a

(click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose “Save Target As” and save to your desktop or other folder – once downloaded click on the file to listen).

You can listen to the audio on your computer or IPod. 

The sermon was based on Philippians 1:21-30.

For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well—since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

It was nice to see so many friends at the service.  Jay Hunt, The Rev. Dana Brown, Pat Williams, Misty Williams, Diane Penny, The Rev. Clifford Droke, Loyd Hubbard, Richard Meyer, Mollie Copeland and Christine Paul were among the many friends of mine who joined in with the congregation.  My mother, grandfather, step-father, twin sisters and nephews were all there as well.

It was a special treat to meet all the family members behind the blog Bean Anderson (they even have a nice picture of us all up on their site).

Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., President of the National Council of Churches USA and Christian Methodist Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana and Mississippi, has issued the following response to President Bush's address to the nation:

It is commendable for President Bush to apologize for the mistakes made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We welcome his pledge to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We celebrate his promise to address the injustices that were so profoundly exposed by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans.

Both his apology and his promises will help us move forward as a nation. Yet, as his sisters and brothers in faith, we feel it is our duty to remind the President that an apology and promises will only go so far. Now, as a nation, we must acknowledge that this crisis has only exposed what lies just beneath the surface of prosperity and progress in this country. In America, we have a past that haunts us on every level of our existence. We now see all too clearly that a person's race and class can often determine whether or not you are left behind in the Super Dome or escorted to safety.

As we look beyond the President's welcome candor, we must now look to our government and to the private sector for a long-term change in behavior that recognizes and corrects the glaring inequities of American society in housing, jobs and wages, health care and education -- the list is long and growing. Disaster relief and rescue must go beyond the flooded streets of New Orleans and reach into the desperate lives of the millions in poverty across our land -- a disproportionate number of whom are African American.

Today, we stand on the threshold of what is a great opportunity. It is an opportunity to become the America that we have always dreamed of being. It is an opportunity to become the America that Martin Luther King, Jr. so vividly portrayed in his "I Have A Dream" speech more than 40 years ago. It is an opportunity to stop making empty promises, to practice what we preach, to walk what we talk. It is way beyond overdue that America treats all its citizens as full participants in the economic and educational and cultural mainstream. We may have come to America on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now.

In our rush to repair the levees and restore the neighborhoods of the Gulf Coast, let us not continue the injustices -- and yes, the sins of omission and commission -- of the past. Let us not continue to allow children to be left behind by under-funded school systems and inadequate healthcare. Let us not continue to allow poor people to live in neighborhoods that are environmental hazards. Let us not continue to allow honest, hardworking people to work for less than livable wages.

The Book of Nehemiah (2:18) records that the people of Israel, seeing that Jerusalem was destroyed, said, "Let us rise up and build. Then they set their hands to this good work." As the Bishop of the Fourth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church presiding over Mississippi and Louisiana and as the President of the National Council of Churches USA, I say to you: Let us rise up and build! How we respond as a nation to this crisis can be the beginning of a new era of progress, prosperity and promise for a new America that will be true to its spiritual and ethical values and worthy of its leadership among the nations.

The National Council of Churches is composed of 35 member churches in the USA representing a wide spectrum of Orthodox, mainline, Episcopalian, historic African American and peace churches. The membership of these churches includes 45 million Americans.

One of those speaking today before the US Senate Judiciary Committee concerning the nomination of John Roberts was The Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlewaite, president of the United Church of Christ related Chicago Theological Seminary.  Her testimony follows:

Statement of
The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Ph.D.
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The Nomination of John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States

My name is Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and I am President and Professor of Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary. My academic training is in historical theology. My teaching and writing has emphasized contemporary religious life with particular attention to religion and social justice. It is an honor to be asked to give testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Constitution’s Promise

Our Constitution’s promises -- such as the right to live free of tyranny and be able to worship freely -- are generous, even extravagant promises. They are promises made after freedom had been won from tyranny, a tyranny both political and ecclesiastical. They are promises made to the best of the human spirit as created by God.

A Supreme Court Justice entrusted to interpret the Constitution must embrace the fundamental element of our democracy—we will strive to be a body politic rooted in justice and fairness for all citizens. A Justice trusted to interpret the Constitution must understand that the prohibition of any establishment of religion and the protection of the free exercise of religion are particularly critical to the way in which this Constitution promises to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility… promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

Based on his writings available to the public, John Roberts holds a very limited view of the Constitutional protection of religious liberty and an exceptionally permissive view of religious establishment. John Roberts sees a very small arena for the protection of the individual from tyranny including a rejection of a fundamental right to privacy and a very expansive view of the role of presidential power and law enforcement authority. In short, John Roberts’ views seem not to reflect the deep and broad promise of the Constitution, but to risk, in fact permit the very tyranny over the individual’s freedoms that the framers who wrote the Constitution most feared.

The Promise of the Constitution in the Thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Few Americans have understood the promises inherent in our Constitution better than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The life and work of Dr. King have had a formative impact on my life. I was present as a teenager on the mall when Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and while there almost by accident, it moved me and taught me. I have learned two fundamental lessons from Dr. King. One is that as a Christian it is not enough to talk the talk. You have to the walk the walk. Christianity is not just peppering your speech with a frequent “Amen” or even “Lord”. If you can’t love your neighbor as yourself, you are no kind of a person of faith.

The second thing I learned from Dr. King is how to be a citizen, indeed, even how to be a patriot. The true patriot wants her or his country to be a shining example to the world of what a community can and should be, what Dr. King called “the Beloved Community.” And when your country stumbles or fails to realize the Beloved Community, then the patriot speaks up and speaks out and witnesses to that fact, no matter what the cost.

Dr. King, in his “I Have a Dream” speech, was able, as few before or since, to reach into our Constitutional past and proclaim the deep sense of the words.

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory to which every American was to fall heir.”

King argued that so far this promissory note to African Americans had been returned “insufficient funds.” But the promise held. This promise for King was then a dream, but not a fantasy. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

Dr. King’s speech on the Mall is a solemn word of judgment on those who would interpret our Constitution in too specific or even narrow ways when it comes to the duty of the state to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty for all Americans. Prophetic religion proclaims, “Justice shall roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”. The rushing river of justice cannot be parsed out by our Supreme Court justices in little droplets. It is not enough to be merely correct in interpreting our founding document. We must hold any candidate for the Supreme Court to the test of the Constitution’s promise as King interprets it.

Like the framers of the Constitution, who were writing out of their own experience of resistance to tyranny, Dr. King’s experience was with the tyranny of racism. This is certainly one reason why he was able to understand both the depths from which come the Constitution’s promise to America, and its reach toward the stars.

The Framers of the Constitution Prohibited Establishment of Religion and Protected the Free Exercise of Religion for Theological Reasons

Dr. King’s vision, as is well known, was a deeply theological vision. It is less well known that the framers of the Constitution also drew on a theological vision and that their prohibition of the establishment of any religion and their insistence on the protection of the free exercise of religion was made for religious reasons.

The popular debate uses the “founding fathers” on both sides of any specific controversy on what are called separation of church and state issues. Those who vigorously oppose any perceived breach in the separation of church and state understand the authors of the Constitution as secularists and revolutionaries who established a nation on the concept of liberty, including not only freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. These strict separationists see religion as a threat to the secular sphere and the individual freedom from religious control that a secular public life entails. On the other hand, those who want to lower the bar in the separation of church and state debates also cite the founders in support of their position. They argue that the founders were not “secularists” who wished to keep religion locked away from public life. As is so often the case, there is truth on both sides of this argument.

The thought of John Locke, on whose work “founding fathers” such as Thomas Jefferson drew, is instructive. Locke, like others in the 17th century, had seen the terrible results of religious wars as Catholics and Protestants struggled for power in England. At first Locke was dubious about the capacity of human reason to provide the bulwark against the terrible abuses that result when “Priest and Prince” are combined. But his own faith led him finally to believe that it is only in the absolute protection of human civil society from any control by religious authorities that people are enabled to come to have faith in God. He paid a high personal cost for challenging the abusive power of the religious state, as he had to flee to Holland to escape execution for treason.

It was, therefore, for a theological reason, not a secular one that Locke and the American founders who drew on his work separated church and state and prohibited establishing one religion over any others. In that way, they protected religious freedom. Locke believed that people could only come to know God under the conditions of absolute freedom from any state control of their consciences. All state control gives you, argued Locke, is the “sin of hypocrisy, and contempt of his divine majesty.”

Locke made this simple point: ‘God doesn’t need the help of the state for there to be faith.’ Also, Locke and the framers of the U.S. Constitution were deeply and profoundly suspicious of the motives of those who wanted to bring religious and state control together. Locke notes “how easily the pretence of religion, and of the care of souls, serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and ambition.”

The Framers’ Construct—The Prohibition of Establishment of Religion and the Free Exercise of Religion—Have Stood the Test of Time

From our vantage point in the twenty-first century we can see that the framers were right. They did not just protect political freedom. They protected religious freedom. It is no accident that the United States through all of its history so far has been free from the terrible effects of religious war. The framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing. Don’t merge religion and the state.

This has recently been said with great acumen by retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. As she wrote in a concurring opinion last term, “At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. Americans attend their places of worship more often than do citizens of other developed nations, and describe religion as playing an especially important role in their lives. Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” McCreary County v ACLU, 125 S. CT. 2722, 2746 (2005).

The Prophetic and Progressive Faith Traditions

It is helpful for the health of our political life to realize that some people can vigorously object to any attempt to merge religion and the state from deeply held religious conviction. Those who point out the remarkable danger to American society from tendencies to merge religion and the state are not by definition “faithless secularists” or “liberal ideologues”.

The faith communities who vigorously defend separation of church and state, who oppose any establishment of religion and who vigorously protect the free exercise of religion are a diverse group. Some may best be described as “progressives,” while others could be called “the prophetic.”

The Progressive Faith community is, in large part, the most direct heir to the religious perspectives that informed thinkers such as Locke. Progressive people of faith have roots in the European Enlightenment and in the Protestant movement in Christianity. The root word of “Protestant” is “protest” and the protest was, in part, against the temporal power wielded by the Catholic Church of the 16th century.

These movements were responsible for inventing a concept called the “secular,” a place in social life where organized religion does not hold absolute authority. It is the invention of this sphere of “worldliness” (the root of the word “secular” being the Latin for world) that gave rise to the political philosophy that informs the framers of the American Constitution. Subsequently, other religions have brought their faith traditions into the modern era and similarly defined a “world” where government holds sway. Reformed Judaism and Vatican II Catholicism are examples of this.

Progressive people of faith come from many religious traditions today. They share a commitment to the use of reason in human affairs, the duty of religious people to help create a just society and they believe that religious freedom and pluralism are religious and social goods.

The Prophetic faith traditions are also opposed to any infringement on the free exercise of religion and to any breach in the separation of church and state. Prophetic faith traditions often draw significantly on the spirit and want the church and the state to be separate because the latter is not spiritual.

Among the Prophetic faith traditions, African American Christianity, in particular, is very clear about both religious freedom and separation of church and state. African American Christianity was born under horrific state abuses of the individual rights of kidnapped and enslaved African people that were not only legal under American law, but also most often sanctified by the dominant churches. Enslaved African people were prevented, sometimes violently, from practicing their African religious faith and from forming independent Christian churches. This historical experience has given African American Christianity a very healthy skepticism about the dangers of merging religion and political authority and a deep conviction that both need to be constantly held accountable to the demands of true justice.

Jewish Americans contribute to this same perspective out of their experience of the Holocaust and underline that the systematic kidnapping, torture, and extermination of millions and millions of people was legal under the laws of Germany. Nuremberg has established that too narrow a reading of what is “legal” can profoundly betray the duty of the nation state to the claims of transcendent justice. Moreover, the American Jewish experience has been one of the flourishing of Jewish life due to the protections of religious liberty in the United States (though this has not always been perfectly observed by all citizens).

The women’s movement in the United States blends elements of both the Progressive and the Prophetic traditions. Nineteenth and twentieth century American women had to counter strong, even virulent, opposition from churches to have their right to vote recognized. To this day, American women do not have an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution due, in part, to vocal opposition from the religious quarter in the latter part of the twentieth century.

Together the Progressive and the Prophetic faith communities are united in the view that any move to privilege one religion over another and to blur the lines that separate the power of religion and the power of the state is to run a grave risk of damaging both religion and the state. It is an oft-repeated phrase, but one that is particularly apt in relationship to the effect of merging religion and politics, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Adherence to Religious Freedom Principles in the First Amendment is Critical in a Pluralistic Society

It might seem contradictory that while as a nation we are more religiously pluralistic than ever before, we see contemporary efforts by some to establish the doctrines of only one religion, Christianity, and indeed only of part of Christianity, as social policy. The strenuous objections to embryonic stem cell research, for example, are directly based on a particular religious conviction that the human soul is made present by God at the time of conception and that the newly fertilized embryo is ensouled .

When we look more closely, however, this is not as contradictory as it seems. While the Constitution protected religious freedom, our culture has been functionally Protestant since its beginning. In the 19th century, public school children were taught from readers that were patently a tutorial in the Protestant faith. Catholic immigrants in the 19th century formed their own parochial schools because they correctly perceived that this so-called public education was in truth nothing short of indoctrination in Protestantism.

What has become evident in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first is that our society is becoming more genuinely religiously pluralistic. The Harvard “Pluralism Project” has documented this astonishing growth of religious pluralism. As Dr. Diana Eck writes in her widely praised book A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), “there are now more Muslims than Episcopalians, Jews or Presbyterians” in the United States.

Such increasing religious pluralism calls for even greater vigilance both in protecting religious minorities and clearly avoiding even the appearance of the establishment of any particular religion.

John Roberts and the Supreme Court

It is critical that the Supreme Court be particularly vigilant in these times of vast religious change to maintain our national protections of freedom of religion and to resist any weakening of the vast body of legal precedent prohibiting various forms of religious establishment.

In the limited documents available to discern John Roberts’ views, there is evidence that his judicial posture is toward more permissiveness in religious establishment and is less than vigorous in the defense of religious minorities and their freedoms.

It is clear that as a member of the court and especially as Chief Justice, John Roberts is in a position to significantly influence whether the court remains consistent on establishment and free exercise or whether there will be a profound change that would greatly increase the government’s endorsement of specific religion(s) and limit the rights of religious minorities. There are currently three justices of the Supreme Court who have consistently attempted to change the way the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court for decades (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas. Chief Justice Rehnquist was of a similar view; Justice O’Connor has been the fifth vote for the majority coming to a contrary result.

As Deputy Solicitor General, John Roberts co-authored two briefs urging the overruling of Lemon v. Kurtzman. The viewpoint expressed is that there should be no limit on government endorsement or support of religion as long as there is no coerced participation. In Lee v Weisman, for example, the government made the argument that clergy should be allowed to offer invocation and benediction prayers as part of a public school’s official graduation ceremony because it did not “establish any religion nor coerce non-adherents to participate in any religion or religious exercise against their will.” This seems a very severe interpretation of “coercion,” since parents and other family attending graduation services really are trapped in their seats and forced to listen to prayers perhaps not of their own tradition to see their child or relation graduate. One can be coerced without the actual use of force. In a related fashion, in the Reagan administration, John Roberts approved a speech by Education Secretary Bill Bennett criticizing Supreme Court decisions barring religion in schools as antithetical to “the preservation of a free society.”

In an increasingly religiously pluralistic society, these are particularly egregious positions to have taken since there is an absence of sensitivity to the fact that prayer at public school functions or including religion in schools will inevitably violate right of religious minorities to equal treatment.

John Roberts has, in more than one of the distributed documents, referred to the “so-called right to privacy” and has indicated his view that “arguing we have such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution.” This is a source of concern to me as well. Women have benefited greatly from the protection of the right to privacy in reproductive rights. Furthermore, Roberts’ aversion to the right of privacy, if reflected in future rulings of the Court, of course, would have adverse affects well beyond the arena of reproductive rights. We are, for example, experiencing a dramatic increase in medical technologies and their use to artificially prolong life. Should the American family have the right to privacy in decisions affecting medical procedures used on their loved ones, or will we see this privacy eroded and the government allowed to legally interfere?

Advocates of his nomination tend to dismiss concerns regarding Judge Roberts’ narrow judicial interpretations, including those just discussed, as consistent with a man who has a preference for specific and narrow interpretations of the law.

Disturbingly, however, Judge Roberts’ narrowness only runs in one direction – a direction that undercuts the promises Dr. King understood to be inherent in our Constitution. The rejection of affirmative action because it is not “related to curing any violation of the law” is typical and illustrative. “Under our view of the law it is not enough to say that blacks and women have been historically discriminated against as groups are therefore entitled to special preferences.” The idea that the redress for historic patterns of systematic, even structural discrimination is “special” and “preferential” indicates a clear unwillingness to consider how a society may become just where injustice has long reigned.

But while narrow and specific interpretation is applied to those who have suffered discrimination, there is also a pattern of an expansion of both the authority of the President and law enforcement. Judge Roberts, for example, joined a D.C. Circuit decision adopting the Bush administration’s position that detainees designated as “enemy combatants” could be tried before military commissions without basic procedural safeguards, that the Geneva Convention was unenforceable in U.S. Courts and in any case did not apply to these detainees. Given the multiple sources of indisputable evidence of mistreatment and even torture of these detainees, this is alarming in the extreme and bodes ill for this country and its moral health.
Furthermore, when on the bench Judge Roberts rejected several significant claims of improper search and seizure, demonstrating an expansive view of the authority of law enforcement. This is a source of concern in one who would now be nominated to interpret the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Conclusion

The Constitution is a document that sought to implement a vision of fundamental rights, a vision of a society such as none in human history had seen before. This is both a profoundly human vision that has as its source the rise of the human spirit in the Enlightenment, but has another and more profound source, the notion that certain fundamental human rights are endowed by the Creator and that no authority of any kind has the right to overturn them.

Our legislatures are subject to the polarizations of politics and the pressures of special interest groups. To whom can we turn then to care for the “fundamentals” of the vision of this Constitution to “establish Justice,” “promote the general welfare”, and secure the “Blessings of Liberty” than, as the Constitution provides, that “one supreme Court”?

I have certainly been impressed with the incisive mind of John Roberts. That is a necessary but not sufficient credential for Chief Justice. I ask you to inquire about his passion for justice, his care for the general welfare and his concern to secure the blessings of liberty for all Americans. I ask you to inquire whether he believes in the dream that is the United States of America.

Article from Church World Service:

NEW YORK – As the country continues to question to what degree race and class were reflected in slow federal response to Katrina’s desperate and dying victims in New Orleans, the Executive Director of humanitarian agency Church World Service claims race and poverty both were factors, decries blaming of the victims, and says poverty and class must be considered in "meaningful long-range recovery."

Appearing on MSNBC's "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann on Sunday (Sept 11), humanitarian agency Church World Service Executive Director Rev. John L. McCullough stated, "No doubt race is an important factor in the Gulf Coast . . . but class is also a critical factor.

"As we looked at Katrina," McCullough said, "we were concerned about people of color," but McCullough said the debate now should be focused "more broadly on poverty and class."

McCullough, an African American, said New Orleanian survivors were "people victimized by the authorities" who had failed to "use the resources at their disposal."

He said the way governmental responses have unfolded "give us an opportunity to see whether the government acts as a safety net," which McCullough said should be the case but didn’t happen quickly enough with Katrina.

McCullough said, however, that the disaster has "reopened to discussion the issues of race and poverty in a positive way. This should help us as Americans to look at the responsibility of one for the other," he said, and "our expectations of government."

Today, McCullough says, "It's absolutely necessary that we as a nation pay attention to the issues of class, of poverty, in how we now turn to the long-term recovery of the Gulf Coast region and Katrina’s survivors.

"The way we assist Katrina’s most vulnerable survivors in rebuilding their lives over the long haul will be a litmus test--and can be a model--of how we must proceed as a nation in closing the gaping divide in this country.

"The world is watching us," he said. McCullough visited Louisiana days after Katrina struck and after the flooding of New Orleans, performing early assessment for CWS's response and to rescue members of his own family who had been in New Orleans.

McCullough says CWS is focusing on long-term recovery for the Gulf Coast and now bringing the agency’s experience in international refugee resettlement to bear to assist those hurricane evacuees who want to or have resettled elsewhere, "to help make sure that these doubly traumatized citizens are not forgotten as a class."

CWS is the only agency responding to the Katrina disaster that has both an international and domestic emergency response unit and a refugee and resettlement unit.

Global CWS's expanded efforts for this unprecedented U.S. disaster include responding to meet immediate needs, organizing for long-term recovery at multiple faith community levels, and addressing assistance to relocated individuals across the country.

The agency’s particular focus is on long-term recovery assistance for vulnerable populations.

CWS Responders in Gulf Coast Coordinating Long-term Recovery Planning

Church World Service disaster responders are now in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to support and help formulate long-term responses and assist in establishing new community-based long-term recovery organizations that will in turn provide local, hands-on support to survivors with unmet needs.

In Louisiana, as part of a five-person disaster response team, CWS’s Lura Cayton is coordinating a coalition of state ecumenical bodies and inviting smaller denominations to participate jointly in long-term recovery programs.

In Houston, Church World Service disaster responder Heriberto Martinez reports that CWS is collaborating with Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston in its Neighbors 2 Neighbors program to help newly arriving evacuees who will resettle in the Houston area.

Of the thousands of evacuees still in Houston’s Astrodome many are ill, elderly, or mentally ill--and many have been off medications since the hurricane and flooding of New Orleans.

Martinez is visiting volunteers and evacuees staying at the Astrodome to assist in responding to immediate needs and assess future needs.

He says a collaboration of responding interfaith groups conducted a training seminar in Houston with more than 75 ministers and lay leaders from various denominations, to help prepare them for working with people who will be living in temporary shelters in the area.

In the devastated Mississippi Gulf Coast area, Church World Service disaster responder Lesli Remaly reports that "a vibrant group has been set up," following meetings with area faith and state leaders to develop long-term recovery planning. CWS's Davis and Cheri Baer are focusing initially on the Meridian and Jackson areas. Agency responder Art Jackson is based in Columbus. Additional CWS responders are expected to be deployed.

CWS Associate Director for Emergency Response Linda Reed Brown says, "We expect to form as many as 25 new long-term recovery groups nationwide as a result of Katrina.

"We have strong established recovery groups in Florida who are assisting those in the Panhandle impacted by Katrina. And," she says, "some of our established recovery group network who are already working with Katrina survivors are also still assisting those in need from last year’s hurricane season."

With expertise in training care providers domestically and internationally to work with trauma victims, Church World Service is also focusing on supporting trauma care for Katrina's survivors. Brown says CWS will conduct its Interfaith Trauma Response Trainings for Katrina caregivers and will also

offer trauma care through its Spiritual and Emotional Care Response cadre of volunteer professional counselors. Both programs were developed after the September 11 disaster.

CWS domestic responders with high expertise in disaster emotional and spiritual care will also support development of a national strategy to provide appropriate trauma and psycho-social care in shelters and relocation communities, and for grueling public operations such as morgue and death notification.

Agency Raises Fundraising Campaign to $9.5 million, Anticipating Long-term Needs

Last week, CWS expanded its national Katrina fundraising goal to $9.5 million, with a view particularly toward long-term recovery for survivors who remain in the Gulf Region and for those who resettle.

To date, Church World Service has provided more than $300,000 in material assistance to affected areas, including 18,100 CWS Blankets; 14,335 "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits; 500 CWS "Gift of the Heart" Children’s Kits; and 1,000 "Gift of the Heart" School Kits. Shipments have arrived in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. A shipment of UNICEF school and recreation materials is now being distributed in Meridian, Mississippi.

Contributions to support these efforts may be sent to:

Church World Service
Hurricane Katrina Response -- #6280
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515

Or call 800 297 1516, ext. 222. Or give online at www.churchworldservice.org.

September 13, 2005

Dear Members of Congress:

As leaders of our respective denominations, we have long sought an end to the injustices inherent in poverty. We have never seen these injustices born out so vividly in our own country as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The devastation wrought by Katrina has exposed the anguished faces of the poor in the wealthiest nation on the planet. These faces, precious in the eyes of God, cause us to remember that racial disparities and poverty exist in almost every community in our nation. They also compel us to set before Congress once again our concerns for the FY '06 federal budget and its impact on people living in poverty. With renewed urgency, we call on Congress to stop the FY '06 federal budget reconciliation process immediately.

We believe our federal budget is a concrete expression of our shared moral values and priorities. Congress rightly and quickly responded in appropriating needed funds to ensure an adequate initial response to Hurricane Katrina. Our denominations have mobilized and are responding in prayer and financial support and direct service to those in need. Yet, just as disaster struck the Gulf Coast, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in very particular detail that poverty in the United States is growing. The annual report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004 showed that 37.0 million people lived in poverty in 2004, an increase of more than one million people since 2003.

In April, during consideration of the budget resolution we wrote to Congress that, "As we view the FY '06 Federal Budget through our lens of faith this budget, on balance, continues to ask our nation's working poor to pay the cost of a prosperity in which they may never share." It is clear that programs such as Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program that were slated for cuts by Congress will in fact have greater burdens placed on them as a result of Hurricane Katrina. These programs are not simply entitlements or "government hand-outs," they represent the deep and abiding commitment of a nation to care for the least among us.

Believe us when we tell you that even before Hurricane Katrina or the Census Bureau's report, neither we nor our friends of other faiths had the resources to turn back the rising tide of poverty in this country. The FY '06 reconciliation bill that is working its way through the authorizing committees will send more people searching for food in cupboards that, quite frequently, are bare.

We commit ourselves to working for economic policies infused with the spirit of the One who began his public ministry almost 2,000 years ago by proclaiming that God had anointed him "to bring good news to the poor."

The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, USA

The Rt. Rev. Mark Hanson
Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American

The Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President, United Church of Christ

James Winkler
General Secretary, General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist
Church

Related Post:  Would Jesus Pass Tax Cuts For The Rich And Leave The Least Of These Behind?

Action Alert

In response to Hurricane Katrina, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has announced her intention to seek permission from Congress to waive the educational rights of homeless children and youth under the McKinney-Vento Act.

The McKinney-Vento Act has opened the doors of public schools to hundreds of thousands of children displaced from Hurricane Katrina. The Act has enabled these and other children experiencing homelessness to be immediately enrolled in school, to receive transportation to be stabilized in school, and to benefit from the resources, support, and normalcy of neighborhood schools.

Many states have worked hard to comply with the law and to give children whose lives have been disrupted by the loss of housing a regular school experience. Lafayette schools in Louisiana have enrolled and provided services to more than 3,000 children made homeless by the storm, Shreveport schools have enrolled over 1,000. Communities across Texas have integrated and supported more children, with upwards of 5,000 children being enrolled in Houston, and well over 1,000 children each in San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin.

Despite these and countless other successes, the Secretary of Education has announced that she will seek from Congress the ability to waive homeless children's educational rights in order to accommodate a handful of requests for greater flexibility.

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED: Please urge your U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative to deny Secretary Spellings request for authority to waive the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

Tell them that the McKinney-Vento Act is needed now more than ever, and that children made homeless by the hurricane deserve the full protections and benefits of their education.

Phone numbers for U.S. Senators may be found on http://www.senate.gov and for U.S. Representatives at http://www.house.gov .

The timing is URGENT, as Congress will act soon. Phone calls are needed, and/or faxed letters. Please distribute this alert to as many community partners as possible, and ask them to call, too. For more information, please contact Barbara Duffield at NAEHCY at [email protected] or 202.364.7392.

Related Post:  Homeless Youth and Public Schools

Related Link:  National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth

Louisiana religious leaders yesterday called on the federal government to do more to rebuild the Gulf Coast and to do more to address poverty. The AP reports:

Louisiana religious leaders said Monday they want the federal government to develop a comprehensive family recovery plan for victims of Hurricane Katrina, but not without input from New Orleans' displaced families.

"We don't want to be just the recipients," said Father Michael Jacques, pastor of St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in New Orleans. "We want to participate."

Nearly a dozen religious leaders from New Orleans and other Louisiana cities traveled to Washington to join a previously scheduled news conference by a national grassroots religious group protesting President Bush's proposed $10 billion cut in Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans….

Allen Stevens, administrator of St. Phillip the Apostle Catholic Church in New Orleans, said he's received countless calls since the storm parishioners asking, "What do I do? I'm in a hotel I have two days left. I'm out of money. I can't go back home. What's the future of my family, my daughter, myself?"

Jacques said the family recovery plan should provide for debt relief and mortgage reduction help, decent housing that's not in temporary shelters but is near grocery stores and schools, jobs and job training, counseling and schooling for children.

"We need help," said the Rev. Steve Beckstrom of the Little Rock Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. "We need to be able to look beyond the bureaucracy and be moved with compassion and realize this isn't a Louisiana and Mississippi thing, this isn't a Baton Rouge or Lafayette thing. This is a national thing. We need to throw our arms around each other."

Paula Arceneaux, chair of New Orleans All Congregations Together, said the hurricane exposed the federal government's failure to provide a safety net for poor Americans. And the proposed cuts in Medicaid, she said, will worsen that problem.

"Now is not the time to cut low-income children and families from health care," she said.

Click here to read the full story.

Is anyone surprised the Bush Administration is proposing even more reductions in Medicaid during a time of increasing poverty levels and national crisis?

George W. Bush is still leaving the least of these behind.

Related Link:  PICO National Network

This morning The Rev. Dr. Deborah Krause, the academic dean here at Eden Theological Seminary, preached on Exodus 16:2-21 during our chapel services. Her sermon - which deals with history, grace, Barbara Bush and Hurricane Katrina - was powerful and it is too bad an audio recording is not available.  However, Dr. Krause was kind enough to give me permission to post the text of her sermon here.

Beware of stories like the quail and manna story.

They sound nice, but they should make you quite suspicious. Stories like this are the stories that religious communities tell about themselves to remind their members of the institutional values, and authorities of the community. They are origin stories. They can be a kind of map as to who plays what role and to what the overarching cultural assumptions and rules are. In other words – they can be told as stories that tell you who you are and what you should do. Beware of stories like this.

Eden seminary has a story like this. Like the Israel story from the wilderness tradition it is grounded in the origins of the school. Much like the story of the quails and manna, this Eden story sets a baseline for the identity of the Eden community and its members. The story is this – that back in 1850 – at the founding of this school in Marthasville, Missouri – just about forty minutes west of here – students had literal “field work” to do before they went to class. In fact, these original students had farm chores of cultivating the fields of the campus, tending the livestock, mending the buildings, fences, and equipment. For several hours each day these hearty and pious students would work as farmers for the Eden community before they would begin their own academic studies.

This is a story about the origin of Eden seminary that bespeaks our simple piety, our thriftiness, and our pride in hard work. When we recite this story for current students it plays a very important rhetorical role – it says: “we are made of sturdy stock,” “hard work with and for the institution insures an enduring legacy,” and “students today have nothing to complain about.”

Likewise in ancient Israel, the story of the quails and manna in the wilderness bore several core truths about the community. Our leaders lead well and are obedient to God. Our practices and observances, such as the Sabbath, were established even at the very founding of our community. Our members were contrary and disobedient, and required strong leadership. You might guess that this was likely a story told by the religious leadership of Israel.

Now imagine rhetorically what such a tradition might mean in the hearing of such a community: It would reinforce the established leadership of the religious community, it would authorize the practices and observances of that community. The story would call for its hearers to follow the leaders and follow the rules. The message of the text might be something like: “Obey the rules and all will be well.”

Come to think of it – the Dean likes that message from the text for this morning – “Obey and all will be well.”

But theologically what does the story mean? Is there more to the story from the wilderness generation other than a moral tale about how Israel ought to trust and obey its God and ought to trust and obey its leaders?

Yes – indeed there is. Look at the central theme of the story. Those who complain and who challenge the system of God’s leadership of the people – they are fed, and nourished, and sustained. While Moses and Aaron may have liked to institute a system that those who complain most receive less, or that those who attempt to gather more than their fair share – find their food ruined and are never allowed to gather again – such is not the case.

In fact, those who break the rules are ultimately rewarded. No doubt those who take more than their fair omer of manna, find their food to weigh what their neighbor’s does, and their extra gathering for naught. Those who keep their food overnight, find that food ruined with worms a day later. But every day there is always more. And on the Sabbath – there is a double portion . . . for any and for all – both the compliant and the complaining.

So this text is not simply about rules, and expectations for membership in the community of Israel, it is also about something much bigger, and much less “map – able” It is about grace.

And grace resists the voice of authority that announces with such confidence the summary value of the religion to be “Obey and all will be well.” Grace sneaks up around the side and behind the back of institutional norms and authorized self certainties and says to the outsider (and even the broken down insider) “Hey, guess what, there’s enough for you too. It’s alright, have something to eat.”

And so the story bears both an institutional message and a subversive message of grace.

This last week there was quite a bit of institutionalized rhetoric about the hideous disaster on the Gulf coast and the response of the government and private citizens to the tragedy. In this rhetoric you could hear echoes of the stories we tell ourselves as a nation – stories that authorize leaders to lead and inform those who follow to comply and not complain. One, now infamous expression of this national rhetoric came from former first lady Barbara Bush.

Last week while in the Houston Astrodome, visiting with survivors from Katrina, many of whom had spent several harrowing, life threatening days in the N.O. Convention Center or the Superdome, Barbara Bush shared with reporters her response to how the survivors were processing their good fortune to be out of flood ravaged N.O. and in a situation of relative comfort and safety. She said:

“What I am hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they (the survivors) all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the Arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, (chuckle) so this is working very well for them.”

Barbara Bush’s institutionalized worldview of the established authorities – a worldview oblivious of its own investiture in white privilege and upper class elitism -- was reading the story of Katrina survivors in Houston as a case of the underprivileged making out like bandits on gracious Texan hospitality of Houston’s largesse. But theologically, what “Bar” seemed to miss is that the provision that has come forth in the aftermath of Katrina is not some silver teaspoon of sympathy measured out by the “haves” to the “have nots.” It is nothing less than the goodness of God which is beyond all of our control and maneuvering, providing enough and even a double portion for those who have been stranded in this wilderness of disaster, devastation, and despair.

Mrs. Bush’s attempts to supervise that expression of grace, and to codify it into categories of who deserves what and how left her this week with nothing but a mouthful of worms. The goodness she seemed to imagine she spoke for dried up in the noonday heat, and left her not the grand dame of Texan hospitality she seemed to imagine herself to be, but a callous classist and a racist.

Never fear for Barbara. The good news is that if she hangs out in that wilderness long enough there will no doubt be grace enough for her as well. That is the way grace works, and at one time or another we have all been at the wrong end of telling a story where we have desperately needed grace before.

The good news of Israel’s story – if we read it theologically – is that it resists a simple claim like “Obey the rules and you will be saved.” Instead, the story from God’s point of view is a kind of parable about God’s grace and provision. Such parables offer not so much institutional legitimacy and authority – I think Israel knew there would always be claims to those things in ample measure. Rather there is a promise in this story of God’s provision and goodness that might call us from our certainties and carefully constructed views out into something much more liberating and life giving – new communities, new relationships, and new life.

For that encouragement, for that promise, let us thank God as we journey on in faith in these days of both wilderness and blessing.

Photo credit: Eden Theological Seminary web site

Update: Read the comments on this post in the UCC's online theology forum.

I'll be preaching this Sunday at Portland's First Congregational United Church of Christ (1126 SW Park Ave). Services begin at 10:25 am. If you're in Portland this is a great church to visit.

First Congregational United Church of Christ was established in 1851. Our current sanctuary and 175-foot bell tower was built in 1891, designed by Swiss architect Henry J. Hefty to resemble Old South Church in Boston. The stained glass windows were designed by Povey Brothers of Portland. We are people of different ages, education, races, abilities, sexual orientations and gender identities. We hold varying theological and political beliefs and come from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. We celebrate and find strength in that diversity and view it as a way of understanding the inclusiveness of God's love. We celebrate the image of God in every person and we affirm all relationships of support that are founded on the principles of love and justice. We encourage all members to share their talents, gifts and energy in the life, work and leadership of the church. We are a community which is spiritually alive, intellectually curious, and open to new learning, ideas and scholarship. We are tolerant and supportive of other religious traditions and committed to learning about and from them.

Whoever you are, whatever household of faith into which you were born, whatever creed you profess, whatever your race, sexual orientation or gender identity, you are welcome to come looking for the presence of God or to rededicate yourself to God's purpose.

Come if you’re able.

Important updates from Dillard University, the United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church-related school in New Orleans, have become available this evening.

First, news reports over the last several days do confirm that the campus was seriously damaged in the storm and a later fire that impacted several buildings this past Tuesday. Dillard, however, has posted a recovery plan on their web site.

Before posting those plans let me say the school is going to need enormous financial contributions. Please consider helping out. If you own a business or can write a large check this is the moment to do it. Your gifts will help educate young people and there are few things more important than that. Click here to give. The United Negro College Fund is also raising money for this effort.

The Recovery Plan from the Dillard web site:

DILLARD UNIVERSITY RECOVERY PLAN UNDERWAY

Eunice, Louisiana—The Dillard University Board of Trustees, Dillard’s ninth President Dr. Marvalene Hughes and the senior staff are fully engaged in the recovery of the 55 acre campus.

The following action items are being executed immediately:

• We have committed to all registered students that they will not lose academic credit for this academic year. If we can resume classes in January 2006 on the Dillard campus, we will provide the equivalent of two full semesters of academic instruction between January and August, 2006. We must await an assessment of the physical status of the Dillard campus to determine if we can resume classes on the Dillard campus in January of 2006.
• The Provost is currently developing a plan to provide the required weeks of instruction. Once developed, the plan will be available at www.dillard.edu.
• Dillard students who enroll at other fully accredited colleges and universities this fall will receive full course credit in accordance with Dillard University Guidelines.
• A locator registry is being established at www.dillard.edu to allow faculty, staff, alumni and friends to identify their locations as soon as possible.
• We will need significant support from alumni, friends, corporations, foundations and government agencies to rebuild Dillard’s physical facilities and infrastructure.

Dillard requires significant cash investments from alumni, government sources, foundations, corporations and friends to restore the physical facilities and infrastructure, equipment, and academic instructional materials.

More than 68 prominent universities around the nation have offered their campuses and their services to aid Dillard students during the fall semester. Many are generously offering tuition, room and board to our students. We are grateful and reassured by our generous colleagues and by offers from numerous community agencies, leading national organizations and affiliate churches.

We are dedicated to the success of our students and the entire Dillard community, and all of us await eagerly our return to Fair Dillard.

The web site also carries a message tonight from the university’s Chaplain. Several students and parents have written to let me know that you’re reading this blog looking for updated information and I wanted to make sure you heard these inspiring words:

My grandmother used to say, “God is still on the Throne.” Perhaps you or one of your family members proclaims this also. Beloved of the Lord, Fair Dillard, God’s holiness, compassion and faithfulness has never been more real than it is at this instant.

We are not overwhelmed. We are challenged, yes. We are scattered, yes. Our hearts bleed and threaten to break. Nevertheless, with God’s help and the prayers of countless thousands, we will meet and consume this challenge. We will be gathered together again. And we will follow the pain in our hearts through into a deeper gratitude for what is entrusted to us, and a more profound sympathy for and understanding of those who suffer displacement and loss.

Hold fast to this: We are not overwhelmed. A better day is coming. God is still, still, Still, STILL on the Throne.

Rev. Gail Bowman

I hope that all the Dillard community know that people are praying for your success all across the United Church of Christ and the nation-at-large.

Religion News Service reports:

Jerusalem, Sept. 9 - Jewish groups have strongly condemned remarks by a leading Israeli rabbi who said that Hurricane Katrina was God's way of punishing the United States.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Sephardi chief rabbi and the influential spiritual leader of the Shas political party, made the claim during his weekly sermon on Tuesday (Sept. 6). He said that the devastation wrought by Katrina "was God's retribution" for pressuring Israel to relinquish Gaza and the northern West Bank to the Palestinians. Yosef, a Torah scholar who often mixes religion and politics, said that President Bush perpetrated the removal of Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from the territories, which are scheduled to be handed over to the Palestinians within weeks…..

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism said Thursday that Yosef's assertions were "despicable" and "substantively absurd."

"It was not President Bush but Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon who launched and implemented" the Gaza disengagement, the organization said. While the Internet has been full of messages linking Katrina to divine retribution, Yosef's reputation as one of Judaism greatest scholars makes his comments particularly disturbing, according to Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of the Israel-based organization Rabbis for Human Rights. "People listen" to what Yosef says, Ascherman said, "and I think his statements are only going to degrade Judaism in the eyes of many."

Noting that Jewish communities around the world have rallied to help Katrina victims, and that the Israeli government has sent planeloads of humanitarian aid and medical personnel to the stricken areas, Ascherman said that "clearly the hearts of the State of Israel and the Jewish people are with the people suffering in New Orleans."

Related Link: The Gaza Withdrawal: What You Need To Know

Related Link: Donate To The Union For Reform Judaism Disaster Relief

If you're going to read anything today make it 9/11 And The Sport of God by Bill Moyers.

God of peace, in Jesus you wept for the city,
you loved the city,
place of human greed, violence, wealth, and poverty,
but also a place of hope and human gathering.
We pray for New York City, for New Orleans,
and for their metropolitan areas,
that the needs of all for food, and shelter, and work,
for justice and dignity, might be met.
We pray that the diverse people living here
may join their efforts to seek the good of all.
Minister to these cities through the hands of your people,
as they feed the hungry,
heal the sick, and comfort the sorrowing.
We pray for people living in cities around the world,
who have come seeking to work and to survive.
We pray for refugees and for those who have been driven off the land.
May they too find what they need to live.
Keep alive in us that hope of the new Jerusalem,
of the city that finds its light from your presence,
and its joy in doing your will,
where tears are dried, and violence is destroyed.
Through Jesus Christ, Let it be! Amen.

Ruth Duck in Touch Holiness: Resources for Worship (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1990) 223. Used with permission

Adapted for use here from www.ucc.org .

Why anyone approves of him is a mystery to me.

Related News Story:  Poll: Bush approval at 39 percent

The Rev. Eric Elnes e-mailed last night with information on CrossWalk America. What is the walk?

A number of Christian ministers and laypeople from a variety of mainstream denominations will walk 2,500 miles across the country, from Phoenix, Arizona to Washington, DC, starting April 16, 2006 (Easter Sunday). They will be carrying copies of The Phoenix Affirmations - a set of twelve theological values that clearly articulate Christianity from a progressive Christian standpoint. People are encouraged to join us along the walk, especially when we arrive in Washington, DC Labor Day weekend (September 3), where we will hold a rally to "nail the Affirmations to the doorway of America."

CrossWalk America was born out of the efforts of progressive Christians organizing in the Phoenix area (click here for some of the history and click here for one of my previous blog entries on the Phoenix effort).

The Phoenix Affirmations are a powerful testimony to the meaning of our Christian faith:

The public face of Christianity in America today bears little connection to the historic faith of our ancestors. It represents even less our own faith as Christians who continue to celebrate the gifts of our Creator, revealed and embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Heartened by our experience of the transforming presence of Christ’s Holy Spirit in our world, we find ourselves in a time and place where we will be no longer silent. We hereby mark an end to our silence by making the following affirmations:

As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves completely to the way of Love. We work to express our love, as Jesus teaches us, in three ways: by loving God, neighbor, and self.

(Matt 22:34-40 // Mk 12:28-31 // Lk 10:25-28; Cf. Deut 6:5; Lev. 19:18)

Christian love of God includes:

1. Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity;

2. Listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, through studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and through attending to God’s present activity in the world;

3. Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human;

4. Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.

Christian love of neighbor includes:

5. Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or economic class;

6. Standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the denigrated and afflicted, seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others;

7. Preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State;

8. Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies;

Christian love of self includes:

9. Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are made new, and that we, and all people, are loved beyond our wildest imagination – for eternity;

10. Claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts, recognizing that faith and science, doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth;

11. Caring for our bodies, and insisting on taking time to enjoy the benefits of prayer, reflection, worship and recreation in addition to work;

12. Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a vocation and ministry that serves to strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.

Visit their site to learn more.

Gore airlifts Katrina victims out of New Orleans

A few weeks ago I posted this note:

The Family Research Council – headed by Tony Perkins – sent me a letter today asking for money so that he can effectively fight for my family in Washington, DC (click here to read the letter). Most of his letter dealt with gay marriage and his work to fight “liberal special interests.” I wrote him back this evening (click here to read my letter) and asked about all the issues he left out. Isn’t hunger a family values issue? Isn’t homelessness? Aren’t good schools for young kids a family values issues? Tony Perkins and his friends seem so obsessed with their fear of gays that they’ve forgotten that families are struggling in America and could use champions on Capitol Hill fighting their cause.

Well, the FRC wrote me back to explain they really did care about people living in poverty and pointed to their support of the 1996 welfare reform bill as an example of their caring (the bill imposed limits on government aid to the poor and was opposed by most churches). The goal of welfare reform should have been poverty reduction. Sadly, poverty has increased.

FRC also wanted me to know their on-going campaigns against basic civil rights for gays and lesbians wasn’t based in hate – but in their concern over sinful behavior.

The real sin is in the actions of the FRC which clearly does not not take positions that would help lift people out of poverty and in their campaign against gays and lesbians.

I wrote them back again and asked that they repent for their behavior and reconcile themselves to the love of God and Jesus’ teachings. 

Click on the links to read the exchange of letters.

Fellow Americans,

Seldom, if ever, has the interdependence of our lives been more apparent.  When one of us hurts, all of us hurt.  Our lives are inextricably linked together.

As head of The Interfaith Alliance, the national non-partisan advocacy voice of the interfaith movement, and as pastor of a congregation in Monroe, Louisiana, my recent experiences have prompted me to assess what has happened in the wake of hurricane Katrina, and to rethink what we need to be doing in the days ahead.

My strong hope is that the realization of our interdependence that has emerged from shared problems will prompt a commitment to interdependence focused on help. When one of us is in need, all of us can and should help.

But not even “I’m sorry,” rings with much authenticity in the ears of loved ones grieving the loss of lives that could have been saved.  And certainly, someone who is not hurting should not try to tell someone who is hurting how loudly to scream.

In the days ahead, we must commit ourselves to empathy, compassion, charity – and politics.  We’ve got to work harder.  Conscientious involvement in politics on the part of people of faith and goodwill has never been more important. Americans who are grieving, suffering, and bearing witness will now be acting in the spirit of democracy.

For starters, just as there is no place in our national psyche for racist attitudes, there must be no place on our national agenda for racist actions.  A national outcry against racism is not enough; actions are needed now to assure that our institutions of justice, commerce, government, and education are free from racism every day even as our systems of rescue, recovery, and rehabilitation are devoid of racism in the aftermath of a disaster.  Americans must recognize the racism, and actively, immediately, work to stop the hate.

Americans will act, and Americans will listen.  It is precisely because Americans are hurting so badly that we cannot afford to give a pass to John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court.  A “Roberts' Court” may, in the wake of Katrina, be certain to confront grand issues of morality – and immorality -- in the coming decades: the moral responsibility of providing assistance and real homeland security to all Americans; the moral questions posed by the recently exposed (to all) economic duality that is America; and the morality necessary to balancing rebuilding with security.

Now, more than ever, I believe that we cannot confirm any nominee, affirm any policy, or endorse any legislative proposal simply because of a recommendation from the president.  Nothing that this president does should escape our careful scrutiny.

Let us pay attention to facts: several months ago President Bush led our nation into war on the basis of false information.  In recent days, the president has concluded a tour of the devastation in Louisiana praising the man whom he named as the executive officer of FEMA for doing “a heck of a job” facilitating recovery efforts that simply were non-existent early and inadequate late.  Acknowledging grave difficulties related to the timing and quality of rescue and recovery efforts after Katrina, President Bush has blamed the Washington bureaucracy for failures in the timely delivery of services, though he is the chief executive officer, of that bureaucracy.

All of us—especially members of the United States Senate at the present moment—have a moral and patriotic responsibility to ask the hardest questions possible about the president’s nominees.  We must examine with equal care his legislative proposals.  We simply cannot afford listlessly to open the door to decades of retrenchment in support for and defense of the basic rights and freedoms that have guided our pursuit of a nation led by a government of the people, by the people, and for all the people.

Fellow Americans, as we continue to do all that we can to help the poorest and weakest among us as well as to assist all devastated by this deadly storm and its aftermath, we are more aware than ever that real help resides not in the rhetoric of religion or the claims that we make about the importance of moral values but in the actual substance of our actions.  Our theology holds us responsible, our faith allows us to listen, and our shared democracy demands that we act.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy
President, The Interfaith Alliance

NCC General Secretary says Katrina response must be two-fold:
Aid the victims and end the poverty that made them vulnerable

New York, September 9, 2005 -- The General Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA today described the plans of member churches to aid the millions of persons displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

But the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar warned that catastrophes like Katrina will happen again unless national, state and local governments come to grips with the poverty that left so many people trapped in the path of the storm.

"The real hurricane crisis began years ago, not only with the neglect of the levees in New Orleans but with the neglect of poor people who live in the city and throughout the Gulf coast," Edgar said. "When the hurricane approached, people who had the means to buy gasoline or public transportation or refuge away from the storm, left the city. Those who could not afford it stayed -- and we are still waiting with horror to learn how many died."

The NCC is working closely with Church World Service, its sister humanitarian and relief agency, to rush food, blankets and other supplies to New Orleans and to areas where hurricane victims are being sheltered. FaithfulAmerica.org, the council's online network of socially committed persons of faith, raised $40,000 for relief in the week following Hurricane Katrina.

But Edgar said governments must work harder to prevent future tragedies. "Every city in the U.S. and around the world that neglects the poor makes the poor vulnerable to a disaster on the scale of Katrina," Edgar said.  "The rising waters of human desperation may not be caught on camera, but that desperation is no less real for millions in our nation and abroad who live in 'the ground below zero.' When we fail to pay attention, crisis comes as an expensive wake-up call.  The time to build the ark is before the flood begins."

"The world is knit together into such interdependence that we cannot live in isolation as a country," Edgar said, "just as Gulfport and Biloxi and New Orleans are irreversibly connected to the power grid and the highway system and the disaster relief networks that transcend state and local boundaries."

The United States and other members of the United Nations should offer maximum support to the UN Millennium Project that plans to use "practical solutions" to cut worldwide poverty in half by 2015 and save tens of millions of lives, he said.

"Government can give us effective ways to work together, to organize and channel our resources to help each other, and especially to help those who cannot help themselves. Government itself is not the problem.  Our failure to manage government wisely and fairly is the problem," Edgar remarked.

"We must never forget that Jesus spent most of his ministry proclaiming the kingdom of God while reaching out to the poor," Edgar said. "Persons of faith can do no less, and we remind governments throughout the world that they have been called by God to bring us together and help those who cannot help themselves."

The National Council of Churches is composed of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African American and peace communions representing 45 million Christians in 100,000 local congregations in the United States.

Oregon schools are opening their doors to Katrina evacuees and Dona Bolt – my hero, friend, and Oregon’s homeless education coordinator – is leading the effort. The Oregonian reports:

Oregon may be on standby to receive Hurricane Katrina evacuees, but a few area school districts already are helping displaced students enroll.

Six students from elementary to high school started classes in Lake Oswego this week, with more on the way. Three elementary students began in Beaverton, and more plan to attend public and private schools in Portland, Tigard, Gresham and Vancouver -- even in Lake County in south-central Oregon.

"It's been very, very sporadic," said Dona Bolt, Oregon homeless education coordinator.

All of the students are living with extended family. Oregon's mass relocation centers stand empty for now.

Bolt has no hard figures on the number of displaced children in Oregon schools, but she estimates about 25 a week are moving here and will continue to arrive for the next two months.

If Oregon moves off standby and takes survivors at relocation centers, Bolt estimates that 60 percent of the total would be school-age children -- 1,000 total evacuees would require 600 classroom seats for students.

More information on displaced students from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY), National Center on Homeless Education (NCHE), and National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) can be found here.

The Washington Post reports:

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Full story

Robert Funk, a leading biblical scholar dealing with the “historical Jesus” and founder of the Jesus Seminar, passed away on September 3rd. News of his death made the papers just today.

I had the good fortunate of attending a two day seminar with Dr. Funk before coming to seminary and have regularly drawn on his writings.

The goal of the Jesus Seminar has been to “renew the quest of the historical Jesus and to report the results of its research to more than a handful of gospel specialists.”  The group has tried to determine what words really came from Jesus and what acts were his (click here for more background on this field of biblical inquiry and its implication).

Dr. Funk’s official biography on the Jesus Seminar site reads:

Robert W. Funk is a distinguished teacher, writer, translator and publisher in the field of religion. A Guggenheim Fellow and Senior Fulbright Scholar, he has served as Annual Professor of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem and as chair of the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University. Robert Funk is a recognized pioneer in modern biblical scholarship, having led the Society of Biblical Literature as its Executive Secretary from 1968–1973. His many books include The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (1993) and The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds (1998) (both with the Jesus Seminar) and Honest to Jesus (1996), and A Credible Jesus (2002).

The work of the Jesus Seminar – often controversial – has been profoundly important. Stephen Patterson, professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary and also a member of the Jesus Seminar, wrote in his book The God of Jesus that the work of the Jesus Seminar has been particularly significant because:

...it invited others to listen in on this work: lay people, pastors, the news media. Scholars seldom do this. They prefer the library or the classroom to public debate. This has meant that over many years the only public voice speaking out on matters of religious faith in our culture has been a very conservative voice and, for the most part, one ignorant of biblical scholarship or opposed to it on ideological grounds.

You can learn more about the Jesus Seminar and Dr. Funk by visiting their web site.  My prayers go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.  We owe Dr. Funk a great debt for his work and leadership.

Related Link:  Robert Funk, religion scholar

Church World Service "is the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations in the United States."  The agency has outlined their goals for Hurricane Katrina relief and need your prayers and donations.  Please take a moment to read about their efforts and do what you can to help.

This Church World Service appeal will address the hurricane's damages to communities and lives through meeting immediate needs, organizing for long-term recovery at multiple faith community levels, and will address the relocation of individuals across the country in concert with other state, federal and CWS programmatic partners.

This appeal requests collective funding for three program components of Church World Service activity that will assure development of effective, sustainable long-term recovery. The appeal will support: Response; Recovery; Relocation; Spiritual and Emotional Care; and CWS Tools of Hope in the form of blankets and kits.

I. Response

Church World Service Disaster Response and Recovery Liaisons (DRRLs) are actively working in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, to support and help formulate the long-term responses to the extraordinary nature of the disaster. In all, 10 DRRLs anticipate deployment to support and enable the organizing work for community long-term recovery.

Church World Service DRRLs and senior New York staff will work closely with leadership of state councils/conferences of churches in their efforts to bring about coordinated or collaborative activities of the faith community across the affected states, particularly in relationship to relocation activities.

Church World Service will also provide support to media and publicity efforts utilizing its own staff and the staff of Disaster News Network, to appropriately raise the public awareness of the role of the faith community efforts in the relief and recovery programs.

DRRL Deployment Costs (support, travel and materials for 12 deployed staff) $170,000

On-Call DRRL Stipends (6 persons @ approx. 8 weeks @ $150 per day) $50,000

Church World Service support of media efforts $10,000

Total $230,000

II. CWS Blankets and "Gift of the Heart" Kits

To date, Church World Service has shipped more than $300,000 in donated material assistance to affected areas, including 18,100 CWS Blankets; 14,335 "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits; 1,000 "Gift of the Heart" School Kits; and 500 CWS Heart-to-Heart Kids Kits. Shipments have arrived in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Shipments of donated material resources we have in inventory, for support of sheltered survivors in states across the country, are currently being processed or anticipated. CWS has also processed a shipment of 20 Interchurch Medical Assistance Medicine Boxes to Louisiana. Additional lightweight blankets will need to be purchased to allow us to respond to anticipated requests.

Inventory of 39,000 lightweight CWS Blankets valued at: $195,000

Inventory of 150,000 Health Kits valued at $1,800,000

Inventory of 4,000 School Kits valued at $44,000

Purchase and shipment of 20,000 lightweight blankets (at $5) $100,000

Expedited air freight for initial response $50,000

Total $150,000

III. Recovery

Age, health, education, economics, ethnicity, religious heritage, gender and geographic location all serve to increase vulnerability and diminish capacity to recovery from a disaster. DRRLs will concentrate organizing activity in areas where significant numbers of vulnerable survivors have been identified to help assure that their unmet needs are identified and given priority. Church World Service will support and encourage the research and training of community leadership to effectively organize new and diverse communities for long-term recovery.

CWS DRRLs work with local faith groups and religious leaders to equip them in development of, and participation in, long-term recovery organizations that provide case management services for vulnerable survivors of a disaster. The case management is designed to help families resource their recovery plan, particularly in rebuilding and repairing their homes. Based on previous disasters, CWS estimates as many as 25 recovery organizations may be developed to respond to the “normal” affects of the hurricane, that of damaged and destroyed homes because of wind and flooding.

Community Organizing Training Consultants $20,000

Seed Grants for developing long-term recovery organizations (20 @ $5,000) $100,000

Sustainability Grants for long-term recovery staff and administration (3-5 years) $3,500,000

Home reconstruction grants to long-term recovery organizations $3,500,000

Total $ 7,120,000

III. Spiritual Care and Care-for-Caregivers

Spiritual and emotional care will be of primary concern in coming months and years for those who are directly and indirectly affected. Church World Service will particularly focus on support for clergy and lay caregivers who are ministering in the early days of relief and rescue; the support of relocating operations in their communities and states; and a continuum of care for long-term recovery. CWS stands ready to offer local faith leaders: 1) training opportunities and support through the Interfaith Trauma Response Training (ITRT) that helps equip them for care within their communities and self care for themselves; and 2) trauma care through its Spiritual and Emotional Care Response (SECR) cadre of volunteer professional counselors. Both programs were developed during recovery after the September 11 disaster.

Church World Service DRRL with high expertise in disaster emotional and spiritual care will supplement and support the development of a national strategy for provision of appropriate care in shelters, relocation communities, and for public operations such as morgue and death notification.

Deployment of SECR Professional Trauma Intervention (3 years) $750,000

Provision of ITRT sessions (1.5 years) $750,000

DRRL Assignment to emotional and spiritual care provision (3 years) $12,000

Total $1,512,000

IV. Relocation

CWS proposes to organize and execute a processing and relocation program for Americans who remain displaced as result of evacuations and destruction of housing in their communities. CWS will utilize existing resettlement affiliate offices in 8 sites around the United States and initiate two sites where groups of churches will be organized to support the relocation of up to 500 displaced Americans or roughly, 165 families, over the initial period of three months. The initial phase of this support will focus on existing affiliates that have already received uprooted families. The budget below assumes a significant amount of supplemental cash and/or in-kind resources will be contributed from the local community to the affiliate or congregation for the purpose of assisting displaced Americans. A full proposal and budget is available for this aspect of the Church World Service Katrina response.

The cost for provision of services and support for 500 persons for 3 months is slightly higher than an average of $1,000 per person:

Transportation (average of $100 per person) $50,000

Rent ( average of $1,000 per month) $165,000

Airport/Bus Stop Reception (average of $50 per family for transport of belongings) $8,250

Utilities (average $350 per month) $57,750

Local transportation (public transportation passes at $200 per family) $33,000

Money for living expenses (dignity stipend $100 per month per family) $49,500

Food (supplementary to local provisions $100 per month) $16,500

Local community staffing and travel, office, and materials expenses $86,800

National contingency, travel, staffing, equipment $ 46,475

(This is preliminary budget for this support. Additional support may be required if additional numbers of families or individuals seek this assistance.)

Total $ 513,275

TOTAL OF FOUR COMPONENTS: $9,525,275

EMERGENCY APPEAL:

CWS is issuing this appeal (#6280 - Hurricane Katrina Response) to support the recovery activities described above.

Contributions to support these efforts may be sent to your denomination or directly to:

Church World Service
Hurricane Katrina Response -- #6280
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515

Contributions may also be made by credit card by calling: (800) 297-1516, ext. 222, or online.

World leaders will gather next week in New York City to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations. A joint statement will be issued at the event and many of the world’s leaders are arguing that the statement should commit most nations to the goal of spending 0.7 percent of their gross national product on aid to developing nations and referencing the UN Millennium Development goals that include halving world poverty by 2015. President Bush opposes both proposals. The gathering occurs in the context of a new report on global poverty. Bloomberg news reports:

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations' leading development agency said the more than 170 world leaders who will gather in New York next week should agree on measures to expand aid and free trade to poor nations, a step the U.S. is resisting.

The ``Human Development Report,'' an analysis of the quality of life in 177 nations, said 18 countries with 460 million people are doing worse on indicators such as life expectancy, literacy and per capita income than they were in 1990. The report said they risk falling into civil war or becoming havens for terrorist groups unless the summit produces a plan to meet aid commitments such as those Group of Eight nations made at their July summit in Scotland.

``We want a comprehensive package that covers export subsidies, tariffs and overall levels of support,'' Kevin Watkins, the report's lead author, said in an interview.

``British Prime Minister Tony Blair is making central to his summit speech that he wants to abolish all export subsidies. It is up to him to push the European Union in that direction, and the U.S. needs to reciprocate.''

The Bush Administration, which has watched poverty increase in the United States as a direct result of their economic policies which benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, has been working to oppose efforts to alleviate world poverty.

Diplomats have been deadlocked over U.S. opposition to any mention in the declaration of the aid target of 0.7 percent of gross national product or reference to UN Millennium Development goals that include halving world poverty by 2015. The U.S. has not endorsed the aims.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, the new American envoy at the world body, moved yesterday to end the stalemate by offering three compromises on development.

While saying the U.S. ``does not accept'' the 0.7 percent goal, Bolton introduced a proposal that recognizes that many nations are committed to the target. Bolton also offered an amendment that accepts references to the Millennium Development Goals, while not embracing them. The third compromise notes that many nations have adopted the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which the U.S. has rejected.

Jean Ping of Gabon, president of the UN General Assembly, yesterday circulated a new version of the draft declaration that urges all nations to reach the 0.7 percent target and the Millennium goals.

The U.S., while committed to increasing foreign aid to $19 billion from $10 billion, is ``well behind'' other donors in its allocation of 0.16 percent of GNP to aid, according to the UN report. The G-8 nations committed in July to increase aid by $50 billion a year.

The ONE Campaign is urging people to write President Bush to let him know “achieving these “Millennium Development Goals” would transform the futures and hopes of a generation in the world’s poorest countries.”

President Bush's "compromise" plan - as outlined by John Bolton - is nothing of the sort.  America and the world need bold leadership to really begin to alleviate poverty. 

Click here to send a letter.

The UN Millennium Development Goals have been endorsed by the National Council of Churches USA and the World Council of Churches.

Related Link:  UN Millennium Development Goals

Since Katrina hit I have posted several articles on Dillard University, a school in New Orleans with ties to both the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church.  Dr. Marvelene Hughes, president of Dillard, has now been able to get out a message reporting on the university and their condition.  Please take a moment to read her report and keep the Dillard community in your prayers. 

To Our Students, Parents, Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Dillard University Ambassadors:

Dillard University is an institution with a rich, proud and triumphant history. Our beginnings are rooted in struggle and a committed determination to overcome social, political and environmental obstacles. For over a century, we have stood defiantly against these odds to create an institutional legacy of astonishing achievement, success and hope.

Today, we face a formidable challenge; however, we are equally resolute in our ability to recall our collective strength. We resolve to recommit to our future with full expectation that our beloved Dillard will remain one of the nation's premier institutions of higher learning. This journey to recovery will be long and arduous; we are guided by our unwavering belief and absolute confidence that Dillard University will be back and better.

We recognize during this immediate phase of recovery, repair and restoration that accurate and complete information is both empowering and comforting. To that end, we are prepared to provide our many constituents with information that has direct and vital impact on their lives and the future of Dillard University.

Together, we have experienced a major event. Nevertheless, our faith and the great spirit of Dillard , New Orleans and Louisiana are unchecked and unchanged. God is still on the throne; help is on the way. Sooner than you can imagine, Dillard University will be BACK and BETTER.

As you continue to diligently plan your future at Dillard University, the following information is provided:

As of September 1, 2005, the students evacuated to Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana have been safely returned to their parents and guardians.

The President and Provost have committed to all registered students that they will not loose academic credit for this academic year. The Provost is currently developing a plan to provide the required weeks of instruction. Once developed, the plan will be available on [the temporary Dillard University] website.

Articulation agreements are being developed with other institutions which will allow students taking courses at these institutions to transfer those credits to Dillard. Courses taken must be appropriate to the major or major electives. Only general education course credits will be transferable from community or junior colleges.

Seniors taking courses elsewhere will graduate with a Dillard University degree.

The United Methodist Church has offered to provide financial assistance to students returning to the university once the crisis has subsided. Additional information will be available on this website. A book fund is also being established to assist students with replacing their books.

The university engineers have reported that the campus experienced flooding in some buildings, roof damage on several building and tree loss. The President has been working closely with insurance companies, emergency preparedness managers and financial institutions to begin the process of restoring the campus.

Instruction will resume immediately following the clearance to return to New Orleans. The President and Senior Cabinet are currently exploring options for alternative classroom space if it is needed.

During this period before instruction resumes, we are urging students to continue their engagement with their course work as much as is possible. Specific suggestions that might be useful would be:

- Locate a library to access books and other references related to the course.
- Create, where possible, an email discussion group with other students in the course to begin discussions about the text, assignments and readings.
- Access, if possible, the Blackboard network which will be available on this website.
- Contact, when possible, the course instructor for on-line discussions and communications.
- Maintain a journal and record those ideas, impressions, feelings and observations that emerge during this period
- Read the major national newspapers which are available in most libraries.
- Bring an extra measure of patience as we move through this challenge. Things may appear hopeless presently but very soon, the circumstances will change for the better. We are a resilient and determined university community.

A locator registry will be established on this website to allow faculty, staff, alumni and friends to identify their location.

An 800 number will be available for members of the university community to receive updated information regarding the condition of the university and ongoing operations.

The Dillard website will be updated regularly to provide the most available and accurate information regarding the repair and restoration of the university

Please understand that all scenarios are in the formative stage. We will communicate to you as soon as decisions are made regarding access to the campus and the time required for us to return to our fair Dillard.

On behalf of the administrative team and the entire Dillard University family, please know that we will leave no stone unturned in our determination that Dillard University will be BACK AND BETTER as soon as humanly possible.

Sincerely,
Marvelene Hughes, PhD
President, Dillard University

Related Post:  UCC-related colleges rally with support, placement for Dillard University students

Related Post:  UCC Related-Dillard University Evacuates

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. (Psalm 46: 1-3 NRSV)

Today was the first day of classes here at Eden Theological Seminary. This will be my final semester in St. Louis. We’ll be heading back to Oregon in mid-December. Over the next four months I’ll be taking Christian Ethics, The Book of Isaiah, Jesus Around the World, and Congregational Formation. I’m also working as an assistant for The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the seminary’s Allen and Dottie Miller Professor of Mission and Peace, and still serving as a licensed minister at St. John UCC. It will be a busy final semester.

The excitement of preparing to finish seminary is tempered by the events of the last week. What a weird world we live in. So many people who died could have been saved. What happens now to New Orleans? Where to do the people go? Psalm 46 brings me some comfort during days like this and I hope it will to you as well.

Over the last week I’ve been republishing a lot of material from church bodies and relief groups involved in the post-Katrina relief efforts. Sometimes republishing primary documents is a lot more valuable that offering my own thoughts on a subject. I’ll keep doing that as events warrant. We need to know what is happening from people on the ground and to learn what we can do to prevent something like this from happening again.

Statement from Church World Service

NEW YORK – As humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) disaster response specialists were deployed to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas this past weekend, CWS Executive Director and CEO Rev. John L. McCullough returned from a tour of post-Katrina Louisiana.

McCullough, an African American, says Church World Service is intent on collaboration with and harnessing the strength of African American churches and policy leaders on behalf of New Orleans' poor blacks, first devastated and now evacuated and scattered around the country.

In Baton Rouge on Wednesday, three days before federal troops entered New Orleans to evacuate desperate survivors, McCullough told a Louisiana interchurch meeting, "This is not a problem about gas and oil, but about humans and human integrity."

"This is an unprecedented situation," says McCullough. "In one week, we are seeing a new version of the Trail of Tears, only this time, due to natural disaster, in which New Orleans's poor survivors – who had little resources to begin with – have finally been rescued but are being transported en masse to temporary shelters in Houston and Dallas, from San Diego to Cape Cod. Others are scattered in homes and temporary shelters elsewhere in Louisiana.

The federal government is transporting 1,000 people to Arizona, while 2,500 refugees are scheduled to be temporarily housed at Camp Edwards on Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod.

"These people's lives are shattered, many have lost family, been separated from family or children during evacuation," says McCullough. Our assignment, he says, "is helping these people rebuild their lives, find new homes, recover from the trauma, and know that they are important, that they are not abandoned.

"They have no idea," says McCullough, "how long it will be before they can return – if ever. The poor of New Orleans," he says, "many of whom simply couldn't afford to evacuate before the hurricane, had little but their families, their city, their roots.

"But we will see them through," he said.

CWS's current national campaign is raising funds for Katrina survivors across the devastated region.

On Thursday, at the invitation of Christian Methodist Episcopal Bishop Thomas Hoyt, McCullough spoke with Rev. H. Leon Williams of CME Reeves Temple. "We have 40 people sheltered at our church," Williams reported. "We're giving them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They have no money – we're trying to help navigate federal assistance. We know others are doing this too, and we appreciate the prayers and assistance. The churches will need help."

CWS is one of the first agencies called by FEMA in times of national disaster, along with the Red Cross and Salvation Army and, in addition to providing emergency aid and material resources, specializes in helping establish community-based, long-term recovery assistance organizations to serve vulnerable populations.

And CWS's global experience in refugee resettlement and in working with uprooted people in conflict countries will especially be called upon in this U.S. disaster.

With McCullough in Louisiana, Church World Service's Linda Reed Brown, CWS Associate Director for Domestic Emergency Response, says Katrina's aftermath "requires new roles for Church World Service, our disaster response staff, and the interfaith organizations who’ll be serving in this current refugee situation.

"We're essentially responding to three different disasters," says Brown. "Normal hurricane response in the northern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and other affected states, extreme hurricane disaster along the Gulf Coast shoreline, and the almost unprecedented New Orleans refugee crisis.

"Even in Mississippi and Alabama, where more traditional response work around flooding and wind damage is in order," she notes, "those areas too may be affected by the refugee situation.

"There are a reported 109,000 persons registered at Red Cross shelters in outlying areas of New Orleans. But there are also hundreds of unofficial local shelters across Louisiana alone, including civic buildings and many churches."

"After Katrina, we'll all be looking at long-term recovery in a different way," Brown says.

McCullough, Brown, and CWS Communications Director Ann Walle met in Baton Rouge on Thursday (Sept 1) with Louisiana religious leaders and others. McCullough said, "Cooperation among different faith groups must be an imperative in the response to Hurricane Katrina."

In a meeting convened by the Louisiana Interchurch Council in Baton Rouge, McCullough stressed that cooperation and not competition among faith groups "will help consolidate their role as advocates for survivors who are coping with an unimaginable disaster in destruction and scope.

"This is not just an urban story; it's a rural story," said McCullough during a meeting attended by members and pastors of independent churches in Louisiana and representatives of the Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), and the Christian Church (Disciples).

Long-term recovery efforts are going to be key in the response, McCullough said after a day that concluded with meetings with disaster survivors in Houma, Louisiana. Houma's civic center is currently serving as shelter for almost 960 refugees. During the CWS visit, Houma was under curfew due to lack of electricity and concerns over the influx of refugees.

McCullough said, "We met one Muslim woman who said, 'I never thought I'd be part of American history.'"

The Church World Service team also met with long-time CWS partner in southern Louisiana Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition (TRAC).

McCullough says as part of its immediate emergency aid and long-term recovery work in the region, CWS will be working closely with the Louisiana Council of Churches and churches throughout the area.

Effort extends out to Texas
Because of the impact of the throng of evacuees transported to Texas, Brown says CWS's Heriberto Martinez is now in south Texas and will assist Houston Interfaith Ministries in providing relief for survivors now at the Houston Astrodome.

In Louisiana this week, CWS's Lura Cayton is helping the Louisiana Interchurch Council in assessing outlying areas of New Orleans, working with leaders of recovery groups she assisted following hurricanes Isidore and Lili. Cayton will be joined there by additional CWS disaster recovery specialists.

In Mississippi, CWS's Lesli Remaly will be joined by additional CWS team members as well. Remaly will be helping to revive previously established recovery structures along the Gulf Shore and assisting in the coordination of long-term recovery organizations active in other areas of the state.

CWS estimates as many as 20 recovery organizations may be organized and resourced to carry out long-term recovery in Louisiana, Mississippi, northwest Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

While formal and informal shelters have been proliferating across the region, indeed, across the country since the New Orleans and Gulf Coast disaster unfolded, CWS's Brown says, "We are concerned about the capacitation of temporary shelters in the region and how long can they or will they operate." Offically, there are no shelters south of Interstate 10, but in actuality communities are full of them. These temporary shelters need help with next steps.

Relief Already Delivered
Responding to immediate emergency needs for Katrina's survivors, Church World Service delivered relief supplies valued at $99,381 to Baton Rouge yesterday (Mon Sept 5), which included 5,000 CWS "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits and 5,000 CWS Blankets.

135 "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits and 100 CWS Blankets were shipped to Houston Interfaith Ministries, an ecumenical alliance of dozens of churches, to assist a United Methodist church in Victoria, Texas, housing 200 displaced persons.

1,500 CWS Blankets were shipped to Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition (TRAC).

Over the Labor Day weekend, CWS readied a shipment of 20 Interchurch Medical Assistance (IMA) Boxes containing enough essential medicines and antibiotics to serve 20,000 persons for up to three months. Fifteen boxes will go to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana, and five boxes will be used at the Baton Rouge River Center Shelter.

Thousands of people remain stranded in New Orleans without basic necessities and engulfed in chaos due to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The human death toll in Louisiana is still uncertain, but officials fear the number could reach several hundred or possibly thousands. Gulf Coast towns such as Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, are in ruins and those in poor, small rural areas are crying out that no one has responded to them.

Church World Service North Carolina Regional Director Joseph Moran says, "When the Mississippi River flooded in the summer of 1993, the people of Bangladesh sent to Church World Service (CWS) in the United States a cargo shipment of burlap bags and tea. The Bangladesh people had seen photos of people in river communities frantically filling burlap bags, and of church volunteers serving them hot drinks and were deeply moved.

"What was remarkable about this," says Moran, "was that two-thirds of the country of Bangladesh lies below sealevel. Their own country gets flooded every year during monsoon season, resulting in the deaths of thousands at a time.

"Something happened this past week," says Moran, "that reminds us that the world is a caring place."

Individuals and groups wanting to help Katrina's survivors are urged to contribute cash rather than material goods.

Contributions to support the efforts of Church World Service may be sent to:

Church World Service
Hurricane Katrina Response -- #6280
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515

CWS also accepts credit card contributions, by calling: (800) 297-1516, ext. 222, or through secure online contribution.