Vol 5. Iss. 1: Union's Refusal: The Poor Shall NOT Be Forgotton

by Liz Theoharis

During the keynote address at Union’s Alumni Days, Jack Nelson Pallmeyer discussed the importance of the presidential election this year but noted that all the country’s and world’s problems would not be solved by electing John Kerry. He asserted this is because neither candidate is discussing the critical issue of poverty nor offering solutions to this critical issue. Instead the discussion during the lead up to the election has been faith, war, and foreign policy. But while US foreign policy finds us engaged in conflicts in different parts of the world, there is an unreported but deadly war going on within our own borders. This war on America’s poor and working families has left many in the US without basic economic human rights to food, housing, healthcare, education and living wage jobs. Over the past four years, our conditions have worsened:

• there are now over 31 million Americans living in poverty;
• 12.2 million children in our nation are poor, with over 1.35 million of them homeless;
• over 43 million Americans have no healthcare; and
• there are currently almost 10 million unemployed Americans.

Part of the reason that this war on the poor continues is that their suffering has been made invisible. The poor have been made to disappear from not only the welfare rolls and the workforce, but from the media and the political debates. Stories of the poor are not told and images of the poor are not seen. This invisibility has allowed for the situation of the poor to be ignored by our politicians, who have not placed a priority on addressing the increasing number of poor families in worsening conditions. Economic human rights need to be a priority over the next four years, or many people who have been abandoned by both political parties simply will not make it.

While pressing issues here at home have taken a backseat to foreign policy debates in the months leading up to this election, poor people nevertheless have been working to make their issues and voices heard. David, who is a leader from Poor People United, an organization of homeless families in Rochester, NY, asserted, “Somebody has to say something about the situation that is happening not only locally but nationally. The poor can’t afford to be silenced now or ever.” So on the opening day of the Republican National Convention (RNC), The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), a network of over 100 poor people’s organizations nationally (including Poor People United) who are building a movement to endpoverty, marched from the United Nations to the doors of RNC. The PPEHRC brought a message of the economic human rights to housing, healthcare, living wage jobs and education to Madison Square Garden on August 30th. They will continue to bring this message to the entire nation after November 2nd, until poverty has been ended.

Union Theological Seminary is one of the places where this message has come in earnest. Over the past year, administration, faculty members, students, alumni, and community leaders have been planning a multi-faceted program – The Poverty Initiative at Union. The program for 2004-2005 includes both a Scholar in Residence and community events concerning poverty, including a “Poverty Truth Commission” in the spring of 2005. This year’s Scholar in Residence is Willie Baptist, a leader in the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and the growing movement led by the poor to end poverty in this country.

Our religious traditions call for the elimination of poverty, not simply reducing, alleviating or managing it; and yet our society and religious communities are not outraged or in action about the growing polarization between wealth and poverty. A survey conducted of 30 major U.S. seminaries discovered that few offer courses in economic justice, despite our biblical and ecclesial traditions that place major emphasis on justice for poor people. Few seminaries build direct relationships between poor people and the religious leaders that they educate.

At Union, we plan to change all this. We are not going to continue to ignore the moral crisis of poverty, but plan to integrate themes of poverty and leaders of poor people’s organizations in the curriculum and community life at Union. The Poverty Initiative is not a caucus, student group, or faculty committee; it is a movement across the seminary’s community to make poverty a central concern in the teaching, research, action, and life of the institution.

The spiraling issue of poverty and the growing movement to end poverty is another opportunity for Union Theological Seminary to challenge our religious institutions and the society at large around urgent social injustices and to help mobilize an array of communities towards economic justice. As Union’s new mission statement reads, “Union graduates will practice their vocations with dedication to the mission of the churches and leadership in the academy and society, ever seeking to bring a religious and moral voice to discussions of major social and political issues.” By focusing on Union Theological Seminary, with its national reputation for social justice, we have the possibility of influencing not only the Union community throughout the city and the nation, but also seminaries across the U.S. that follow Union’s lead. Regardless of who is elected on November 2nd, Union Theological Seminary cannot miss the chance to join the fight to end poverty. And the Poverty Initiative at Union will continue to push this seminary to respond to the cry of the poor and ensure that all have the rights to housing, health care, living wage jobs, education, and food: “all this we do in response to God’s justice and love.”