In solidarity, Michael
PROCLAMATION AND CALL TO OUR CHURCHES ______________________________________________ Preamble
We are a group of Anabaptist, Baptist, Evangelical, Holiness, Pentecostal, Reformed and Wesleyan Christians who invite others in our biblical traditions to join us in a "Proclamation and Call to Our Churches." We are persuaded that local congregations of our faith perspectives should explore congregation-based community organizing as a means to faithfully live out the Gospel.
Congregation-based community organizing is a process that enlists churches in faith- and value-based action to address the economic, social, and cultural conditions which individuals and families alone lack the power to change. Congregation-based community organizations can provide opportunities for Biblically-based action on behalf of justice in the world. Congregation-based community organizations are federations of faith communities that involve large numbers of people in negotiating with decision makers to reach solutions to critical issues impacting our communities. Among these issues are: health care, quality of education, criminal justice, pornography, substance abuse, racism, sexism, unemployment and underemployment, neighborhood services and affordable housing. Congregation-based community organizing can be an instrument for the shalom of our communities.
We speak in the tradition of the great revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries when our predecessors led the struggle to:
* abolish slavery;
* create real neighborhoods to replace slum conditions that forced people to
live in degrading poverty;
* end child labor, as well as other abuses of working people; and,
* extend the right to vote to women.
We speak in the liberating tradition of the African-American church which has historically understood God's purpose to include community, justice and freedom. In this tradition, we stand with:
* the slaves whose Christianity embodied the prophetic voice of Israel and
who reminded us that the City on the Hill was also Pharaoh's Egypt;
* the abolitionists who struggled to end slavery; and,
* the civil rights movement of the 20th century.
We speak in the tradition of the Azusa Street Pentecostal movement which:
* recognized the importance of community, and challenged a concept of
individualism that affirmed human independence by denying our
interdependence;
* broke barriers of race, ethnicity and gender by recognizing the uniqueness
and gifts of all people; and,
* reaffirmed the presence and power of the Holy Spirit among us.
In these traditions, to those who share them with us, we speak.
_______________ CALL
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* We affirm that this involvement will help our congregations deepen their body life in this time when we, like the society around us, often have become fragmented collections of individuals rather than communities of faith, love, justice, power and sound minds.
* We affirm that, coupled with prayer, this involvement will help our congregations recover their roles as God's instruments in building the Reign of God at a time when the great majority of us feel relatively powerless in the face of systemic and institutional forces of evil that seem beyond our influence.
* We affirm that this involvement will assist our congregations in reconnecting with our neighborhoods when we, like many other institutions in our society, have often become commuter institutions, out of touch and out of love with the neighbors in the shadow of our doors.
* We affirm that this involvement will help us recover our concern for justice for our communities at a time when many of our churches have limited our concerns to an individual pietism, to personal redemption, and personal morality. Having ignored our prophetic and corporate roles in confronting institutional sin and promoting institutional reconciliation and institutional redemption, we affirm our involvement in congregation-based community organizing as a means by which our congregations will recover their ability to confront systemic injustice, to deal effectively with the worldly manifestations of the 'principalities and powers' and to hold institutions accountable to the purposes intended for them by God, who is reconciling all things.
* We affirm that this involvement will help us reconnect to our biblical mandate to call human systems and institutions to account when they stray from their godly purposes. The godly intent for our economic institutions is a just stewardship of the resources received from God, both as goods and services. The godly intent for our political institutions is to be instruments of shalom , thus providing justice for all which orders, empowers, delivers and distributes according to basic needs.
* We affirm that this involvement will help us recover a biblical understanding and use of power, so that power whether in our church structures or in other institutions of society, is subjected to the lordship of Jesus Christ as an instrument of love for all people.
* We affirm that our congregations' involvement will deepen the spiritual and ethical foundation of existing congregation-based community organizing efforts as we call all involved congregations to constant biblical reflection and to deeper dependence on the work of the Spirit.
To leaders and congregations of our faith perspectives who long to see the church act more faithfully in these ways, we solemnly, humbly and joyfully issue this PROCLAMATION AND CALL to engage in this process of exploration and involvement.
While we affirm this kind of organizing will aid us in praying and working for God's Reign to come, we also acknowledge that the Reign of God and our salvation will never be fully realized until Jesus Christ returns.
INITIATING SIGNERS
Rev. Lyman J. Alexander, Director of Missions, Crescent Bay West Los Angeles Southern Baptist Association; Dr. Julie M. Anderton, Director, Center for Christian Women in Leadership; Rev. Cliff Benzel, Executive Vice-President, Evangelicals for Social Action; Rev. M. Cecilia Broadous, Associate Pastor, Los Angeles Baptist City Mission Society; Dr. Galen Carey, Midwest Area Director, World Relief; Pamela Wong Chao; Mrs. Delia Realmo DeSoto; Dr. Francis M. DuBose, Senior Professor of Missions (ret), Golden Gate Seminary; Dr. Ronald Glen Frase, Professor of Sociology (ret), Whitworth College; Rev. Ronnie M. Griffin, Associate Pastor, Mt. Moriah Baptist Church; Rev. Krystal Hutt, Associate Pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church; Dr. Bruce W. Jackson, Program Director, Contextualized Urban Theological Education Enablement Program; Dr. James K. Law, Senior Pastor, Chinese United Methodist Church; Dr. Ron Kernaghan, Pastor, La Habra Hills Presbyterian Church; Dr. Robert C. Linthicum, Executive Director, Partners in Urban Transformation; Dr. Michael A. Mata, Director, Urban Leadership Institute, Claremont School of Theology; Dr. Alice Mathews, Director, Philadelphia Center, Seminary of the East; Dr. George D. McKinney, Bishop, Second Jurisdiction, Church of God In Christ; Rev. Nancy C. Moore, Urban Ministry Group; Dr. Stanley W. Moore, Professor of Political Science, Pepperdine University; Dr. Stephen Charles Mott, Pastor, Cochesett United Methodist Church; Mr. Grant D. Power, Consultant, West Angeles Community Development Corporation; Dr. Lindy Scott, Professor Foreign Language Department; Wheaton College; Rev. Cynthia E. Smith, Pastor, Radiant Life Ministries Center; Mrs. Marilyn Stranske, National Organizer, Christians Supporting Community Organizing; Mrs. Janet Furness Spressart, President, North American Association of Christians in Social Work; Rev. Walter R. Tilleman, Pastor, Pleasant Street Baptist Church; Dr. Timothy Tseng, Crozer Asst Professor of American Religous History, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School; Dr. Eldin Villafane, Executive Director, Contextualized Urban Theological Education Enablement Program; Mr. Craig W. Wong, Ministry Coordinator, Grace Fellowship Community Church.*
*Titles and organizations are listed for identification purposes only. Signatories join in this statement as individuals.