Social Action Alert # 1

Social Action Alert

The Newsletter of the Social Justice Task Force of the Presbytery of Southern New England

Number 1 — January 1999

Welcome to the first issue of Social Action Alert.
We hope you find it a useful addition to your ministry. Articles are always welcome.

Wider Representation

by Ralph Jones

Massachusetts and Rhode Island, we need your eyes and ears, your hands.... We need your help. The Task Force is committed to helping the congregations of this Presbytery work together on regional issues of social justice. At present all but one of our members lives in Connecticut, so it is hard for us to keep up with the issues in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Membership on the Task Force is open. If you are interested in joining, please let us know. We are an energetic, and hard working group which has enjoyed working together. If you can’t make that commitment, but are willing to help... please contact us. We need people who will help us stay in touch.

For example, poverty affects children in all parts of the United States. But while children and poverty is becoming a major issue in Connecticut, the trends in Massachusetts and Rhode Island are different. We need someone to clip and send along copies of newspaper articles about children’s issues so we can spread the word and keep the children of all three states in our informed prayers.

Children and the Dow Jones

by Ralph Jones

January has begun with new record highs on all the major stock market indices. This sign of exuberant confidence in the American economy, as those familiar with these things already know, has most often proven rational.

National Public Radio’s Ina Jaffe reported recently on the early results from changes in the welfare system. Many states have adopted shorter time limits for recipients than the five year limit commonly imposed. So far this has not caused the problems many analysts predicted.

Late last year, the Connecticut Association for Human Services reported that:

... 63.1 percent of children enrolled in school in New Haven during the 1997-1998 school year live at or near the federal poverty level. The figure jumped from 49 percent in 1992-1993, and it was far higher than the statewide average of 23.9 percent. The child poverty rates were even higher in other Connecticut cities - 73.6 percent in Bridgeport and 80.9 percent in Hartford. The state average increased slightly during those five years, from 22 percent in 1992-1993.
Shelley Geballe, the co-director of a New Haven-based child advocacy agency, said it is striking that 30 states have reduced child poverty since 1991, but in Connecticut the problem is getting worse. “We’re going against the grain,” said Geballe, co-director of Connecticut Voices for Children. She said the study is “profoundly troubling, because we have the economic capacity in this state to reverse that.” [New Haven Register, 22 Dec 98]

We, the American people, are voting with our money that this is the best of times — nothing else explains the rise in the financial markets. Welfare reform is working — at least a little better than expected — in many areas of the country. Yet here in the richest state in the nation our urban children are getting poorer. And by the way, that 23.9% statewide average puts us way down the list of states in our treatment of children all by itself. There are poor children in ALL our communities.

What gives? If ever there was a time when social policy and government action clearly mattered, it is now. Whether we care, and whether we act on that caring, will have a profound effect on our future and the futures of many of our children.

Actions

The single, simplest action we can take is to let Connecticut’s Senators and Representatives hear from us. They need to know that the welfare, the shalom, of all citizens matters to us. They need to know that we are Christians who vote, and that we will support them when they take the political risks of doing what is right for our children, our neighbor’s children ... all our neighbors.

Other possible actions include involvement in programs like tutoring, mentoring, and sponsoring children. And we can remember and support the efforts of professionals in fields like teaching and social work.

There is no justification for anyone long remaining poor in the wealthiest state in the country. It is even more inexcusable when it happens to children. In Poverty Matters, The Cost of Child Poverty in America (Children’s Defense Fund, 1997) Arloc Sherman reports some national statistics. Compared to the non-poor, poor children are:

1.9 times more likely to be low birthweight.
2.8 times as likely to receive inadequate parental care.
3.4 times more likely to be expelled from school.
one-third less likely to attend college.
one-half as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Responses

As Christians, we should be morally and spiritually outraged by these realities. As citizens, we may recognize that the consequences are disastrous. The Army challenges recruits “to be all they can be.” If we fail to do what we can to help our children, we should not be surprised when many of them do not achieve all they could. This under achievement means we will not have the employees (or employers) our economy needs, that there will be fewer doctors and nurses to care for us in our old age, that the majority of us, including those who are reasonably well off, will continue to live in fear of crime and violence.

At this writing it is too early to identify specific programs and bills to discuss with our representatives. It is not too early to contact them about our concerns.

One concern should be education. According to the Hartford Courant, the State Board of Education is recommending significantly increased state funding of education in poor cities. That recommendation needs popular support to make it through the legislature.

One cannot separate children’s poverty from family poverty. If poor parents were able to find work which paid more, or quality day-care which was less costly, or were helped to get the education they need for meaningful participation in the work force, things would get better. The states where welfare reform seems more successful have programs supporting poor people with these issues.

Resources

Connecticut Voices for Children, 33 Whitney Avenue, New Haven CT 06510, 203-498-4240. <http://www.ctkidslink.org> Their web site includes valuable links.
Connecticut Association for Human Services (CAHS) <http://www.cahs.org>
Connecticut Association for Basic Human Needs (CABHN) 80 Jefferson Street, Hartford CT 06106 (860) 278-5688.
Children’s Defense Fund, 25 E Street NW, Washington DC 20001, (202) 628-8787, <http://www.childrensdefense.org>

Violence Against Women: A Sin

by Susan Pfeil, based on a report by Stephen Brown, Ecumenical News International

The member churches of the World Council of Churches were urged to repent of the sin of violence against women, according to a report from the WCC’s eighth assembly last December in Harare, Zimbabwe. United Church of Christ minister Bertrice Wood explained to a plenary session that the

...one experience which women have in common with each other, regardless of their status in the church or society, is the experience of violence, in our homes, our societies and even our churches. Women know that violence against them, in whatever form, is a sin and call on the churches to take the bold step of stating so, just as the churches have ecumenically denounced other social sins as being contrary to the very essence of the church, the body of Christ.

The plenary session was considering the results of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, which was launched by the WCC in 1988 to promote solidarity by churches with women. A letter drawn up at the festival concluding the decade and submitted to the assembly discusses violence against women and also women’s “secret pain” of

isolation, economic injustice, barriers to participation, racism, religious fundamentalism, ethnic genocide, sexual harassment, HIV/Aids and violence against women and children.

Over 1,100 women participated in the festival of which Wood was co-moderator.

Workshops which address the church's response to domestic violence are being planned. If you would like to study this further in your own church, please call Rev. Susan M. Pfeil (203-966-7271, e-mail: revspfeil@aol.com) for a workshop outline.

A Note for Massachusetts

On January 14, The Boston Globe reported:

Calling dismal student test scores “a crisis of immense proportion,” the state’s most powerful lawmaker yesterday proposed a $100 million “aggressive expansion” of preschool and kindergarten programs.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran said the first infusion of cash should go to communities whose students scored worst on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.
But he said “political fairness and practical wisdom” dictate that the new early education programs “be made universally available” throughout Massachusetts.
“Common sense, common experience, common intuition and advanced academic and social research all argue for constant visual, verbal and mental stimulation and learning opportunities at the earliest possible stages of childhood development,” he said.

This is a story which bears watching.

Presbytery-Wide Activist Database

by Howard Taylor

Two of the roles of the Social Justice Task Force are to establish a database of people, congregations and organizations and to maintain communications with people, congregations and organizations about social justice issues. We believe that all of our congregations are involved in some social justice issues and that there is a wide variety of social justice activity.

The Task Force used a questionnaire to try to identify the issues important to our congregations. Twenty-seven individuals from 13 churches completed the questionnaire. We hope to triple the number of people involved in 1999 to provide a critical mass for social justice activity.

Five themes were identified by the questionnaire:

Poverty - including homelessness, housing, hunger, jobs, urban decay, and housing for the elderly.
Violence - including domestic violence, crime and guns.
Drugs and Alcohol - including HIV/AIDS.
Fear - including class, gender and homophobia.
Children - including schools and their programs, and teen pregnancy.

We hope to organize workshops around some of these themes for sharing and, when appropriate, coordinating our efforts.

Peacemaking

This year the denominational Peacemaking conference will be July 6-10 in Montreat, NC. The theme is “Who Do You Say That I Am?” Details are available from PDS. Phone: (800) 524-2612. PDS order number: 70-270-98-008.

General Assembly Gun Policy

by Ralph Jones

At the last General Assembly, our denomination adopted a resolution “on Removing Weapons from Homes and Communities.” This latest addition to thirty year’s worth of policy statements has caused concern to many Presbyterians. The Social Justice Task Force was recently asked to confer about this. In the course of our discussions, we found it to be much more complicated than we had expected.

This matter may be on the agenda of a future Presbytery meeting, and you may want to spend some time in education, reflection and prayer about it. Rev. Kathy Lancaster, Associate for Criminal Justice, Louisville, (502) 569-5803, has a free packet of study materials. If gun control is an issue of interest in your church or community you will find these resources helpful.

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