| |
WASHINGTON — More than 100 singing church activists were arrested on Dec. 14 outside the U.S. Capitol in a dramatic confrontation
with a 2006 federal budget they consider immoral.
Officials said 114 protesters were arrested after they blocked the main
entrance to the Cannon House Office Building during a carefully choreographed Wednesday afternoon event organized by Sojourners and Call to Renewal, two progressive faith-based groups that focus on poverty.
Singing “Caring for our neighbors, we shall not be moved,” the peaceful
demonstrators were frisked, photographed and booked on trespassing charges by Capitol Police officers. The misdemeanor carries a $250 fine or 90 days in jail.
The demonstration was the most direct action by churches who have made
the budget their highest domestic priority, and reflected the ongoing tussle between liberals and conservatives over what constitutes “moral values.”
Congress is rushing to finish a compromise budget that includes $50 billion in spending cuts approved by the House and $35 billion passed by the Senate. Protesters said those cuts will primarily hurt the poor.
The House has also approved a bill to cut taxes by $95 billion. Sojourners founder Jim Wallis said it was immoral to cut taxes for the wealthy as Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, whom the Bibles says came to bring “bring good news to the poor.”
“There is a Christmas scandal in this nation ... but it has nothing to do with shopping malls saying ‘Happy holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas,’” Wallis said. “The Christmas scandal is the immoral budget coming out of this Congress.”
Hoping to match conservatives’ use of religious rhetoric, Wallis and others said the budget would take the song of the Virgin Mary when she was told of Jesus’ impending birth —“He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty” — and turn it on its head.
“This is not just bad public policy,” said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America. “This is morally disgraceful.”
Wallis and the Rev. Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, were among those arrested. About 150 other demonstrators chose not to be arrested, including Granberg-Michaelson; the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; and the Rev. John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ.
Organizers said the protesters, who huddled together as the mercury dipped into the low 20s, came from across the country and represent evangelical, mainline Protestant and Catholic churches.
But religious conservatives who focus on hot-button social issues were noticeably absent from the rally. Indeed, the Washington-based Family Research Council urged its members to support the House budget bill.
Tim Wildmon, president of the Mississippi-based American Family Association, has been pressuring retailers to make more explicit references to Christmas, and said his 3 million members aren’t galvanized by issues like federal spending policy.
“The budget bores people, and this (Christmas) is an issue everyone can understand,” Wildmon said, adding that Wallis’ message “sounds like to me like the liberal social gospel.”
“The gospel message is about individuals helping individuals. I don’t see it in the Bible where it’s the government's responsibility to take care of everyone.”
Wallis, however, insisted that viewing poverty and the budget as moral issues is gaining traction among rank-and-file churchgoers, and cited a growing consensus against poverty in America’s heartland.
“There’s a moral center emerging in this country,” he said. “Don’t go left, don’t go right, but go deeper in the middle.”
|
|
