The Religious News Service provided the following release on Thursday, January 15, 2009 concerning the effort of Christian Churches Together. Their executive administrator is Dick Hamm, a Ministry Partner with me at The Columbia Partnership, and author of Recreating the Church.
WASHINGTON (RNS) In a private meeting and in public statements, the nation's broadest coalition of Christian churches pressed President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday (Jan. 13) to make poverty a priority of his administration.
A dozen leaders of Christian Churches Together in the USA, a three-year-old ecumenical group representing more than 100 million Christians, met privately with members of Obama's transition team Thursday morning. Members also visited Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress.
Later that day, CCT leaders convened at the National Press Club to call on Washington lawmakers to include provisions for the poor in any forthcoming economic stimulus packages.
"We've heard a lot recently about Wall Street and Main Street," said the Rev. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). "Our concern is the people who live on the street, or have no street address." Next week, Watkins will be the first woman to deliver the sermon at the National Prayer Service, part of Obama's inaugural ceremonies.
CCT's statement on poverty will be officially approved on Friday in Baltimore, where 110 representatives from 43 member churches and Christian organizations are convened for an annual meeting, said the Rev. Richard Hamm, the group's executive administrator.
Composed of the five "families" of Christianity -- Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical/Pentecostal, historic Protestant and ethnic
churches-- CCT leaders said Thursday their diversity and reach lends authority to their public voice.
"It gives us power, spiritual power," said the Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, director of external affairs and interchurch relations for the Orthodox Church in America.
CCT's decisions and statements must be approved by consensus, and leaders emphasized Thursday that they offer principles, not specific proposals.
"We're not a poverty think tank," the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, a network of social justice-minded progressives. "It's a meeting of churches and church organizations."
Hamm said CCT's statement will highlight specific issues, such as an earned income tax credit and adequate schooling for poor children, but refrain from policy prescriptions.
"One of the most interesting challenges for us is to say something that is not an overstatement but that has real substance, and actually, we find there's quite a lot," he said.
Next year, the group will take up evangelism at its annual meeting, which Hamm predicts will provoke "an interesting conversation."
