Online lessons geared toward teaching high school students economics as if people mattered. From United for a Fair Economy.
This will require both increasing nutrition and income support program participation under existing
essential strategies for ending childhood hunger by 2015, summarized here and explained in detail
Restore economic growth and create jobs with better wages for lower-income workers.
Raise the incomes of the lowest-income families.
Strengthen the SNAP/Food Stamp Program.
Strengthen the Child Nutrition Programs.
Engage the entire federal government in ending childhood hunger.
Work with states, localities and nonprofits to expand and improve participation in federal nutrition programs.
later in this paper: The steps are:
Make sure all families have convenient access to reasonably priced, healthy food.
Looks like Santa is bringing a lump of something to working families, and it isn’t a fatter paycheck.
New data show America’s workers earned less in 2009 than in 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compensation was down by 3.2 percent in 2009 with declines in construction and manufacturing fueling the plunge. St. Louis County, the hardest hit, saw a decline of 11.5 percent.
via U.S. Workers Earned Less in 2009 Than in 2008 | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG.
The quiz is available at Half in Ten.
We American Christians have a way of taking the Jesus of the Bible and twisting him into a version of Jesus that we are more comfortable with.
A nice middle-class American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism and would never call us to give away everything we have. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts.
A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes, and who for that matter wants us to avoid danger altogether. A Jesus who brings comfort and prosperity to us as we live out our Christian spin on the American Dream.
But lately I’ve begun to have hope that the situation is changing
via My take: Why my church rebelled against the American Dream – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.
I have already said that every development program represents a convergence of stories: ours, the community’s, and God’s. God’s story is the only one that has the power to redirect and make sense out of all our stories. The best human future is one that moves toward the kingdom of God. Thus witnessing to God’s story is the beginning of hope and the promise of a new story
Congregation-based community organizing is the process of bringing congregations and groups with similar values together, so that they can hold society’s political and economic systems accountable for justice. The fundamental problem addressed by these organizations is the disparity of power faced by persons in low-to-moderate income communities. The absence of broad-based, democratic organizations in these communities denies them the opportunity to successfully solve their own problems.
The systemic issues facing most of these communities are the pervasiveness of low-wage, non-benefit jobs; disparities in health care, public education, and safety; and the persistent ineffectiveness on the part of public and private structures in delivering services equitably to all people. These issues are rooted in each organization’s long-term goal of building power to achieve a greater degree of justice in their community.
In our society, power stems from two sources – money and organized people. Low-to-moderate income people are without significant amounts of money. Therefore, their potential for successfully addressing political and economic injustices is contingent on their ability to organize and mobilize large numbers of people bound together by common values and interests. These values include mutual respect, dignity, and human worth.
Deuteronomy is one of the most strategic books of the Hebrew Bible. It is the clearest biblical statement of the world as God intended it to be, including the ways the political, economic and religious systems of Israel are meant to operate. I call that social design “the Shalom Community”, because the Hebrew word “shalom” best describes the totality of both public and private life as a unity of contentment, prosperity, peace, welfare and wholeness – society as God intends it to be.
For years, Christians have divided themselves over the most effective means of transforming our world: verbal proclamation of the gospel – witnessing – or social action. In truth, the two cannot be separated. Without both, there is simply no Good News. And one thing ties them both together: prayer to a God of temporal justice and eternal salvation.
via Prayer Is Social Action – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.
As we rediscover the local body, we also rediscover that God wants to duplicate throughout all history that once-in-history manifestation of his love. He wants to put the same life and love of Jesus Christ in a church so that people can again see Christ.
via Declare His Glory in the Community (1976) – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.
The liberal-fundamentalist debate still rages in urban America. Likewise, the working class still suffers from the same instability that plagued them a century ago. As fewer and fewer working class employees are needed by industries because of mechanization and recession, economic struggles will increase for these families. Seminary-trained pastors look to the suburban populations of the America to build and fill the churches of the 1990s and (among many other urban populations) the working class neighborhood is largely ignored.
As conservative seminaries debate what constitutes evangelism – soul-winning or social reform – decades worth of urban souls are lost due to suburban wealth, indecision, and complacency. As urban problems snowball, it is imperative that Christians decide that evangelism does indeed constitute both soul-winning and social reform. This will ultimately require agonizing self-sacrifice on the part of wealthy middle class Christians. Evangelists and evangelicals must agree that these two aspects of evangelism are not mutually exclusive.
Finally, as American industries migrate to the Third World to recreate the conditions they imposed on urban America a century ago, Christian evangelicals must not repeat the mistakes of the past. If we fail to heed the lessons that American urban industrialization has left of us, our millions of dollars and hours of overseas missionary work will be in vain. Our evangelization efforts might leave behind a number of churches and believers but we will also leave behind the exploited and confused victims of a capitalistic society, numb and properly inoculated against the gospel of Christ.
Bible Studies
The Plight of the Poor
Amos 3-6
via The Plight of the Poor – Bible Studies – God’s Word – Urbana.org.
The biblical motif which would best seem to address the urban community blighted by drugs is “hope.” Hope functions at two levels within Scripture. It refers at one level to Christ, the object of hope, and at another to the believer’s objective activity of hoping. The two are inextricably linked. We can define “hope” as follows, “. . . to look forward expectantly for God’s future activity.” #12# Hope is clearly linked with the inauguration of the Kingdom of God by Jesus. The coming of the Kingdom recorded in the Gospels is the coming of the reign of God over all humanity. It is brought uniquely by Christ since he himself is the King and proclaims a whole new order for the whole of humanity. The Kingdom is at once present and future.
via The Urban Church and the Drug Culture – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.
I recently stepped into a southern California neighborhood corner store, the kind of small store that’s replete with soda pop, beer, beef jerky, Tostitos and a minimal selection of over-priced canned goods. Four boys played on the entrance steps, the tallest pivoting his two-wheeled scooter underfoot while talking loudly and sternly to the others. I found out later from a woman on the street that the corner store sells alcohol to some of these children. As I nudged past them the smallest boy, shirtless and in yellow shorts, darted for the inside. As he crossed the store’s threshold, a colorful bill dropped from his hand and fell to the concrete, dollar-sized with ornate, interlaced designs, shapes and swirls, all of it printed in red.
I abruptly stopped. What’s this kid doing with foreign money? I thought. Where’d he find such a thing? But then I noticed the bold print across the face of the bill: “Food Coupon.” In that moment I felt innumerable emotions: a sense of irony, sadness, embarrassment at my own privilege. What I thought was exotic yet useless in this context, was actually this kid’s usual and useful fare to purchase food, even if only a bag of chips or a Coke.
Later, I reflected upon the juxtaposition of this African American child living in a low-income neighborhood reputable for drug dealing and gang conflicts, and myself, a middle-class white guy with money in my wallet and a secure plane ticket home, away from any corner store, drug activity, or any kind of urban setting at all if I so chose. I tote a credit card and have “purchasing power.” He fists a food coupon and is therefore allowed to eat today.
I do not pity that child, so much as I desire for him to live in security and justice. What must my response be, as a Christian, to this evident inequality?
read the rest at A Call to the City – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.
As much as both of us love a good meal with our families, we’re pretty sure Jesus didn’t come to initiate a sentimental pause in holiday consumption. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” John’s gospel says. Jesus moved into the neighborhood, and it wasn’t necessarily good for property values.
Christmas reminds us how Jesus interrupts the world as it is to reveal the world as it ought to be. When we pay attention to the story, it exposes our desperate need for a better way. This always makes some people mad.
via Our Take: Rethinking Christmas – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.
This is a very interesting article.
Drugs are a major problem in my working class/low income neighborhood. At one time there were two active crack houses the second house away from mine on either side. In the past five years more than 200 rounds have been fired with-in a three block radius of my house. During a six week period last summer there were 8 shots-fired incidents in my neighborhood. New Kensington has an outstanding police department; our police do an excellent job of trying to close down the problem, but it keeps reappearing. As I write this there is not an active drug house on my block. However, two drug users were arrested in front of my house last week.
I see the effects of the drug problem every day. Most of the dealers I have seen are young men 18-25 without an education and without any prospects of gainful employment. Slum landlords are part of our problem but even in that poverty is the ultimate reason there are slum landlords.
I keep asking myself what is the fuel for the problems I see daily here in my neighborhood. I think this author has nailed it on the head. Poverty.
This is an important article that looks at the problem of poverty as the source.
If we are ever going to solve our social problems we need to address and eliminate poverty. This will take a concerted nation-wide effort.
Please read the article below.
Addiction exacts a toll not because the latest drug is more addictive or more potent than its predecessors but because there is too little treatment, few family or community supports and acute economic insecurity in low-income households.
via The drug war on the poor: America doesn’t have a drug problem, it has a poverty problem.
Here inPittsburgh you still run across steps like those in the painting and ”paper streets”, streets that only exist on paper accessible only by foot.
Roy Hilton was new to town when he painted “Winter Day” in the late 1920s. As with many realist artists here, he was smitten with the rolling urban landscape even as it was transformed under a blanket of snow. “Winter Day” incorporates the traditional elements of a picturesque Pittsburgh scene: hillside houses, a bridge, a flight of city steps.
Pittsburgh, by Christian J. Walter, c. 1937
From Explore PA History
All You Fascists Bound to Lose
Woody Guthrie Voice of the Common Man
Official Woody Guthrie Website
A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be who’s hungry and where their mouth is or who’s out of work and where the job is or who’s broke and where the money is or who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is. – WG
Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Come, thou long-expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art:
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.Born thy people to deliver,
born a child, and yet a king,
born to reign in us for ever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.By thine own eternal Spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all-sufficient merit
raise us to thy glorious throne.
Joy to the World
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
World Vision Latest News ONE Poverty UNlocked
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