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A DECLARATION ON CHRISTIANITY AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICA
A Consensus Statement from Over 1,000 Christians
As Christian clergy and laypeople from around the country, we come together to stand and to speak. We speak now, because there is no more important time. We speak together, because there is no more important way. We speak as people of faith, because faith is central to our vision of what America can still represent. Today we are impelled by our faith to declare that our country can and must do better.
Christian faith calls every believer to love God, love neighbor, and seek to heal a broken world. In honoring that call, we honor the inviolable dignity of every human being and we treasure the natural environment as God's good creation. As Christ bears witness to God's love for the world, faithful Christians bear witness to the love that lies at the heart of all that is. We believe that reconciliation and forgiveness are always possible and always necessary. We know that God still speaks, yet we acknowledge that it is through a multiplicity of diverse voices that God's voice for justice can, will, and must emerge. These manifold voices for justice require that we heal the sick, release the prisoner, bind up the wounded, and care for the orphan. “As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.”
Christian faith requires that those who have received God's abundance provide for those in need, and so we must insist that God’s abundance be shared. We must demand justice for those of our society who live on the margins, those whose very survival is a daily challenge, those whose labors are neither recognized nor dignified, those who cannot demand justice for themselves. As Christ came to bring good news to the poor and oppressed, so must we.
As young children, we are taught that America is a country where a diversity of cultures and multiplicity of religions is esteemed and cherished. We learn that being an American means valuing the separation of church and state, so that no one particular religious voice is given priority in civil discourse and all voices are protected. We are taught to value and respect dissenting views, and to support vehemently the right and responsibility of those with whom we disagree to voice their views. As Americans, we cherish a rich and thoughtful debate and understand the necessity of that debate in our decision-making process.
As Americans, we aspire toward the common good, work for the creation of a just society, and seek prosperity for all rather than wealth for a few. We treasure the beauty and richness of our natural environments, from mountain to sea, from desert to plain, and we resolve to protect these treasures for generations to come. Finally, as Americans, we value a criminal justice system that promises liberty and justice for all: a day in court for all who stand accused, basic human rights and dignity for the incarcerated, the right to a speedy trial and the assurance that every person be deemed innocent until proven guilty. We believe that unless all are free, none are free; that unless all citizens have the opportunity to flourish, we are all diminished.
Today these historic American values stand at risk. Openly contemptuous of religious diversity and freedom of expression, the rigid religious values of conservative Christians exercise undue sway over public and social policies. A growing lack of tolerance for religious and cultural diversity jeopardizes the basic prerequisite for a functioning democracy—the social space for free and civil debate. We have become intolerant and inhospitable to one another. Civil debate no longer has a place in our political process, and we have become fearful of those with whom we do not agree.
In economic life, “market fundamentalism”—an idolatrous deference to the prerogatives of wealth and the unfettered pursuit of profits—threatens to eclipse ancient and priceless concepts of the common good and mutual accountability. In government, racism, bigotry and fear lead to punitive legislation that prevents us from ensuring justice for the prisoner and that strikes at the very heart of the liberties promised by our justice system. In jurisprudence, we can no longer even assume that our courts are free from bias or that religious ideology will have no place there. In politics, we drift toward becoming a nation where only the very wealthy can campaign for the highest office in the land; as a result, the voices of the wealthy and powerful few threaten to silence the voices of the many who are poor.
To address the challenges we face today we must return to the values upon which this country was founded, including the progressive vision of human thriving enshrined in the best of Christian faith and practice. In our churches and throughout our communities, by means of intentional educational efforts at the grassroots level, we must re-articulate the fundamental American values of justice, equality and the common good. It must become our common mission to elect local and national leaders who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to social and economic justice and who will create the means to achieve that justice.
Social policies must reflect the fundamental value of the common good: fair compensation for labor; access to health care for all; well-funded public education; regulation of industry to protect natural resources and the environment; and oversight of the criminal justice system with ongoing emphasis upon its rehabilitative rather than just its punitive effects. In order to assure that mass communication are indeed fair and balanced, we call for the return to the Fairness Doctrine in all media controlled or licensed by our government. We also call for wider access to the Internet, and we invite our growing networks and our communities of faith to discuss the issues we face at a local level and to nurture democratic groupings centered on creating in a shared future.
We recommit ourselves to the care of the most vulnerable among us, to hospitality toward immigrants and other strangers, to multilateral international institutions that promote peaceful resolutions of conflicts, and to responsible stewardship of the earth’s resources. We will hold onto hope, stay strong in our faith, and trust in a common vision for the future based upon the best in our past. We will remember what we struggle against, and for whom we struggle – for the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the marginalized, but not only for them.
We stand and we speak because we are fighting for our future, for the future of our children, and for the soul of a great country, which we will continue to hold in our prayers and whose spirit we will honor through unyielding struggle for liberty and justice for all.
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