poor ppl campaign
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</div><div><b>New study reveals the group that was crucial to toppling Trump in 2020</b></div><div>
</div><div> Julia Conley and Common Dreams October 15, 2021</div><div> </div><div>Calling into question widespread perceptions of lower-income Americans and their level of political engagement, a new study released Friday detailed the high turnout among poor voters in the November 2020 elections—particularly in battleground states which helped deliver victories for President Joe Biden and Democrats in the Senate and House—following a concerted effort by campaigners to engage with low-income communities regarding the issues that mattered to them in the election.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Released by the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival (PPC:NCMR); the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice; and Repairers of the Breach, the study shows that of the 168 million Americans who cast ballots last year, 59 million, or 35%, had an estimated annual household income of less than $50,000, classifying them as poor or low-income.</span></div><div>
</div><div>According to the report, titled "Waking the Sleeping Giant: Low-Income Voters and the 2020 Elections" and written by Kairos Center policy director Shailly Gupta Barnes, those voters were among the Americans that the Poor People's Campaign reached out to last year when it held a non-partisan voter outreach drive across 16 states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.</div><div>
</div><div>The organization reached over 2.1 million voters, with campaigners speaking with them about "an agenda that includes living wages, healthcare, strong anti-poverty programs, voting rights, and policies that fully address injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy," according to the report.</div><div>
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</div><div>The Poor People's Campaign found "that the reason poor and low-income voters participate in elections at lower rates is not because they have no interest in politics, but because politics is not interested in them."</div><div>
</div><div>"They do not hear their needs and demands from candidates or feel that their votes matter," wrote Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign, in the foreward to the report. "They are less likely to vote because of illness, disability, or transportation issues, not to mention the rise of voter suppression laws—all systemic barriers rather than individual failures."</div><div>
</div><div>"Intentional efforts to engage these voter" in the leadup to the 2020 election,contact the groups found, were key to turning out <b>low-income voters in states where Biden's margin of victory was near or less than 3%, including:</b></div><div>
</div><div>Arizona, where low-income people represented 39.96% of voters;</div><div>Georgia (37.84%);</div><div>Michigan (37.81%);</div><div>Nevada (35.78%); and</div><div>Wisconsin (39.8%)</div><div>
</div><div>"While the data cannot be used to claim that being contacted by PPC:NCMR was the only factor that drove them to vote, we can say that our efforts to directly reach out to low-income, infrequent voters improved their turnout rates in these states," the report reads.</div><div>
</div><div>The groups highlighted the case of Georgia, which was carried by Biden—marking the first Democratic presidential victory in the southern state since 1992. Outreach by the Poor People's Campaign helped encourage more than 39,000 Georgians who didn't vote in 2016 to cast ballots last year—"accounting for more than three times the final margin of victory for the presidential contest in the state."</div><div>
</div><div>The racial demographics of low-income voters in Georgia were fairly evenly split between Black and white low-income voters, with 1.9 million low-income white voters casting ballots last year and 1.6 million Black Georgians going to the polls. Another 164,000 low-income voters were classified as Hispanic.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In other states carried by Biden, white people made up a larger share of eligible lower-income voters reached by the PPCNCMR, including in Michigan, where 2.95 million out of 3.8 million poor voters were white; Pennsylvania, where three million of the state's 3.95 million eligible low-income voters were white; and Wisconsin, where 1.8 million out of 2.1 million low-income voters were white.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The statistics present "a challenge to the media-driven narrative that emerged out of 2016 and before, i.e., that white low-income voters are the de facto base of the Republican Party and delivered Donald Trump into the White House," wrote Gupta Barnes.</span></div><div>
</div><div>"While the narrative that white low-income voters are voting not only against their own interests, but also the interests of other racial segments of low-income voters, persisted through the 2020 elections, our analysis suggests something significantly different," the author added. "The findings suggest that, rather than writing white low-income voters off, it is possible to build coalitions of low-income voters across race around a political agenda that centers the issues they have in common."</div><div>
</div><div>Though the Poor People's Campaign made an intentional effort in 2020 to reach low-income voters, listen to their concerns, and urge them to turn out in the elections, the report notes that legislative action must be taken to turn last year's high turnout among poor Americans into a long-term reality.</div><div>
</div><div>"To realize the potential of the low-income electorate, our voting infrastructure must be expanded to encourage these voters to both register and vote," the report reads.</div><div>
</div><div>As Common Dreams has reported this year, the PPCNCMR has campaigned extensively to urge the passage of the For the People Act, which would outlaw partisan gerrymandering, expand early voting, establish a national automatic voter registration system, and take other steps to strengthen the country's election system.</div><div>
</div><div>"While mechanisms to increase registration are important for low-income voters, there is an even greater need for policies and legislation that increase their ability to cast a ballot and actually vote," wrote Gupta Barnes.</div><div>
</div><div>Additionally, the report says, Democrats must identify—and pass—"an agenda that appeals to important concerns of low-income voters across race, that is, issues like raising hourly wages, stimulus payments, paid leave, housing, and healthcare."</div><div>
</div><div>"According to exit polls, 72% of Americans said they would prefer a government-run healthcare plan and more than 70% supported raising the minimum wage, including 62% of Republicans," the report reads. "In Florida, the $15/hour minimum wage referendum got more votes than either of the two presidential candidates."</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report comes as progressives in Congress are pushing back against corporate Democrats' claims that the Build Back Better Act—the spending package which would invest $3.5 trillion in climate action, child care, affordable housing, and other measures to help lower- and middle-income people—is unaffordable.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Common Dreams reported on Tuesday, the Poor People's Campaign held a press conference on Capitol Hill this week to demand the legislation's passage.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The report, wrote Gupta Barnes, "underscores why the needs and concerns of low-income voters must be brought more fully into our political discourse, platforms, and campaigns—and why candidates who are elected on these platforms must live up to their campaign promises."</div><div>
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</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/heres-how-christian-nationalism-in-the-us-legislates-evil-and-punishes-the-poor/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/heres-how-christian-nationalism-in-the-us-legislates-evil-and-punishes-the-poor/</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On August 26th, during the Republican National Convention, Vice President Mike Pence closed out his acceptance <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/08/27/citing-scripture-pence-switches-out-jesus-for-the-american-flag-in-convention-speech/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">speech</a> with a biblical sleight of hand.</span> Speaking before a crowd at the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, he exclaimed, "Let's fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let's fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire." In doing so, he essentially rewrote a passage from the New Testament's Book of Hebrews: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross."</font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176754/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article originally appeared on TomDispatch.</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There's nothing new, of course, about an American politician melding religion and politics on the campaign trail. Still, Pence's decision to replace Jesus with the Stars and Stripes raised eyebrows across a range of religious and political persuasions. </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Indeed, the melding of Old Glory and Christ provided the latest evidence of the rising influence of <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/old-glory-god" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Christian nationalism</a> in the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/trumps-biblical-spectacle-outside-st-johns-church/612529/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">age of Trump</a>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">It's no longer hard to find evidence of just how deeply Christian nationalism influences our politics and policymaking. During the pandemic, the Bible has repeatedly been used (and distorted) to justify <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/texas-court-to-rule-on-teens-refusal-to-wear-mark-of-the-beast-school-id.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Covid-19 denialism</a> and government inaction, not to speak of outright repression. In late March, as cities were locking down and public health officials were recommending strict quarantine measures, one of Donald Trump's first acts was to gather his followers at the White House for what was billed as a "<a href="https://www.religiousfreedominstitute.org/blog/presidents-call-for-national-day-of-prayer-for-those-affected-by-covid-19-has-deep-roots-in-american-history" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">National Day of Prayer</a>" to give Americans the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-national-day-prayer-americans-affected-coronavirus-pandemic-national-response-efforts/#::text=May%20God%20bless%20each%20of,for%20our%20National%20Response%20Efforts." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">strength</a> to press on through death and difficulty.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Later in the spring, protests against pandemic shutdowns, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">funded</a> with dark money from the likes of the Koch Brothers, demanded that states reopen for business and social distancing guidelines be loosened. (Forget about masking of any sort.) At them, printed protest signs said things like: "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/accidentallycommunist/comments/g47f8c/even_pharaoh_freed_slaves_during_a_plague/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Even Pharaoh Freed Slaves in a Plague</a>" and "<a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/lifting-stay-home-orders-people-killed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Texas will not take the Mark of the Beast</a>."</span> And even as faith communities struggled admirably to adjust to<a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/05/13/survey-shows-faith-can-prosper-in-online-services/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> zoom worship services</a>, as well as remote pastoral care and memorials, President Trump continued to fan the flames of religious division, declaring in-person worship "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/politics/religious-gatherings-cdc-coronavirus/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">essential</a>," no matter that legal experts <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/05/22/tl-jeffrey-toobin-dr-peter-hotez-live.cnn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">questioned his authority</a> to do so.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And speaking of his version of Christian nationalism, no one should forget the June <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spectacle in Lafayette Square</a> near the White House, when Trump had racial-justice protestors tear-gassed so he could stroll to nearby St. John's Church and pose proudly on its steps displaying a borrowed bible. Though he flashed it to the photographers, who can doubt how little time he's spent within its pages. (Selling those same pages is another matter entirely. After all, <b>a Bible he signed in the wake of that Lafayette Square event is now on sale for <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2020/09/08/trump-bible-signed-autographed-for-sale-st-johns-church-photo-op/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">nearly $40,000</a>.)</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Battle for the Bible in American History</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">To understand how power is wielded in America by wealthy politicians and their coteries of extremists in 2020, you have to consider the role of religion in our national life. An epic battle for the Bible is now underway in a country that has been largely ceded to <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/july-august/christian-nationalist-temptation-america-white-evangelical.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">white evangelical</a> Christian nationalists. Through a well-funded network of churches and nonprofits, universities, and think tanks, and with direct lines to the nation's highest <a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/07/07/the-price-of-white-evangelical-patriarchy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">political officials</a>, they've had carte-blanche to set the terms of what passes for religious debate in this country and dictate what morality even means in our society.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Under Trump, such religious nationalism has reached a fever pitch as a reactionary movement that includes technocratic billionaires, televangelists, and armed militias has taken root with a<b> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/God-Country-Christian-Case-Trump/dp/1684510570" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">simple enough message</a>: God loves white Christian America, favors small government and big business, and rewards individualism and entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the poor, people of color, and immigrants are blamed for society's problems </b>even as the rich get richer in what's still the wealthiest country in the history of the world.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The dangers posed by today's Christian nationalists are all too real, but the battle for the Bible itself is not new in America. In the 1700s and 1800s, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-33/why-christians-supported-slavery.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">slaveholders</a> quoted the book of Philemon and lines from St. Paul's epistles to <a href="https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">claim</a> that slavery was ordained by God</b>. They also <a href="https://www.history.com/news/slave-bible-redacted-old-testament" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">ripped</a> the pages of Exodus from bibles they gave to the enslaved. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century, churches and politicians alike preached a "<a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">prosperity gospel</a>" that extolled the virtues of industrial capitalism.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Decades later, segregationists continued to use stray biblical verses to rubberstamp Jim Crow practices, while in the late 1970s the Moral Majority helped to mainstream a new generation of Christian extremists into national politics.</b> In my own youth, I remember politicians quoting <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/poor-will-always-be-us-jesus-indictment-rich-not-poor" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Thessalonians</a> in the lead up to the passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act as proof that God believes in work-requirements for public assistance programs.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Students of religion and history know that, although such theological battles have often tipped disastrously toward the forces of violence, deprivation, and hate, Christian <b>religious thinking has also been a key ingredient in positive social change in this country.</b> Escaped slave Harriet "Moses" Tubman understood the Underground Railroad as a Christian project of liberation, while escaped slave Frederick Douglass fought for abolition through churches across the north in the pre-Civil War years. A century later, near the end of his life, <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/quotes-from-rev-dr-kings-last-years/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.</a> explained how, to achieve his universal dream of justice, a beloved community of God would be built through a "<a href="https://kairoscenter.org/freedom-church-of-the-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">freedom church of the poor</a>."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After all, in every chapter of American history, abolitionists, workers, labor organizers, civil rights leaders, and other representatives of the oppressed have struggled for a better nation not just in streets and workplaces, but in the pulpit, too. In the wreckage of the present Trumpian moment, with a fascistic, white nationalism increasingly ascendant, people of conscience would do well to follow suit.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The "Psychological Bird" of Bad Religion</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802875025/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><em>Always with Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor</em></a>, I focus on a reality that has long preoccupied me: how, in this country, the Bible has so often been manipulated to obscure its potentially emancipatory power; in particular, the way in which what theologian Jim Wallis has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-OIyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=jim+wallis+most+quoted+biblical+passage+on+poverty&source=bl&ots=HOKOZc7n6F&sig=ACfU3U2xJE_fV6pwoF2CXslEs0t5XjPfDg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9pqiF5MXqAhUvlHIEHdi7B-YQ6AEwDXoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=jim%20wallis%20most%20quoted%20biblical%20passage%20on%20poverty&f=false" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">called</a> the<b> most famous biblical passage on the poor (from the Gospel of Matthew) -- "<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26&version=NIV" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the poor will be always with us</a>" -- has been misused.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since I was a young girl, scarcely a week has passed in which I haven't heard someone quoting <a href="http://practicalmattersjournal.org/2017/05/10/you-who-have-neglected/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Matthew</a> as an explanation for why poverty is eternal and its mitigation reserved at best for charity or philanthropy (but certainly not for government). The logic of such thinking runs through so many of our religious institutions including what's now known as "evangelical Christianity," but also our legislatures, courts, military, schools, and more. It hasn't just shaped the minds of young Christians but has <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">helped to spiritualize (and cement in place) poverty, while implicitly or<b> even explicitly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/jerry-falwell-jr-cant-imagine-trump-doing-anything-thats-not-good-for-the-country/2018/12/21/6affc4c4-f19e-11e8-80d0-f7e1948d55f4_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">justifying</a> ever greater inequality in this society</b></span><b>.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Today, the idea that poverty is the result of bad behavior, laziness, or sin rather than decisions made by those with power is distinctly ascendant in Donald Trump's and Mitch McConnell's Washington.</b> Biblical passages like that one in Matthew have become another ideological tool brandished by reactionaries and the wealthy to deflect attention from this country's systemic failures.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consider, for example, the historic development of what's often known as the "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bible Belt" (or alternatively the "Poverty Belt")</span>. It sweeps across the South, from North Carolina to Mississippi, Tennessee to Alabama, home to poor people of every race. It represents the deepest, most <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/12/americas-new-poverty-belt/677/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">contiguous area</a> of poverty in the United States made possible in part by heretical theology, biblical misinterpretation, and Christian nationalism.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The convergence of poverty and religion in the Bible Belt has a long history, stretching back to the earliest settler-colonists in the slave era. It echoed through the system of Jim Crow that had the region in its grip until the Civil Rights years and the modern political concept of "the solid South" (once Democratic, now Republican). Within its bounds lies a <b>brutal legacy of <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/the-leadership-of-the-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">divide and conquer</a> that, to this day, politicizes the Bible by claiming that poverty results from sins against God and teaches poor white people in particular that, although they may themselves have little or nothing, they are at least "better" than people of color.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the end of the bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, Martin Luther King <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/address-conclusion-selma-montgomery-march" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">explained</a> the age-old politics of division in the region this way:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow... And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man... And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That "psychological bird" was seasoned and cooked in a volatile mix of racist pseudo-science, economic orthodoxy, and <a href="https://www.ivpress.com/reconstructing-the-gospel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bad religion</a>. In fact, it retained its enormous power in large part by using the Bible and a version of Christianity to validate plunder and human suffering on a staggering scale. De jure Jim Crow may no longer exist, but its history haunts America to this day, and the Bible continues to be <a href="https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">weaponized</a> to validate anti-poor, white racist political power.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As jobs and opportunity continue to vanish in twenty-first-century America and churches stand among the last truly functional institutions in many communities, the Bible, however interpreted, still influences daily life for millions</b>. How it's understood and preached affects the political and moral direction of the country. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Consider that those Bible Belt states -- where Christian nationalism (which regularly displays its own upside-down version of the Bible) now reigns supreme -- account for more than <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Revive-Us-Again-P1422.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">193 electoral college</a> votes and so will play a key role in determining the fate of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in November.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I had my own experience with that version of biblical and theological interpretation and its growing role in our national politics in June 2019 during a <a href="https://budget.house.gov/legislation/hearings/poverty-america-economic-realities-struggling-families" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">hearing</a> of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives. Its subject was poverty in America and the economic realities of struggling families<em>. </em>A racially and geographically diverse group of leaders of the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b><a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Poor People's Campaign</a> (of which I'm the co-chair)</b> were invited to testify on those realities. Alongside us that day were two Black pastors invited by Republican congressmen to stand as examples of how faith and hard work is the only recipe for a good and stable life for the impoverished.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">We had come to present what we've called the <a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/poor-peoples-moral-budget/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Poor People's Moral Budget</a>,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a study showing that the United States does have the money to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, and more, just not the political will to do so. In response, members of the committee turned to the same <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/who-are-the-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tired stereotypes</a> about why so many of us in such a wealthy country are poor. Some cited the<b> supposed failure of the 1960s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_poverty" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">War on Poverty</a> as evidence that programs of social uplift just don't work, while ignoring the dramatic way politicians had undercut those initiatives in the years that followed. </b>Like those pastors, others replied with tales of their own success rising out of economic hardship via bootstrap individualism and they plugged Christian charity as the way to alleviate poverty. I listened to them all as they essentially promoted a heretical theology that claimed people suffer from poverty largely because they're estranged from God and lack a deep enough faith in Jesus.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That day, the walls of that House committee room rang with empty words twisting what the Bible actually says about the poor. One Republican representative typically remarked that,<b> although he was familiar with the Bible, he had never found anyplace in it "where Jesus tells Caesar to care for the poor." Another all-too-typically suggested that Christian charity, not government-sponsored programs, is the key to alleviating poverty.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Someone less familiar with the arguments of such politicians might have been surprised to hear so many of them seeking theological cover. As a biblical scholar and a student of the history of social movements, I <a href="http://www.liztheoharis.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">know well</a> how religious texts actually instruct us to care for the poor and dispossessed. As a long-time organizer, I've learned that those in power now regularly, even desperately, seek to abuse and distort the liberating potential of our religious traditions.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Indeed, in <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/liz-theoharis-house-budget-committee/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">response</a> to that representative,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Reverand William Barber, my Poor People's Campaign co-chai</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">r, and I pointed out how interesting it was that he identified himself with Caesar (not necessarily the most flattering comparison imaginable, especially as biblical Christianity polemicizes against Caesar and the Roman empire). Then I detailed for him many of the passages and commandments in the Bible that urge us to organize society around the needs of the poor, forgive debts, pay workers a living wage, rather than favoring either the rich or "Caesar." That, of course, is indeed the formula of the Trump era (where, in the last six pandemic months, the 643 wealthiest Americans raked in an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/business/us-billionaire-wealth-increase-pandemic/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">extra $845 billion</a>, raising their combined wealth by 29%). I also pointed out that th<b>e most effective poverty-reduction programs like Head Start are federally funded,</b> neither philanthropic nor a matter of Christian charity.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Good News from the Poor</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the Poor People's Campaign, we often start our organizing meetings by showing a series of <a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/the-souls-of-poor-folk-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">color-coded maps </a>of the country. The first has the states that have passed <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voting-restrictions-america" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voter suppression laws</a> since 2013; the next, those with the highest poverty rates; then, those that have not <a href="https://www.nashp.org/states-stand-medicaid-expansion-decisions/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">expanded Medicaid</a> but have passed anti-LGBTQ laws. And so it goes. Our final map displays the states densest with self-identified evangelical Protestants.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that those <b>maps overlap almost perfectly,</b> chiefly in the Bible Belt, but also in the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic states, and even in parts of the Northeast and West</span>. <b>The point is to show how inextricably connected the battle for voting rights, healthcare, and other critical resources is to the battle for the Bible. </b>The stakes are measured in the health of the entire nation, because the same politicians who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/trump-religion-megachurch-american-tradition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">manipulate the Bible</a> and the right to vote to win elections then pass immoral budgets and policies.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Vice President Pence altered that line from the Book of Hebrews, he was charging headfirst onto that very blood-soaked battlefield with a desecrated Bible in hand. The question is: why should he and other Christian nationalists have the power to define Christianity? If they are so intent on "fixing their eyes on Old Glory," shouldn't they also fix their eyes on what Jesus actually said?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Greek word <em>evangelia,</em> out of which "evangelical" comes, means bringing good news to those made poor by systems of exploitation.</span> The Bible's good news, also defined as gospel, talks again and again about <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%2061%3A1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">captives being freed</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Luke%204%3A18" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">slaves released</a>, and all who are oppressed being taken care of. It's said that were you to cut out every one of its pages that mentions poverty, the Bible would <a href="https://www.redletterchristians.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fall apart</a>. And when you actually read the words on those pages, you see that the gospel doesn't talk about the inevitability of poverty or the need for charity, but the responsibilities of the ruling authorities to all people and the possibility of abundance for all.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At a time when <a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/the-souls-of-poor-folk-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">43.5%</a> of Americans are poor or one fire, storm, health-care crisis, pandemic, eviction, or job loss from poverty, it couldn't be more important for Americans to begin to reckon with this reality and our moral obligation to end it. Instead, politicians pass <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voter-suppression" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voter suppression</a> laws, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/free-school-meals-children-trump.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">kick kids</a> off food programs, and allow the <a href="https://grist.org/cities/the-real-heroes-of-the-flint-water-crisis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">poisoning</a> of our water, air, and land, while Christian nationalist religious leaders <a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/an-open-letter-to-clergy-who-prayed-with-trump-7876ee87dbc2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bless</a> such policies and cherry-pick biblical verses to justify them as all-American. Consider such a reality not simply a matter of a religious but a political, economic, and moral crisis that, in the midst of a pandemic, is pushing this country ever closer to the brink of <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/04/mlks-warning-of-americas-spiritual-death-3/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spiritual death</a>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If America is still worth saving, this is no longer a battle anyone should sit out.</font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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