Let Justice Roll

October brings faith-based activism
By Rev. Kevin A. Johnson
Special to The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), 10/14/06

For faith-based activists across our nation, the first two weekends in October have special meaning.

To them, the ancient prophet Amos is speaking anew: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream." (Amos 5:24)

Proponents of faith-based economic justice movements, inspired by the National Council of Churches, are hearing this scripture as a "mandate for efforts to place poverty in a prominent place in the national debate … in anticipation of the day when nothing less than a living wage would be the national standard for just compensation for work."

In response, activists created a program called "Let Justice Roll," including two weekends of "Living Wage Days" promoting biblical calls for economic justice for present-day practice (www.letjusticeroll.org).

As the economy booms for billionaires, wage worker incomes in American communities remain flat. This is the sort of injustice that ancient prophets railed against in biblical kingdoms. It is the inequity that trust-busting elected officials of America's early 20th century campaigned against and squashed.

The reforms enacted then created the strong middle class now the backbone of local communities and churches. However, that strength is being sapped by unjust economic policies that enable the super-rich to get super-richer while the working poor see their food, shelter and health-care dollars shrinking.

Minimum wages may have risen, but at a snail's pace and their purchasing power has nosedived; $9.37 in 1968 is worth $5.15 today. Minimum-wage workers have less buying power than they did 50 years ago.

"We've long seen scorecards (that) show how members of Congress vote on so-called social issues, but not on help for the poor, which the Bible mandates hundreds of times. But millions of 'values voters' care about fair wages for the people who do some of the hardest, most important jobs in our society - from childcare teachers we entrust with our children to healthcare aides we entrust with our parents," says the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA, a leading member of Let Justice Roll.

"Let Justice Roll members know that talking about values is no substitute for valuing hardworking men and women all across this nation who need a higher minimum wage," says Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry, Let Justice Roll Campaign National Coordinator. "The message of Living Wage Days is clear: A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Sherry, co-author of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future."

There are more references in Jewish and Christian scriptures to support economic justice than to decry the sexual and social practices that grab our national moral attention these days.

If human resource directors and boards of directors' compensation committees applied Jesus' command to "love your neighbor as yourself" to employee income, do you think there might be a shift to more humanitarian pay scales? Having faith in the power of divine love to spark human social justice, I say yes.

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