Several coalitions of religious leaders are raising the issue of poverty, including the need to raise the hourly U.S. minimum wage to US$10 by 2010. It is currently US$6.55 an hour, at a time when the global economic slowdown has especially hit the lowest paid or those without jobs.
“National wage policies are moral documents that express the values of our country. A minimum wage closer to a living wage better reflects our values,” said Sharon E. Watkins, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), one of 15 church or faith organization leaders who signed a wage increase call by the economic justice coalition Let Justice Roll.
Obama has invited Watkins to preach at the National Prayer Service in the Washington National Cathedral on January 21, to be attended by the president and high-ranking members of the government.
Other faith leaders, along with members of the coalition Christian Churches Together, the only U.S. grouping that has representatives of Evangelical, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Protestant, and African American churches, called on Obama to make the ending of poverty a moral priority during his four years in office, which begin on January 20.
“We have to overcome the scandal of poverty,” Leonid Kishkovsky, director of external affairs and interchurch relations for the Orthodox Church in America, told Ecumenical News International following a January 15 news conference at Washington’s National Press Club, where the faith leaders presented their call on poverty.
Kishkovsky, the CCT’s moderator, said he found Obama’s staff members “to be quite open” on the concerns raised by the religious leaders. He noted that the new administration was likely to have a relationship with a broader range of religious bodies than that of outgoing President George W. Bush.
In a statement released on January 15 by the National Council of Churches, the NCC noted that everyone “it seems, has a message for the new president. They are full of wish lists and urgent demands and heartfelt dreams for our nation.”
The statement said, “The churches alone cannot create a moral consensus for the redirection of America, but if President Obama harkens to his personal experience, he knows that the solid, unheralded work of the churches will be there, in support of more courageous action than most observers outside the faith community can imagine.”
