The Covenant for a New America was launched during Sojourners' Pentecost 2006: Building a Covenant for a New America mobilization on June 26-28 in Washington, D.C. + See what bipartisan Congressional leaders said during the launch.
Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
- Proverbs 31:9
Throughout the Bible, God shows a special concern for those in poverty and acts in history to lift them up. As Christians who are called to be the people of God, we share that concern.
Our times call for a new moral and political will that merges personal and social responsibility, a commitment to reverse family breakdown, and a more honest assessment of both the individual decisions and social systems that trap people in poverty. Low-income families are too often stuck between liberal and conservative arguments, while neither political party has made the needs of poor families a top priority. Our country needs a new grand alliance between liberals and conservatives that makes overcoming poverty a nonpartisan agenda and a bipartisan cause.
In a time when political and social issues threaten to divide the church, religious leaders from across the theological and political spectrum are building new common ground around a fundamental commitment to the most vulnerable who were such a special concern of Jesus.
We can overcome poverty, but only if we act together and are willing to be held accountable to outcomes. Restoring the hope of our poorest families will require nothing less than a national change of heart. It is a challenge the church and political leaders should embrace. Our vision is:
- Work must work and provide for family economic success and security. Those who work responsibly should have a living family income in which a combination of a family's earnings, and supports for transportation, health care, nutrition, child care, education, housing, and other basic needs provide a decent standard of living. T hose unable to work should be supported with dignity
- Children should not be poor. We also need specific and concrete commitments to brighter futures for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. We will never end the cycle of poverty if we continue to allow lack of opportunity to be the formative aspect of a child's life. Our nation should develop and commit to a plan that reduces child poverty by half over 10 years.
- Extreme global poverty must end. The U.S. should support effective aid, good governance, just trade policies, and debt cancellation in order to lift billions of people out of extreme poverty. U.S. international development assistance should be increased by an additional one percent of the federal budget to honor our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, designed to cut global poverty in half by the year 2015.
We commit to recognize the valid concerns of both sides in the political debate, and then move to higher ground by working together to make overcoming poverty a moral priority. We embrace this covenant— in the spirit of shared responsibility - and invite God's help as we commit to:
Personal renewal and action,grounding ourselves in prayer and in the Word of God, and living under the call of Jesus to "bring good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18).
Congregational renewal and engagement,serving and working alongside the poor in our cities and communities in the name of Christ and challenging local leaders and institutions to honor their needs.
Societal renewal through the advocacy of voice and witness,holding our national political leaders accountable to seeking the common good for our nation and the world, for all our citizens, especially the most vulnerable.