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An Interview with Adam Taylor on "The State of Our Values" Campaign

The Roundtable:

Tell us about the "State of Our Values" Watch. How did it come about?

Adam Taylor:

The "State of Our Values" Watch partially came out of our year round work on the (federal) budget. We've been really trying to frame the budget as a moral document and have been mobilizing Christians all across the country to try to advocate for a moral budget.

We knew early on that there were a number of proposed cuts to social programs that we were trying to defend, including cuts to Medicaid, to child-care programs, to food stamps at one point. In a time of war, in a time of record deficits, balancing the budget on the backs of those who are most vulnerable and who can least afford it was a real reversal of Biblical values, and we saw that as being a sign of an immoral budget.

We've been doing all kinds of work across the country, through the media, through lobbying and preparing people of faith to meet with their members of Congress, and we organized a major demonstration and prayer vigil on Dec. 19th, right before the Senate voted on the budget reconciliation bill. And that vote ended up going the wrong way, and the Senate ended up voting on a budget that includes many of these really punitive cuts that we view as being an attack on the poor.

The final vote for the House budget bill or the overall budget bill is on Feb. 1st. The reason why they still have to vote one more time is there were some procedural differences between the Senate and the House bill. And so this provides one more opportunity to get every House member on record around this bill, and we feel like there's a real strong chance that we can overcome it, that we can defeat it, but it's going to take a concerted effort.

Our point of view is that when you are stripping away programs that support poor people, and you look at the trend of the last four years of increasing poverty -- not decreasing -- our current approaches are not working.

So the "State of Our Values" Watches are opportunities to have people speak out against the decision that's going to be made Feb. 1st, and hopefully reverse that decision. But it's also to offer a much more hopeful vision of where we'd like to see our country go. And it's not a vision that is a partisan one.

We're really trying to offer a critique of where we see our government right now, and offer up a strong prophetic vision that is clearly about addressing the root causes of poverty -- about really rebuilding the devastated Gulf Region and certainly New Orleans. And in a way that is pro-environment, this is really serious about protecting God's creation. In a way that is supportive of a consistent ethic of life -- that certainly cares about reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country, but also cares about people that are dying of HIV and AIDS both in our country and around the world. In a way that is serous about addressing abject global poverty, and is able to offer a real alternative to our current foreign policy -- which we see as very misguided and is much more about pre-emptive military strength and might, versus really working through diplomacy and working with our neighbors in order to create a more secure world.

The people who are organizing these watches are going to be providing that vision, and we want their voices to be the ones that are heard. Usually during the State of the Union, a lot of local media are looking for people's response, so we're trying to organize events that are able to provide that response.

The Roundtable:

There are about 150 or so of these watches going on around the country. Are the people running them necessarily connected to Sojourners, or might they just happen to know you're coordinating this, and want to have an event? To what extent is there a message coming out of Sojourners as a central organization?

Adam Taylor:

The vast majority of them find out about the State of our Values through Sojomail (Sojourners' listserv), which goes to close to 200,000 people across the country. In a sense, Sojomail is our constituency, or at least a part of our constituency. A lot of people connected to Sojomail respond to our action alerts and are able to get involved in our campaigns by receiving our weekly newsletter.

Partner organizations also send it out, so there's a chance that people were reached through other listservs. I think the primary vehicle has been through Sojomail, and I would imagine a great number of those people are also subscribers to the magazine.

The Roundtable:

Are there notes that they've been given to prepare themselves to make comments?

Adam Taylor:

We've really tried to structure this thing to make it easy as possible for people to organize these events, and hopefully make the events as effective as possible. So when we sent out the original pitch to encourage people to organize these "State of Our Values" Watches, we included in that pitch an organizer's toolkit, which kind of walks people through a "State of Our Values" Watch. So it kind of has the vision that I described earlier.

And then it gives you five steps to organizing a successful event -- there's some media tips about how to write up a press advisory, how to get the media to cover an event, what are some effective ways that you can entice the media to cover what you're doing, and then some tips on how to plan your event and create a good program.

The Roundtable:

You mentioned that the federal budget is your big target in terms of topics. Are there other topics that you're hoping to be able to address?

Adam Taylor:

We'll certainly be paying attention to what the president says on Iraq. We have supported a phased withdrawal, and certainly oppose the original occupation and invasion of Iraq. So a lot of our constituency will be listening very closely and will be very critical of a business-as-usual approach.

I feel like the president needs to offer a more concrete plan to exit Iraq. Obviously, there are a lot of complicated circumstances that are tied in to that. There's a real question of how the politics are going to play out in Iraq between the Sunni, Shiites and the Kurds. But we really want to see a more proactive vision about how we're going to transition both the military leadership and the size of our force in Iraq. So that's one key issue we'll be watching.

Another one we'll be paying attention to is the environment and global warming. It's a very serious issue, and we think this administration's been very negligent around the way it's approached the global warming issue.

The Roundtable:

How do you present that as a talking point to the people who are organizing these events if it isn't something addressed in the actual State of the Union address?

Adam Taylor:

The omission creates a real opportunity to say that this administration has not paid enough attention to the issue, or has actually done harm by neglecting the issue. So in the President not mentioning it, it creates an opportunity for us to raise it, and make a real point out of the fact that he's ignoring it.

The Roundtable:

Our Roundtable project focuses on faith-based and community initiatives. In past State of the Union addresses, the President has announced new programs related to his federal initiatives. What does Sojouners think of the effort in general?

Adam Taylor:

We certainly supported the Faith-Based Initiative early on. We've been critical about the way in which it's been politicized in some ways.

The Roundtable:

Can you elaborate on that -- about what you mean by it being politicized?

Adam Taylor:

There are some cases in which the Faith-Based Initiative has been used to try to win the support of churches in order to support the Administration's policies and its overall support to public policy.

We think -- as one of the key service providers that's working on the front lines -- that there's a real role for the government to support faith-based initiatives. So we've been supportive of that aspect of it. But there's a real risk of that being abused by the Administrationâ?¦ doling out grants to churches they believe are willing to support their agenda.

The Roundtable:

Have you seen that happen? Or are you concerned that it may be going on?

Adam Taylor:

It's more of a concern. I would have to do some more digging for specific examples. But I think it's more of a general concern that we share.

The Roundtable:

This is the first time you're doing this "State of Our Values" Watch. Have you in the past done any other kind of coordinated reactions to the State of the Union address?

Adam Taylor:

We certainly release statements in response to past State of the Union addresses. Or (Sojoruners Executive Director) Jim (Wallis) has been in the press after, offering our perspective, and kind of a prophetic critique, but also a more hopeful vision. So that's taken place. But in this case, we're really trying to empower the voice of local people around the country to speak for themselves.

A lot of people watch the State of the Union in their living room or sometimes with friends or with church members. But we really want to create a platform for people of faith to watch it together and build community in that experience, and then offer up their own vision -- and to be able to speak about how they see the state of our values.

The other genesis of this idea has been the success of "God is not a Republican or a Democrat," which is the campaign that we launched right before the 2004 election. It really provided a space for people to embrace a much broader set of values that should be examined when you decide which party to vote for.

In that campaign, we try to make a strong case that how we treat the environment is a fundamental moral value, and how we address the issue of poverty -- because poverty has to be a real moral priority. We talk about how war and how we go about going to war -- whether we tell the truth about the war -- is a fundamental moral value.

And of course issues like abortion and gay marriage are also moral values, but we can't boil down our entire faith and our entire Biblical witness to just two hot-button social issues.

So I think having a space where people can really claim a much broader platform about what it means to be a Christian and what it means to apply your faith to the public arena is really critical.

One other thing to add to the list of issues that we are really emphasizing is both the idea of good government and the Biblical role for government.

There has obviously been a lot of attention and spotlight shown on the corruption within our government overall, but particularly with (ex-lobbyist Jack) Abramoff and the indictments of (I. Lewis "Scooter") Libby (the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney) and others. We feel like this is an opportunity to try to reclaim the integrity of government, and to try to make a case that there is a Biblical role for government, to provide for the common good.

In so many ways we feel like the government has become captured by private interests, often at the expense of the common good -- and by the greed and power-hungriness of politicians. So I think there's a real moment to try to restore the integrity of government. And we're encouraged by some of the proposals around reforming our lobbying system and reforming our way in which politicians can receive money from lobbying. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The Roundtable:

How do you respond to groups that might bristle at the words "Biblical" and "government" being used in the same sentence -- the issue of separating religious values from government?

Adam Taylor:

The separation of church and state does not mean the segregation of our values from public life. It's important that many people who are Christian, particularly when they are talking to other Christians, draw from their faith directly and talk about how the prophets spoke out a lot about issues of land and labor and capital and poverty. And so they describe a vision for government that I think is a really critical one for how we look at government now.

What would have happened if, say, Dr. Martin Luther King had kept his faith to himself? There's a way that you can talk about your faith without being exclusive and divisive. I think there's an important role that we have to play to challenge some of the theology of the Bush Administration that we think has been dangerous and misguided -- that is Christian theology. He is a sincere Christian. There's a way in which we can engage the Bush Administration along those lines, but also to be able to talk about values in a much more broad sense. So many of those values are rooted in our faith tradition.

The Roundtable:

Thank you for speaking with us.