Former senator mounts campaign to help poor

United Methodist News Service
WASHINGTON—Former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards met with two United Methodist bishops and other Protestant leaders April 11 to discuss a nationwide effort to fight poverty, homelessness and hunger.
Edwards, a United Methodist and former Democratic senator from North Carolina, said he had made helping the poor his current agenda. He was seeking help from churches in that effort.
“National political leaders have not paid much attention to these issues,” Edwards said. “Local and regional leaders have. This is going to have to work from the ground up.”
Edwards said he would like to see a grass-roots movement motivate the U.S. Congress to act more favorably on behalf of the poor.
United Methodists at the meeting included Bishops John R. Schol of the Baltimore-Washington Episcopal Area and Roy Sano, executive secretary for the Council of Bishops. Jim Winkler, top staff executive of the General Board of Church and Society, and board staffers John Hill and Gretchen Hakola also attended.
Other faith leaders came from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Edwards said he met with the religious leaders at the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill to get their advice.
“Can you get me into your churches?” Edwards asked. “Is there a way to establish a national campaign that we can draw attention to?”
The answer to both questions around the table was yes.
“We’re an untapped resource,” said Winkler, referring to the mainline Protestant denominations represented in the room. “What we do is get into the community. What we don’t do so well is get into the national spotlight.”
Edwards said that was exactly where he could help.
Following his unsuccessful run for vice president with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in 2004, Edwards said he could hardly walk down the street without someone saying “hello” and asking what he’s doing now. What he’s doing is trying to bring national attention to the poor.
“I met a woman on the campaign trail in North Carolina who is literally working herself to death,” he told the group. “She represents, however, everything that America wants to be—hard working, respectful of others, dedicated to her family. But she’s not earning enough to make ends meet.”
Schol noted that one of the hardest aspects of fighting poverty is the unfair perception that poor people are poor because of themselves. There’s a real feeling, he said, that poor people are lazy, drunk or both.
In addition, the group said, systemic issues, such as the minimum wage, the lack of affordable health care and lack of education, play critical roles in increasing poverty.
“We’re great at clothing the naked and offering food to the hungry,” Winkler said of churches. “We’re not so great at effecting structural change. We need to ask, ‘Why are there so many hungry people?’ We need to effect systemic changes.”
Edwards agreed, saying that he, too, has experienced the frustration of working to feed the poor and hungry, only to have them multiply in numbers over time.
To effect systemic change, he said, you’ve got to reach Congress.
“These guys,” he said, pointing across the street to the Capitol, “will respond to only two things, and I know because I was one of them: momentum or letters and phone calls.”
Data and statistics don’t motivate people to action; human stories do, he said.
“We have to show the poverty,” said Eleanor Giddings Ivory, director of the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). “We can’t deal with systemic issues until we put our hands on it.”
Edwards said he would know his job was being done when the average person knew there was momentum. The only way that would happen would be through a movement because, he said, movements have led to “the great programs of the past.”
Sano described the Council of Bishops’ recent emphasis and programs on children and poverty, saying that agenda could bring people in from around the nation.
Edwards agreed.
“I don’t think that the political and business leaders at a national level are going to do anything about this issue until a grass-roots movement forces them to do it,” he said. “They’ll nibble around the edges, but that’s about it. If we want something serious to happen, we need motivation.”