The concept of a “Jericho March” comes from the Book of Joshua:

The LORD said to Joshua…’You shall march around the city… seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. “It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.” (Joshua 6:1-6)

The faith community has been an omnipresent force in the fight to overturn SB 1070 and similar laws across the country on grounds that it criminalizes faith and impugns human dignity. We’ll soon find out whether the Supreme Court agrees with them.

[Rev. Jane Quandt] and other Inland religious leaders say they have heard too many stories of banks’ ill treatment of homeowners who have struggled — and often failed — to hang onto their houses as the economy spiraled down. They are part of a growing group of clergy and congregants who are abandoning giant banks in favor of smaller community institutions to avoid taking part in what Quandt calls “institutional sin.”

Christian churches tend to think of sin in personal terms, but it’s not just personal, Quandt said. There are times when it’s embedded in institutions and it’s embedded in systems.

The campaign has already gained significant momentum; according to the article, “25 congregations, along with clergy and community groups, have moved at least $30 million from big banks to community banks and credit unions.” In this inspiring way, the faith community continues to hold bad actors accountable for the institutional sin of unjust economic practices and policies.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped proponents of the pipeline from making inflated claims about its ability to create jobs and using the issue as a political hostage. Moreover, the entire debate has brought into sharp focus the influence that the oil and gas lobby has over our political process. Until our leaders decide to seriously invest in a national clean energy strategy, Big Oil’s lobbyists will continue to have a stranglehold on our environmental and energy policy.

The good news is that President Obama still has the ability to delay or stop this dangerous project. But even that is unlikely to be enough to permanently stop the pipeline. If the oil companies make a renewed push, expect the faith community to raise their voices even louder in opposition to this assault on God’s creation.

Photo credit: tarsandsaction, Flickr

But one courageous media figure has been ahead of the curve. Taking an in-depth look at the growing inequality gap in America, PBS host Tavis Smiley embarked on an ambitious 18-city bus tour with Princeton professor Dr. Cornel West to expose the scandal of nearly 50 million Americans now living in poverty. “The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience” was the focus of five special episodes that aired last week on PBS, the last of which featured the Rev. Jim Wallis, CEO of Sojourners and tireless champion for the poor.

The segment starts out with a head-turning clip from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough:

To hear this kind of faith-based critique of the Right from a prominent conservative media figure is both rare and audacious. It also elucidates a clear truth about the heart of Christ’s mission that crosses partisan and ideological lines: caring for our neighbor makes us stronger. This philosophy stands in stark opposition to the individualism and selfishness embodied in the budget proposals of Ayn Rand devotees.

As people like Smiley, Wallis, and Scarborough continue to shine a light on the moral travesty of poverty in America and the obligation of Christians to remedy this injustice, they should also hold our political leaders accountable to the commandments of our faith. As Wallis says later in the interview (about 6:40 in), “Any candidate who says they’re a Christian and are not dealing with [poverty,] are not really raising the true religious issue.”

First, the notion that these deals will actually create jobs in the U.S. is dubious at best. We heard the same promises during the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debate but recent economic analysis has proven the opposite happened.

The President himself seems to recognize this given that he made passage of the deals contingent on approving more assistance for workers who have lost their jobs as a result of free trade. The current jobs crisis we face only compounds the immorality of pushing unfair deals that will leave American workers further and further behind.

Faith communities, in particular, are shedding a light on the troubling human rights abuses in Colombia that could be exacerbated by that trade deal. The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness recently organized a protest against the deal:

Along with other groups, OPW and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship helped organize the protest. Leaders from both groups spoke alongside environmental activists and trade unionists from the United States and Colombia about the devastating consequences the free trade agreement would have on laborers, farmers, Afro-Colombians and other Colombian citizens.

Participants surrounded the stage with 51 cardboard coffins representing the 51 trade unionists killed in Colombia in 2010 — more than the number killed during the same time period in the rest of the world combined.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has also warned that, “Further displacement exacerbated by inadequate trade agreement provisions will hurt the poorest people in Colombia’s rural areas.”

While some in Washington may see passage of these deals as a victory, faith communities agree that there is no victory in punishing American workers and hurting the most vulnerable around the world.

Rev. Chuck Currie:

In short, the president offered up a moral vision of what America should be and in doing so he provided a stark contrast with the Tea Party Congress and their Ayn Rand devotees in the GOP leadership. Congress should pass the American Jobs Acts immediately and put politics aside to address the jobs crisis.

PICO National Network:

We applaud President Obama for putting forward the American Jobs Act, a set of bipartisan proposals to spur job creation, and we urge Congress to move quickly to pass it and other measures to get Americans back to work. Unemployment is more than just an economic problem – it is a moral problem that destroys families and destabilizes communities.

Simon Greer (Jewish Funds for Justice):

What I heard was a plan built around thoughtful analysis, by an Administration willing to take risks, to experiment and evaluate to get the best results, to try something bold at a critical time using the best tools we have available… It’s a challenge to those on both sides of the aisle – and to all of us on every side of the issues – to be about more than just putting up obstacles. To unite and be for getting our economy – and the millions out of work – back on their feet.

NETWORK: A Catholic Social Justice Lobby:

We strongly support those specific proposals that address critical needs of people who live at the economic margins of our society. They include strategies to widen employment opportunities and much-needed help for people who have been without jobs for extended periods of time.

In the dance of politics, a pivot is a useful move but only if you have a willing partner. And I’m not even talking about Republicans; I’m talking about the American people. After conceding so much in the morally bankrupt debt-ceiling fight, which will arguably hurt the nation’s fragile recovery, it’s hard to see how Americans can believe Washington will ever do what’s necessary to get the economy going again. Why? Because it requires spending and revenue, two words the Tea Party has successfully made dirty in Washington. (And, it doesn’t help when Democrats repeat their misleading talking points.) Yes, we must address the deficit, but the single best way to address it is to lower unemployment. Politically, it’s getting more and more difficult to support policies that will actually help the economy.

Their aversion to job-creating policy is not only political folly–after all, the state of the economy will again be the deciding factor at the ballot box come next November–but reflects a grave moral deficit as well. In my own Catholic tradition, the Church defines the dignity of work as:

The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected–the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.

Part of demanding moral leadership from Washington is demanding economic policies that create the opportunity for work. The faith community is continuing our call for shared sacrifice and job creation in the upcoming “Super Committee” deficit reduction negotiations. We pray that this “pivot to jobs” is backed up by serious action.

Chart: Negative economic impact of the debt ceiling deal. Credit: Economic Policy Institute via Think Progress

Their mission? To change the calculus of our country’s economic values. Their method? Sustained grassroots mobilization to directly challenge the big banks, who have bought so much influence and favor in Washington that real people’s voices have been drowned out.

Among some of the specific policy recommendations discussed at yesterday’s meeting:

Require Wall Street banks to pay their fair share. Not only are they sitting on $1.4 trillion in cash reserves (essentially free insurance), but their tax rate is lower than ever.

Stabilize the housing market and help revitalize the economy. Homeowners weren’t the cause of the foreclosure crisis, and they shouldn’t bear the brunt of austerity measures while struggling to maintain their families’ most important asset.

End predatory lending practices. It’s unconscionable that after the harm caused by the tricks and traps of the banking industry crashed our economy three years ago, their dishonest schemes are still in full effect.

Political leaders are mired in a serious debate about our economic priorities and how they reflect our national values. After all, if we choose to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest at the expense of struggling families, if we continue to reward recklessness and greed on Wall Street without holding them accountable, and if middle-class Americans who have worked hard and played by the rules continue to fall further and further behind, it’s pretty clear that we have strayed far from the ideal of the American Dream. The only question now is whether increased grassroots pressure and a clarion moral call from faith communities can persuade our leaders to stop listening to their corporate donors and start doing what’s right for America.

No jobs: Between 2002 and 2007, employment increased by less than 1 percent when the economy was supposed to be expanding. Employment growth barely kept pace with population growth.

…

Rich people benefit: The best-known result of the Bush tax cuts is that virtually all the benefits were conferred upon people who didn’t need them at all and who didn’t use the money to, say, create more jobs or pay their workers better. Median weekly earnings fell more than 2 percent between 2001 and 2007. Meanwhile, people making over $3 million a year, who account for just 0.1 percent of taxpayers, got an average tax cut of $520,000, more than 450 times what the average middle-income family received.

So, it’s pretty clear: tax cuts for the wealthy do not create jobs. Of course, 10 years of failure seem to have taught conservatives no lessons. They are back with a vengeance, insisting on Rep. Paul Ryan’s devastating budget that would make these tax cuts permanent and pay for them on the backs of our most vulnerable. For his part, President Obama did not lead with moral courage when he struck a deal with congressional Republicans extending the Bush tax cuts for another two years at a cost of $700 billion.

We can’t forget that every cut we choose to give to wealthy Americans and powerful corporations is an investment we’re not making in the health, security and education of our children, elderly and working families.

Supporters of the Ryan budget show little shame in pushing reverse Robin Hood economic policies: stealing from the poor to give to the rich. They should have the guts to come out and admit as much.

Chart by Dave Gilson at Mother Jones

Before our elected leaders decide to keep giving taxpayer-funded handouts to BP, Exxon, and Shell, they should remember the true costs of oil and our national dependency on it. It’s been only a year since the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and although the news media and Beltway insiders have moved on, many lives in that region still suffer the consequences, whether to their health, their livelihoods, or the ecology of God’s creation that sustains us all.

The faith community continues to shine a light on the needs in the region and reminds us of our moral duty to address the problem of our oil dependency. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is sponsoring an interfaith effort on www.afterthespill.com that highlights religious leaders’ responses to the ongoing challenges in the Gulf.

BP certainly doesn’t need any more tax breaks, but they–and Congress–sure could use a refresher on the harmful effects of oil drilling on our planet and in our communities.