Iowa Catholic Official and UCC Pastor Condemn Extreme Economic Individualism
While much of the political world is focusing on how the religious conservative vote will break in tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses, some faith leaders in Iowa are standing up to remind people that their traditions reject the “you’re on your own” economic values espoused by many candidates on the campaign trail.
In an op-ed in the Quad-City Times, Kent Ferris, Director of Social Action and Director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Davenport, and Rev. David Sickelka, Senior Pastor at Urbandale United Church of Christ, explain:
While presidential candidates sprinkle their speeches with vague references to values, they devote far more energy to a political gospel filled with soaring praise for the “free market” and thunderous denunciations of “big government.” This rarely speaks to the life experiences of most Iowans.
Wall Street greed and corporate abuses reveal the need to temper the market’s destructive excesses by building a more humane, moral economy that treats workers with dignity.
Our political dialogue and economic policies ignore those who Jesus described as “the least, the last and the lost.” Compassionate conservatism has been replaced with a “you’re on your own” libertarianism that mocks Judeo-Christian values of solidarity and the common good that have always inspired our nation to be more than a collection of individuals.
Charity provided by churches and other non-governmental organizations is essential, but as Christians we know charity alone cannot provide opportunity and security for all people. Charity must also work together with the pursuit of justice.
Perhaps in this season of hope and compassion, religious leaders and those who seek the presidency can help rekindle faith in the deeply American proposition that we are all in this together.