{"id":445,"date":"2009-02-23T22:56:07","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T22:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html"},"modified":"2009-02-23T22:56:07","modified_gmt":"2009-02-23T22:56:07","slug":"the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html","title":{"rendered":"The Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Wallis<\/a> reported on these three things that Christians from across ideological and political divides agreed upon at the Poverty Forum<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

We all found three substantial things on which we could agree.  First, the moral test of any society is its treatment of the poor.  It is from that vantage point that we should both formulate and judge policy proposals.<\/p>\n

Second, in order to see anything change, to ensure that our policies and our budgets reflect our moral values, we need greater political will and better policy ideas.  Democrats and Republicans often get stuck in sometimes knee-jerk reactions to policies and approaches based upon a political worldview shaped decades ago.  Some politicians have been fighting the same fight for 20 or 30 years; sometimes that shows persistence and other times it shows that they haven’t been paying attention.  To make sure some of these better ideas become reality, we also need to form the political will.  Some of these changes will be hard and rub up against the status quo for both parties.<\/p>\n

Third, bipartisanship is easy to say and hard to do.  However, when you are able to start with a common end goal and a shared vision, it can be done.  In the meetings of The Poverty Forum, we were able to get beyond left or right, liberal or conservative.  Left and right are political categories, not religious ones.  We asked instead what is right and what works.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I really appreiciate the spirit behind this effort. The committment to conversation acrosss ideologies at the Poverty Forum reminds me of the interfaith dialogues that are also currently taking place in order to forge peace. <\/p>\n

But there are some questions out there.  In response to the Poverty Forum I recived an emaiil from a hard core progressive who was sick of this effort at bi-partisianship. They felt it waters down our passion for justice in order to appease those on the right. I admit I also have some sympathy for that perspective.  <\/p>\n

But ultimately I am a pragmatist – what will work in helping people get out of poverty?  It seems to me that to get conservative Christians to really care about poverty is already an accomplishment.  So far no policy has been suggested, and that is really where it will be seen wherther the Poverty Forum and efforts like it are good pragmatic approaches or just a selling out of progressive ideals.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Wallis reported on these three things that Christians from across ideological and political divides agreed upon at the Poverty Forum We all found three substantial things on which we could agree.  First, the moral test of any society is its treatment of the poor.  It is from that vantage point that we should both formulate and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-defining-progressive"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out? - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out? - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jim Wallis reported on these three things that Christians from across ideological and political divides agreed upon at the Poverty Forum We all found three substantial things on which we could agree.  First, the moral test of any society is its treatment of the poor.  It is from that vantage point that we should both formulate and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-23T22:56:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out? - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out? - Progressive Revival","og_description":"Jim Wallis reported on these three things that Christians from across ideological and political divides agreed upon at the Poverty Forum We all found three substantial things on which we could agree.  First, the moral test of any society is its treatment of the poor.  It is from that vantage point that we should both formulate and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2009-02-23T22:56:07+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html","name":"The Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out? - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-23T22:56:07+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-23T22:56:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-poverty-forum-pragmatism-o.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Poverty Forum: Pragmatism or Selling Out?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}