a lot to be thankful for

Looking back at the past year, I can see I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a roof over my head. I have a full time job that provides me with decent wages and a good health insurance plan, including dental insurance. My family has food on our table. Yes, I have a lot to be thankful for.

I've never lived under an oppressive government where I could be beaten or sent to prison simply for speaking my mind or for practicing my religion. I've never been the victim of a hate crime as a result of my skin color, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation. Yes, I have a lot to be thankful for.

I haven't been driven from my home due to war or natural disaster. I've never been conscripted into the military or forced to work in a sweatshop. I've never had a family member disappeared. Yes indeed, I have a lot to be thankful for.

On this Thanksgiving day, please join me in offering a prayer for all the ones who don't have so much to be thankful for.

For the poor and the oppressed, for the unemployed and the destitute, for prisoners and captives, and for all who remember and care for them, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

from the Book of Common Prayer

the radical center

Last month Andy Bryan wrote a post, Unclaiming the Center, in which he responds to a friend of his who thinks the solution to divisiveness in the church is for liberals and conservatives to look for common ground in the center.

Andy replies:

Sounds neat, but it doesn’t work for me; I am not in the center, I am liberal. I am an honest-to-God “progressive.” If you are going to label me, label me left wing.


...for me, the solution to the divisiveness in the church is not to artificially move to the center purely in order to find common ground. That would not be authentic to who I am, nor to whom any of us are.

Call him liberal, but don't even think about calling him wishy-washy.

He makes some good points in his post, and I urge you to read the whole thing if you haven't already.

Nevertheless, I tend to disagree with his main point. I think it is vitally important that we do look to reclaim the radical center. But perhaps this disagreement is more in perception than in fact. I may be using the word "center" differently than either Andy or his friend are using it.

As I understand them, "liberal" and "conservative" are political terms that have spilled over into other areas of our lives. In American presidential politics, it is customary for candidates to play up their "liberal" or "conservative" credentials during the primary season, to appeal to the party's "base," then to "move to the center" as the general election approaches, to try to appeal to a wider range of voters.

This can be represented by the following image:




The black part of the line represents the center, and the white parts represent the liberal and conservative wings. Under this paradigm, Andy is correct that liberals (or conservatives) are not being authentic if they try to "claim the center" as a common ground.

But it seems to me that this entire paradigm is missing something.

A few weeks ago my wife took our 4-year-old son to the farmer's market and let him buy something with his own money. He spent a quarter, and got a home-grown peach.

Normally, when he eats fruit from the grocery store, he will eat a little bit from one side and leave the rest. So when they were in the car, and Nicki heard, "I'm done," from the back seat, she didn't expect him to have eaten the whole peach. Yet when she reached back for the remains, he handed her just the pit.

A peach pit is a better metaphor than a political campaign, I believe, for the radical center of the Christian faith.




Here we don't have two fringes at opposite ends, just a solid inner layer with a protective outer layer. The outer, fleshy part of the peach actually provides the nutrients necessary for the seed to grow -- or for a four-year-old boy. One way or another, though, the flesh will be consumed, and only the core will remain.

The core of the Christian faith can be found in the gospels, throughout all of Scripture, and in the ancient creeds. That's not to say that there is nothing more to Christianity than this. The church is one body with many parts, and God calls each of us to fill different roles.

But whether you're anti-oil or anti-abortion, and regardless of how important you personally think those issues are, those are not the essentials of the faith. Likewise, Christianity is not primarily about creationism, fair trade, gay rights, or even a living wage. Our faith may inform us about those issues, but we are almost certain to find ourselves at some point fellowshipping with those who hold different views.

That's when we need to affirm the radical center -- the core -- of our faith. If we cannot fellowship with those who hold differing views on the peripheral issues, we've failed to understand what Christianity is all about.

Unless I'm misreading him, that's essentially what Andy is saying too. So perhaps I don't disagree with him after all.

still no living wage

The new Iraq spending bill, passed by Congress last month and signed by President Bush, contains a rider that will raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25.

It may sound like a big raise, but it will be phased in slowly over three years, and even after the second increase minimum-wage workers will be earning less (adjusted for inflation) than they were in 1997. The third phase doesn't even occur until after the next election, which means that Congress members will be able to boast for two election cycles about how they have helped the working poor, even as they keep the minimum wage below the poverty line.

I, for one, am not impressed. The purpose of a minimum wage should be to lift people out of poverty, not to keep them in it.

I've heard all the arguments about how some work is more valuable than other work, and I think there is some merit in that. But that misses the point. The minimum wage is not a nationwide mandatory one-size-fits-all income for all people. Let the corporate CEOs, the baseball players, and the movie stars make their millions, but give the janitors, the dishwashers, the farm hands, and the administrative assitants enough to take care of a family.

Now it may be true that some of these people don't need to make enough to raise a family. Maybe that administrative assitant is married to that janitor, and with their combined incomes, they can already make ends meet. But there was a time in American history when a family did not need two incomes just to stay out of poverty. There was a time, not too long ago, when even families of modest means could make a choice of whether to have one parent stay home and raise the children while the other parent brought home enough money to cover expenses. For an increasing number of families, that choice is no longer available.

I'm quite aware that some families make comfortably more than a poverty wage, and still choose to have both parents work. That's fine. I'm all for letting people have that choice. I just think that the same choice should be available to those at the bottom of the employment ladder.

Furthermore, a living wage would benefit the growing number of families who, for whatever reason, have only one adult in the household. If a single parent could stave off poverty with a single job, they will have more time to devote to their children.

Ultimately, that's what minimum wage laws are all about: Enabling parents to spend more time with their families. In a nation as prosperous as the United States, a nation whose leaders consistently give bold lip service to "family values," we could afford to keep working families out of poverty if we wanted to.

Do we want to?

the minimal minimum wage

Congress is on the verge of raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, but many states have already taken further steps to ensure that their workers won't get left behind by inflation. As of the beginning of this year, twenty-nine states have higher minimum wage requirements than the federal law. Most of the other states have tied their minimum wage to the federal level. Only one state has a minimum wage lower than $5.15 an hour.

In Kansas, workers not covered by the federal law -- about 19,000 people -- are subject to a minimum wage of $2.65 per hour. A bill to raise the state minimum to the federal minimum was rejected this week. Geraldine Flaherty, who was my representative when I lived in Wichita, called the defeat a "crime against humanity," adding, "Kansans deserve better."

But legislators from Johnson County, one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, disagreed:

“This is one of the greatest superstitions of all, that if you raise the minimum wage you are doing anybody any favors,” said state Rep. Mike Kiegerl, R-Olathe.

Rep. Benjamin Hodge, R-Overland Park, argued against the increase saying the state should avoid “European-style socialist bills.”

On one level, Rep. Kiegerl is right. Raising a person's annual income from $5500 to $10,700 is not doing them a favor. It's still not nearly enough to keep a family out of poverty.

Some people would argue that, if minimum wage earners wanted to make more, they should get an education or learn new skills. But such thinking is delusional at best. It's true that some individuals may be able to improve their economic status by getting new skills or education, but they can only do so if others fail to keep pace.

This is the point at which the debate usually goes off course: Those who oppose regular increases in the minimum wage refuse to look at the bigger picture. If everyone in the nation had a postgraduate degree and knew how to perform neurosurgery and could program the guidance system of a satellite, we as a society would still have a need for people to perform menial work.

Raising the minimum wage is a moral issue. It is a matter of society agreeing that work -- all work -- is valuable. If we don't have someone to clean the bathrooms at our workplace, to stock the shelves in the grocery store, or to wash our dishes at the restaurant, we won't survive long as a society.

That's why raising the state minimum to the federal level -- even the new federal level that Congress is considering -- would not be enough. A minimum wage that does not keep a family out of poverty is a disgrace, especially for a nation wealthier than any other that has ever existed.

If we can't find a way to ensure a living wage for full time work, then we don't deserve to survive long as a society.