By Pr. Drew Rindfleisch
This is from First Trinity's Summer 2014 newsletter. Click here to read more!
In late April, a delegation from South Loop Campus Ministry and First Trinity attended the National People’s Action conference in Washington DC. We participated in workshops addressing many different issues that affect our communities identifying a common thread at their source: an economy that puts profits before people, and a government for the few at the expense of the many. We also took to the streets to demand changes with a great ally: the Domestic Workers Alliance, led by mostly women organizing home care workers. Pastor Tom & I preached in the public squares of DC demanding fair wages for laborers & accountability from corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
We also led an inter-faith worship service with other clergy at the conference; singing songs of freedom and justice, meeting in small groups with organizers and leaders, and discussing the intersection of our faith and work in organizing and community building. I had the privilege to preach on the prophet Amos that day.
While we as a people have been told the cultural lies that workers should pull themselves up by their boot-straps and work harder for longer and less, that our planet is not in peril but just going through a “natural phase,” that democracy is the right of a few, wealthy White folks who vote the “Right” way, and community charity will fix the failures of a “free” market that requires lower taxes for corporations to trickle-down fewer and fewer crumbs from the job-creator class to the growing number of poor; we, too, have been told a lie about God. This lie says our Divine Parent blesses the world as it is with the current oikonomia (the greek word for household; translated into English as economy). In this household, greed and injustice are administered by an exclusive and restricted democracy that sanctions corporate boardrooms to hoard resources, and abuse and neglect our families, neighbors, and co-workers as worthless objects, rather than as valuable members of the human family—God’s family. 
Since the 1970s, some churches adopted this line with mega-church buildings and prosperity banners and bands, while others remained on the sidelines scared of mixing faith and politics or fearful of losing funds from denominations and souls to fill the pews. But, we gathered at NPA and others across this world believe in a God who loves human beings and sides with the poor and the oppressed in their struggles for life and “enough.” When a group of Children of God like the 1% treat many in the human family of God—the 99%-- with disrespect and hardness of heart by failing to treat the peoples’ needs as holy and precious, God cannot remain neutral. How could any loving parent watch as one of their Children hurts another child by bullying, battering, intimidating, or instigating abuse against others? And so, God intervenes—working with love through us as we organize and act to change this abusive economy “to let justice roll like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
In the hotel and over the lunch counters, we connected our distinct stories and struggles; hearing from fathers and mothers whose lives had been ruined by the mass incarceration of young men of color, & the privatization of prisons that stripped workers of their ability to make workplace decisions resulting in alcoholism and domestic abuse in the homes of security officers. We saw young elders and youth arrested outside the White House demanding an end to mass deportations, and calling on the President to act for compassionate immigration reform that keeps families together.
Through every action and encounter, I met sisters and brothers from across the country; the suburbs, the country sides, the urban centers and outskirts. We dedicated ourselves to work for a democracy & economy based on fairness for all people and care for our neighbors and God’s creation. We from Bridgeport and Chicago found that we are not alone! There is a movement of the Spirit stirring among our peoples to address the critical issues of our time “so that all may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
Footnotes after the jump
