c. 2008 Religion News Service
Study links subprime crisis to hunger
WASHINGTON (RNS) The poorest counties in the U.S. are among the hardest hit by the subprime mortgage crisis, according to a study released Wednesday (Feb. 27) by the Christian anti-hunger advocacy group Bread for the World.
The report, titled “Home Ownership, Subprime Loans and Poverty,” found a strong correlation between poverty rates and percentages of mortgages that are subprime.
In eight of the country’s 15 poorest counties, which have poverty rates exceeding 40 percent, the percentage of homeowners holding subprime mortgages is even higher _ up to 60 percent, according to the study. Data in the study were compiled from a variety of sources, including the Corporation for Enterprise Development and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, said the inequity reflects an ignorance of the biblical condemnation against usury.
“The principle underlying the biblical warning against usury was that financial contracts, as important as they are, are still less important than basic human needs,” he said. “If you were lending money to a really poor person, you couldn’t take his coat as security for the loan.”
Denunciations of usury _ disproportionately high interest rates _ are found throughout the Bible, including Exodus 22:25, which states, “If you lend money to any of my people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest.”
Bread for the World contends that the continuing effects of the subprime mortgage crisis and hunger are interrelated, since victims of high-risk mortgage lending often limit their food purchases because they are saddled with increasing payments.
“Since you can’t cut back on mortgage payments or renegotiate the price of gas, the only place where you can save money is food,” said study author Todd Post.
To counteract the prospect of increased hunger, Bread for the World is calling on lawmakers to increase emergency food assistance, to compel lenders to renegotiate loans if they do not do so willingly, and to strengthen nonprofit lending institutions, among other actions.
“Some of the poorest people are going to be forced into deeper poverty because of widespread subprime lending,” said Beckmann. “In a country such as ours, there is no excuse for people to go hungry because of this.”
_ Matthew Streib
Controversial faith-based prison program ends in Iowa
WASHINGTON (RNS) A faith-based prisoner rehabilitation program in Iowa that was the subject of a court case will end by mid-March.
Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley said the Iowa Department of Corrections informed his Virginia-based ministry that the InnerChange Freedom Initiative program at the prison in Newton, Iowa, would conclude following the graduation of many of the program participants.
Earley said the action was expected because the ministry’s current contract with the prison system ends in June.
“They requested and required the stipulation that we take no more prisoners into the program during this coming year,” Earley said Wednesday (Feb. 27).
Fred Scaletta, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections, said the prison system decided the program would end when the number of its participants dropped below 60, which will occur after a March 14 graduation of about two dozen people.
Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State had sued the program, saying it should not receive government funds because it is “pervasively religious.” In 2006, a federal judge agreed and ordered the program to repay more than $1.5 million the program had received since it began its relationship with the corrections department in 1999.
An appeals court later upheld that decision but lowered the amount InnerChange had to return to the state.
In light of the court action, a $310,000 state appropriation to the program, which housed inmates in a separate unit, was halted as of July 1. Earley said InnerChange returned almost $200,000 to Iowa and relies on private funding, not government money, for its nine programs in several states.
_ Adelle M. Banks
UpDATE: Mayor says God will stay in mission statement
HUDSONVILLE, Mich. (RNS) The mayor of this small city in western Michigan said the City Commission will continue to “strive to serve God,” despite an atheist group’s demand that the phrase be removed from the city’s mission statement.
“We are not creating a church; we are not asking anybody to only accept what we have in that mission statement,” Mayor Don Van Doeselaar said Tuesday (Feb. 26).
“If there are those that disagree, we are fine with that. It’s a statement that reflects the community.”
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which asked the city to remove the phrase, said it might consider legal action.
It “is not the business of a city in our secular republic to `strive to serve God,”’ the group wrote in a letter to the city earlier this month. “A city should have no religious beliefs.”
Van Doeselaar said he consulted with City Attorney Dick Wendt, who determined the city was within its rights. The mayor said he also talked by telephone with the six other commission members, and all agreed to keep the phrase.
“We feel that we are not violating the principles of the separation of church and state,” the mayor said. “As it’s been pointed out to us by legal counsel, you see phrases like that in the Pledge (of Allegiance). In currency, you see, `In God We Trust.’ From time to time, our president will address the nation and end the address with the salutation that says, `God bless America.”’
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, disputed Van Doeselaar’s arguments, saying the original Pledge of Allegiance and the country’s first currency did not include those references.
“He’s relying on Johnny-come-lately additions to our country that do not reflect our heritage,” she said. “It’s a godless Constitution; that was our founders’ intent, and he (the mayor) took an oath to uphold it.”
Gaylor said her group cannot consider legal action unless a Hudsonville resident steps forward to file an official complaint. The original complainant didn’t want to be identified, she said.
A nonprofit legal organization, the American Center for Law and Justice, and an Ann Arbor-based law firm have volunteered to defend the city if it faces legal action, the mayor said.
_ Ken Kolker
Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman dies at 60
(RNS) Christian rock lost one of its pioneers when Larry Norman, 60, died of heart failure Sunday (Feb. 24) at his home in Salem, Ore.
“We’re receiving thousands and thousands of e-mails,” his brother, Charles Norman, said. “Every time I read one, it’s from someone who says he changed their life. He met them somewhere, and he bought them lunch, or they were on drugs and meeting him turned them around.”
Norman’s death has brought renewed attention to his role as a pioneer in what’s now a thriving category in the music industry. Norman’s 1969 solo album, “Upon This Rock,” is “considered pivotal in the development of Contemporary Christian music,” according to “The Billboard Guide to Contemporary Christian Music.”
Norman was born April 8, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas. His family moved to San Francisco when Norman was young, and he developed an interest in the music of Elvis Presley. He accompanied his father on Christian missions to prisons and hospitals, and was inspired to write rock songs that included spiritual messages, Charles Norman said.
Norman had his biggest commercial hit as the lead singer of the folk-rock band People! The band’s cover version of the Zombies song “I Love You” peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard chart in June 1968. In later years, Norman started his own independent label, recording additional solo albums while discovering other Christian artists.
Larry Norman was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001, and for all his influence, Norman was ahead of his time with his mixture of blunt lyrics, rock rhythms and Christian message.
“I’m sure he was surprised at the resistance that he got from the church,” Charles Norman said. “But he wasn’t trying to address them. Like a pioneer having to hack his way through the woods to blaze a trail, he met a lot of resistance.”
In a message posted on his Web site, written the day before his death, Norman said he knew death was imminent.
“I feel like a prize in a box of Cracker Jacks with God’s hand reaching down to pick me up,” Norman wrote, adding that he planned to be buried in a “simple pine box with some flowers inside.”
_ Kristi Turnquist and Grant Butler
Quote of the Day: Gospel legend Larry Norman
“The churches weren’t going to accept me looking like a street person with long hair and faded jeans. They did not like the music I was recording. And I had no desire to preach the gospel to the converted. I wanted to be out on the sidewalk preaching to the runaways and the druggies and the prostitutes.”
_ Gospel legend Larry Norman, often dubbed the father of Christian rock, in an undated interview with CCM magazine. Norman died Feb. 24 at age 60.
KRE/PH END RNS
