wfn.org | Urban Ministry Speaker Stresses Church's Role in Public Arena

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

GA99119 
25-June-1999 
 
                 Urban Ministry Speaker Stresses 
                  Church's Role in Public Arena 
 
FORT WORTH-Ernie Cortez spoke to a luncheon group hosted by the 
denomination's Urban Ministry office Thursday and more than lived up to his 
billing as "eloquent spokesperson for the strategy of congregation-based 
community organization and the role of the faith community in public 
arena." 
     Cortez is Southwest Regional Director for the Industrial Areas 
Foundation (IAF), an agency seeking justice and accountability for those 
marginalized by  consumer culture.  He is currently  working in both Texas 
and Southern Calif. to develop leadership and teach people how to initiate 
action. 
     An important factor in community organizing in late '90s, Cortez said, 
is a profound demographic and economic shift,  that is many more suburban 
voters than city voters so that  a state like Texas, one that has been 
historically Democratic,  has now become overwhelmingly Republican. 
     Added to this situation are cultural changes, Cortez explained, a 
fragmentation and privatization of social life.  He described one aspect of 
this as the "Augustinian soul," people's tendency to retreat into 
themselves, to focus only on their own immediate concerns.  
     Cortez sees urban ministry as the religious community being the vital 
ingredient in reorganizing society by  providing a place where stories on 
all sides can be heard, where common pain is recognized, where compromises 
and concessions can be made.  
     "It is no longer enought to be right, we must also be reasonable," he 
said, concluding that "Compromises are necessary,  but we need the 
compromise of bread, not the compromises of Solomon.  Half a loaf can bring 
life; half a baby is death."  
 
Midge Mack 

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