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IMPACT Charlottesville

IMPACT (Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together) is promoted as a religious organization trying to better the community. The movement has its roots in Florida when some churches began an organization of senior citizens in Miami. In 1982 an organization was formed to begin having interfaith movements in different parts of the country. The organization is the Direct Action and Research Training Center or DART. After its formation, Dart began forming different IMPACT organizations around the country. The stated purposes of these organizations is to "engage congregations in a process of building congregation-based community organizations that have the power to pursue and win justice." The effort is to have a "society where justice prevails and where God’s bounty is fairly shared by all." The various accomplishments posted on the DART website (www.thedartcenter.org) are all based upon lobbying efforts in different locations. In short, the IMPACT organizations are groups which lobby local governments for what are mostly liberal social policies.

The various accomplishments in some communities are impressive when the focus has been upon those programs which are generally considered to be related to government. These accomplishments are primarily in the area of education. However, as can be seen in the efforts in the Charlottesville community, some of the efforts concern areas which do not involve basic government functions. There have been three areas thus far in Charlottesville which have received the focus of IMPACT. These are transportation, housing and dental care. Housing has been a focus of IMPACT in both 2007 and 2008. Transportation was a focus in 2007, and dental care is a focus in 2008.

While the organization is to promote action, the only action is lobbying government. The efforts do not seem to have any focus on actual action. In other words, the people are not really rolling up their sleeves and doing anything directly to improve the lives of those in need. Forcing government to take someone else's money to help a person in need is not something which is necessarily spiritual or just. While it is generally accepted that  government has some role in helping the less fortunate, such is not a core function of government and should be pursued sparingly.

Three are several problems with counting on government as the means to pursue economic justice in society. First, a society is not just or unjust based upon what the government does. There can be governments which insist upon supposed equality of treatment and dispersion of wealth where the actual people are not just. Communist countries are often a prime example of this fact. In our own country, as government has done more and installed more programs, the country has become more coarse and less civil. We can see this in our political discourse and in everyday life. Thus, government largess towards those who are less fortunate and forced equality are not necessarily the answer.

Second, the greater involvement of government in providing functions and distributing funds in situations which were once considered to be traditionally the domain of private charity, the less charity actually is provided personally. It would be well for people involved in IMPACT to read Who Really Cares by Arthur C. Brooks. The more government becomes involved in traditionally charitable functions, the less people engage private personal charity. The impact of such lessening of charity hurts the community and also seems to hurt religious involvement itself. Who Really Cares provides a significant exposition of the interrelationship of these various problems. While Brooks claims not to have expected the answers he got and in fact did not originally accept the results of his study, there appear to be three characteristics of people who are more charitable. They are tend to be more religious and more conservative and to come from intact families with strong values.

Third, the efforts often focus upon apparent answers without really looking at the economic impact of the efforts, the true causes behind the problems and the best answers to the problems. The efforts in housing and dental care are good examples. Studies have shown that those areas with the greatest restraint upon freedom of development have the highest relative housing prices, while those areas with fewer restraints have more affordable housing prices. Yet the efforts thus far have been to have government do more, not less. Having government do more will only gradually exacerbate the problem, not solve it. In the area of dental care, one of the examples which was used - a parishioner from Church of the Incarnation who needed some help - had as its ending help for the person through combined private efforts of the Church and a private dentist. If the problem could be solved in this manner, what is the need for government action? Also, at one time in this community there was a private charitable organization, the Mary L. Stone Dental Clinic, which provided free dental services. At one time the clinic did so well that it became self-funded. Then it began to be used less and less, finally going out of business. If there is a substantial need in this area, why not first try to restart the private charitable effort?

Fourth, government involvement in these areas increases costs by using paid employees with various financial rights and benefits that are not used by volunteer organizations. Thus, government involvement makes the provision of services more expensive and lessens the ability actually to provide services absent greater economic vitality. The only way we can keep providing more and more services through government is through greater and greater economic prosperity. Some of this need to have greater prosperity can be self-defeating. More people end up working out of the home, which itself increases costs for child care or may result in not having children. People can end up having less time for involvement with church and family because of job and financial demands. Yet, as we can see in our community of Charlottesville-Albemarle, many of the people who seek more government programs also seek limits on growth and economic development - an approach which actually can add to the problems which supposedly such people are trying to remedy.

Finally, I seriously question whether these supposed religious efforts really have a spiritual basis. I am not questioning the faith and religious beliefs of those involved. I know some of the people involved, count some as friends and respect the sincerity of their beliefs. I am questioning instead the means of implementation. Christ never told his followers to have Caesar take another person's money and give it to a poor person. Christ's focus was always on personal action of one individual towards another. There are several places in the Bible's New Testament where this fact is exemplified. One is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Another is the story of the good Samaritan. A third is the response of Jesus himself when asked about the temple tax when He responded to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God.