Jubilee: A Branch of Justice of the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement

Throughout the Episcopal Church Jubilee Ministries are centers of service, compassion and advocates for justice for and with poor and marginalized people in their communities. For the last few years Jubilee Centers have continued to work in areas of immigrant rights, community gardens, eradicating food deserts, economic, environmental and racial justice, education and micro enterprise. It is our hope that Jubilee is given redevelopment resources for building the network and working closely with Church Center staff.

The following are excerpts of an article written by the Rev. Dr. Monrelle Williams, “The scope of Jubilee -- the eradication of poverty or even its reduction -- calls for decisive action: it calls for decisive intervention into the flow of the socio-economic system. Jubilee rejects any notion that the poor and the disadvantaged in the community can improve their lot without giving them the socio-economic power to do so.”

The biblical notion of Jubilee is very much a challenge for us today: it is a challenge to end the vicious cycle of poverty which is still at work in the world and to provide the vulnerable of the community with some socio-economic power to get themselves out of the poverty trap. It is a challenge to those who control the power in our world, especially those who control political power. It is a challenge to governments to be ever conscious of the need to break the poverty trap in which many of us are caught.

What we need to be asking ourselves is:

· Whether the biblical Jubilee can still function as a challenge to the socio-economic structures in our world?

· Do we see the need for periodic interventions in our societies that Jubilee envisages? And if we do, who do we think are responsible for these interventions?

· What would the poor and marginalized need if they are to grasp the opportunities that will enable them to recapture their worth and dignity?”

We are pleased that, at this time, it appears that B029 is going to pass and be funded. It is supported by The Episcopal Networks Collaborative (The Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, The Episcopal Ecological Network and The Union of Black Episcopalians) and The Jubilee Network.

- Dianne Aid, Episcopal Network for Economic Justice


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