12 Principles for a Just Society
The Just Life | Apr 04, 2008 | 1 comment
12 Principles for a Just Society, an excerpt from Just Generosity by Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action:
- Made in the image of God, every person enjoys an inalienable dignity and worth that society must respect.
- Persons are not just complex socioeconomic, materialistic machines: they are also spiritual beings enjoying God given rights and responsibilities. Each person is a body-soul unity made for relationship with God, neighbor, and earth.
- Because the Trinitarian God created persons for mutual interdependence in community, society must be organized in ways that nurture the common good. Since persons reach their potential only in multi-layered community of diverse institutions (family, church, school, media, business, government), society must promote policies (consistent with religious freedom for all) that strengthen all institutions to play their full proper roll.
- Every policy, both public and private, must be measured by its impact on the poor and marginalized because biblical faith teaches that one of the central criterion by which God judges societies is how they treat the least advantaged.
- Both because God wants all persons to be dignified participants in their communities and because centralized power is always dangerous, we must strengthen the economic and political power of the poor.
- Renewing the family must be a central goal for both government and civil society. (A family is that set of persons related by marriage, blood, or adoption.) While recognizing that today’s families come in many shapes (two-parent, single-parent, blended), all policies, both public and private, should promote the biblical norm of mother and father (united in lifelong marital covenant) with their children, surrounded by a larger extended family.
- Every Person and family should have the opportunity to acquire and use (without discrimination based on religion, race, or gender) the productive resources that, if used responsibility, will enable that person or family to earn a decent living and be a dignified participating member of the community.
- Everyone able to work has an obligation to do so, and society, where possible, has the responsibility to make work opportunities available to all. Everyone who works responsibly should receive a living income.
- Society should care – in a generous, compassionate way that strengthens dignity and respect – for those who cannot care for themselves.
- Quality education must be available to all, regardless of family income.
- Quality heath care consistent with society’s present knowledge and resources must be available to all, regardless of family income.
- Every community must enjoy public safety. Communities should be places where people feel physically secure, violence is rare, and the police and courts function without bias for or against anyone.
We must, as the Call to Renewal covenant insists, stop making false choices “between good values and good jobs, between personal responsibility and social justice, between rebuilding families and rebuilding neighborhoods, between sexual restraint and educational opportunity, between good parenting and livable family wages, between individual moral choices and government responsibility. Every institution in society must do its share and each one must do what it does best.”
Filed Under: Advocacy Training • Politics
A proposal in Springfield to adopt a progressive income tax is consistent with these principles. Illinois now has one of the most regressive tax systems of any state. The proposal, HJRCA 42 by Rep. Mike Smith, would raise the tax rate for those earning $250K or more to 6% from the current 3%, and would raise the standard exemption from $2,000 to $4,500. The net result would be tax relief for 95% of taxpayers, and a stiff tax hike for 5%. Part of the revenues would go to boost funding for poor school districts. Illinois has the second biggest disparity in funding between rich and poor districts.