Statement of the Hon. Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy,
Pastor, New Bethel Baptist Church, and Former Member of Congress
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Oversight
of the House Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing on Review of Internal Revenue Code Section 501 (c)(3)
Requirements for Religious Organizations
May 14, 2002
Chairman Houghton and members of committee, my name Walter E. Fauntroy. I am in my forty-third (43rd) year as pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church here in our nation’s capital. Over the course of those years, I have had the privilege of being at the core of nearly every major change in public policy in this country affecting people of African descent.
In the decade of the 1960s I served as Director of the Washington Bureau of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In that capacity I coordinated our activities for both the Historic March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma-To-Montgomery Voting Rights March of 1965. I was Dr. King’s chief lobbyist for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In the decades of the 1970s and ‘80s I served as a member of this august body as the District of Columbia’s first Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives in 100 years. During my twenty year tenure as a member of the House Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Committee, I had the great privilege of being chairman of the subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and then the subcommittee on International Development, Finance, Trade and Monetary Policy.
What I have learned as a pastor, civil rights activist and member of congress over these years has led me to appear before you today in support of H.R. 2357, the Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act. In the five minutes allowed me, I want to share with you two definitions of “politics” upon which I have acted over these years as a pastor, as a civil rights activist and as a politician that inform my decision to support this legislation.
The first definition is this: “Politics is the means by which we in a democracy translate what we believe into public policy and practice;” that is, we go to the polls to vote for people who, when elected, promise to translate what we believe into public policy and practice. That right to vote is so precious to me because, as an African American, I am painfully aware how racist white voters in the Southland, by denying my people the right to vote, were able to translate into public policy and practice what they believed. They believed that black people, for example, should not be allowed to drink water from the same public fountains used by white people; and with their votes, they translated that into public policy and practice.
A second definition of politics upon which I have always acted is that “Politics in the process by which we determine who gets how much of what, when and where in five areas: income, education, healthcare, housing and justice.” In fact, during my twenty year tenure in this congress, I became thoroughly conversant with our nation’s fourteen cabinet level agencies and their counterparts in the standing committees of the U.S. House and Senate, agencies and committees that determine who gets how much and what, when and where in agriculture, in commerce, in labor and housing and health and human services, for example. That’s what I have learned as a politician.
Let me tell you what I have learned as a thoroughly trained pastor. I have learned from the Prophet Isaiah that the basic tenet of my Judeo-Christian-Muslim heritage is that we are all “anointed of God to declare good news to the poor, to bind up the broken hearted and to set at liberty them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1). You can understand, therefore, that as a citizen who has a right to vote to translate what he believes into public policy and practice and as a man whose faith dictates that he seek to provide “the least of these” access to adequate income, education, healthcare, housing and justice, I never have and I never will allow any one to deny me that right to vote my beliefs at the polls. I have not and I will not allow any one deny me my right to try to persuade as many fellow citizens as I can reach to vote as I do.
There is, therefore, no election - local, state or national - where I think that the plight of the “least of these” is at stake that I do not endorse a candidate of my choice in an effort to influence the members of my congregation and any one else who I think values my opinion on matters of public policy. That is my right both as a citizen and a man of faith, and I will defend that right even for those people of faith with whom I vehemently disagree as to how income, education, healthcare, housing and justice should be distributed in our society.
Now I must also tell you that it is not in my interest nor is it in the interest of the people whom I serve that certain people who call themselves “religious” benefit from the passage of HR 2357. That’s because it has been my experience that people often use religion and race as excuses for denying to others the income, education, healthcare, housing and justice that they covet for themselves. In our Judeo-Christian-Muslim heritage we call that “sin” which, defined, is the arrogance and self-seeking of man.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, take it from someone who knows, people who call themselves religious, when it comes to their greed and opportunism, will often talk East and walk West on you in the arena of public policy. They say one thing and they do another. Jesus called such people “false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:15). Ku Klux Klansmen are false prophets who use Christianity as an excuse to deny black people access to income, education, healthcare, housing and justice. Muslim extremists like Osama Bin Laden are false prophets who use Islam as an excuse to kill other people to deny them access to income, education, health care housing and justice. In so doing, they distort Islam and blaspheme the name of Allah. Zionists extremist are false prophets who use Judaism as an excuse to take from others what they covet for themselves: income, education, healthcare, housing, and justice.
They all come up with cute excuses for their ungodly actions but they are not correct. They appear to be sincere but they are sincerely wrong. The right thing for all Jews, all Christians and all Muslims to do is recorded in their own holy writ in the words of Micah 6:8 – “He hath shown thee O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
So, Mr. Chairman, I know that it is not in my interest or that of the people whom I serve that certain people who are self-centered hypocrites when it comes to the basic tenets of their religions exercise their right to be wrong. But like Voltaire, I may disagree with them vehemently, but I will defend to the death their right to be wrong and their right to participate in an orderly effort to “translate what they believe into public policy and practice.” I must not be selfish and, therefore, sinful; I must not demand for myself what I would deny others. I believe that he who would “save his life, shall lose it; and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.”(Matthew 10:39)
I support the passage of H.R. 2357. Thank you.