resolution

Enabling Financial Support for Domestic Programs

2016 Book of Resolutions, #4061

The United Methodist Church has a long history of advocacy for causes that support the well-being of all, including women, children, and people of all races. Since the earliest of our Social Creeds, we have affirmed these shared values. Our Christian faith has always compelled us to carry special concern for people living in poverty, from Deuteronomy’s commands to care for the widows and orphans to Jesus’ shocking revelation that we are caring for him when we care for the “least of these” in our midst (Matthew 25).

The United Methodist Church also has a long history of teaching and advocating for peace, and for resistance to the violence of war. Our Social Principles clarify that we find war to be “incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ,” as revealed in Matthew 5:38-42 and Isaiah 2:4.

Contemporary challenges in all our nations would be served by governmental spending in areas that address immediate and long-term human need and invest in solutions that overcome inequalities currently based on dividing characteristics like race, socioeconomic level, and region. Unemployment—particularly among minority ethnic groups—lack of access to education and educational inequalities among racial and ethnic groups and the poor, and lack of access to health care are all too common tragic consequences of current funding priorities.

Concurrently, alarming portions of resources in many of our nations are devoted to military spending. Everywhere around the world, we caution our nations in their use of national resources for the proliferation of weapons and the preparation for war.

Particularly, we lament the dedication of vast federal funding in the United States to fund ongoing wars and interventions in foreign countries, and the ever-increasing dependence of the industrial sector on military spending. Additionally, we note the continuing practice of funding US military action with deficit spending, a policy that borrows from future generations and threatens long-term stability.

We call upon our governments to reduce spending on militaries. Particularly, we call on the US government to take significant measures in reducing military spending, both on wars and on its ongoing operations.

We call upon our governments to reapportion national revenue diverted from military spending, prioritizing domestic programs that invest in the needs of a nation’s people and invest in the future by providing opportunities and services to those people. We support programs that increase the quality of educational offerings in public school systems, improve access to health care for all, create affordable housing, and support creation of employment opportunities and training programs. In particular, we urge governments to support these domestic programs whether they be government programs or private programs funded in part by government funds in ways that will reduce social inequalities based on gender, race, ethnicity, background, or any other factor.

ADOPTED 2012
RESOLUTION #4061, 2012 BOOK OF RESOLUTIONS

See Social Principles, ¶ 163.

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