Keeping Faith

Meet some religious leaders, like Bill Clinton’s Pastor, who are working to restore mercy, compassion, and justice to our national vocabulary. And getting smeared by the Christian right for doing so.

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It was bleak November when, in the middle of the budget showdown between Congress and the executive branch, the Republicans’ controversial welfare reform package was headed to the president’s desk. The New York Times speculated that Clinton, not known for being stalwart, would sign the bill. He had, after all, campaigned on the issue of welfare reform.

Nonetheless, the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, planned for more than the standard photo opportunity when she accepted an invitation to make a formal White House presentation opposing the bill. The invitation came after Clinton learned of a resolution passed by her organization, which represents 33 denominations, calling upon Congress and the administration not to dismantle the nation’s social safety net.

“When Christians have their backs to the wall, they pray,” Campbell told Clinton, standing before him with the 14 other clerics she’d brought with her. One of the most powerful forms of Christian prayer is expressed in the laying on of hands, a practice more common to African-American and Pentecostal denominations than to white, mainline Protestant churches. After describing this ancient form of ministry, Campbell asked the leader of the Free World if he’d consent. And so, right there in the Oval Office, with 30 hands touching the presidential shoulders, Bishop Nathaniel Linsey of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church asked God to “make the president strong for the task” of protecting society’s most vulnerable. Clinton was moved to weep.

When the bill finally reached his desk in January, the president vetoed the Republican plan to demolish the nation’s welfare system.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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