written by Cameron S. Jackson DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
Temple Beth El, Resurrection Catholic Community and St. John’s Episcopal are 3 faith organizations that are members of COPA in the Aptos, CA area. I believe that about 10+ faith organizations in Santa Cruz County came together about 4-5 years ago. I was at one of the original meetings.
Let’s work for “affordable housing” in Santa Cruz County was the way it was presented. We were all supposed to “tell our stories” so the community “could come to know how others live”.
Here’s a story about how people live in Santa Cruz County:
My hair stylist in Capitola is a Buddhist from Thailand. Her second husband was a Catholic American who brought her to America. She later had two more husbands and is currently divorced.
To save money she lives with her sister who is a cook in a Thai restaurant. The sister has a cheap (less than $200 a month) Housing Authority one bedroom apartment. Not supposed to house relatives but my hair stylist and her adult son live there. Or at times they sleep where they work. My hair stylist has paid off a $35,000 debt to the bank in Thailand and she goes back to visit Thailand most years for a month. She gets free food from her sister the cook.
My question about COPA: What entity maintains the books for the monies given by faith organizations to COPA? The money goes somewhere. Where?
Community Organizing through Places of Worship
Written by Freedom Advocates
Monday, 02 November 2009
“I have just learned that my Monterey Bay Area church has given large sums of money to a political Interfaith Network organization called COPA. COPA stands for Citizens Organized for Relational Power in Action.
“COPA is a member of Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) which was founded by Saul Alinsky in the 1940â€
“It is a serious concern that the money Iâ€
“In their own words,
Industrial Areas Foundation helps build broad-based, non-partisan organizations of dues-paying member congregations, schools, unions, business associations, and non-profits committed to building power for sustainable social and economic change.
Alinsky in his book writings puts it like this,
You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments. Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
Believing that the ends justify the means, Alinksy stated that,
In action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with oneâ€
“So churches are being used for political purposes rather than for spiritual reasons. COPA affiliated churches use congregational capital to influence local politicians and intensely advocate for so-called “affordable housing†developments built by well paid so-called, “non-profit†developers.
“The reality is that our money is funding an undisclosed massive subsidy for building projects benefiting individuals who are very ineffective at cost containment. This should give pause to anyone thinking that COPA and IAF are organizations out to help the downtrodden. Those downtrodden are the means, the pawns, in COPAâ€
Where was I when these political shenanigans were being discussed? Was it part of a sermon or simply handled as a financial transaction behind closed doors? Itâ€
Your church may be doing this too. Go to the IAF Industrial Areas Foundation “affiliates†page. Click on your region on the left side of the page. In our area, COPA was formerly known as CCIS – Central Coast Interfaith Sponsors.
Congregations across the country find themselves attached to COPA-like organizations with names like Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), Communities Helping All Neighbors Gain Empowerment (CHANGE), Tying Nashville Together (TNT) or Southeastern Wisconsin Common Ground.
Most of us never saw this happening. We trust our places of worship and attend in order to honor God and invigorate our spiritual beliefs. Now we discover that an outside political action group is working insidiously to infiltrate our church and undermine our ethical and spiritual structure.
COPA/IAF is clear that their mission is to train parishioners in community organizing tactics in order to achieve a political result through lobbying. Sound familiar? ACORN has been in the news recently for exploiting poor neighborhoods through the use of misleading promises used in community organizing and lobbying. ACORN targets neighborhoods. COPA and IAF target places of worship and unsuspecting parishioners. COPA/IAF are coming into our churches and synagogues, misleading many of our ministers and other leaders by having them support COPA and IAF politics.
Is your church or temple involved with an interfaith congregation network and IAF? If so, you need to ask:
Is my church a member of a network or organization that supports IAF? What is the organization called?
If yes, why did our church leadership decide to join?
What was the commitment made to the organization?
Has the pastor, minister, rabbi or other spiritual leader been informed about the true nature of Interfaith Networks and Congregation Based Community Organizations?
Has the congregation been informed?
Call to action – Let your church know how you feel about affiliations with political and ideological groups such as IAF and COPA.
