The Christian faith is centrally concerned with helping the neighbor in need. Its central core supports and encourages affirmation action orientations and policies. Our democratic government does not possess a similar compassion for the poor and the oppressed. Our history of slavery, lynching and brutality, disenfranchisement, and legal segregation and discrimination has compounded the benefits and rewards received by African Americans, Native Americans and women. Recent efforts to correct this history of state practiced or condoned evil only partially has remedied the most egregious wrongs.
Much injustice continues to exist especially in the areas of employment and promotion.
Our commitment to justice and equality for all makes affirmative action a necessity. The state's and the Christian faith's recognition that we are a people indicates that our rights and responsibilities are both individual and collective. We as Americans and as Christians enjoy the benefits and obligations of our life together. Sons and daughters inherit not only the good fruits of their parents lives but also the bad fruit. Thus, government has a moral obligation to establish mechanisms to correct these evils.