ISJC Director at The Forum with Parlamento y Fe, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Salvation Army International Headquarters International Social Justice Commission New York City Address by Lt Colonel (Dr) Dean Pallant, Director of the International Social Justice Commission at The Forum with Parlamento y Fe, Buenos Aires, Argentina 5 November 2015

Thank you very much for the great honour of speaking here today. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to engage with you all on the important issue of politics and faith. To those here who serve as politicians or work for the government, thank you! It is not easy to be a politician or a civil servant. It is even harder to do your work and keep faith in God. Thank you for your faithful service.

I grew up in Zimbabwe in Africa. I was a very ordinary school boy – not particularly good at anything! But at 15 years of age I heard God calling me to be a Salvation Army officer. The call was very clear. It has never left me to this day. There is a promise in the first letter to the church at Thessalonica – 5:24 “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it”. God has been faithful to me in the past – and I know he will be faithful in the future.

Being faithful is at the heart of how The Salvation Army understands social justice. I am the director of The Salvation Army’s International Social Justice Commission. We are The Salvation Army’s strategic voice to advocate for human dignity and social justice with the world’s poor and oppressed people. I emphasise “with the poor and oppressed people”. Not for…. We have no right to speak for… we must speak with people.

Most of the people who call The Salvation Army their church live in poverty. We have only a few rich people in The Salvation Army – most Salvationists live in or on the edge of poverty. My team based in New York, Geneva and Nairobi tries to give poor and marginalized people a voice in the corridors of power.

We focus on three priorities to promote social justice – advocacy, research and education. I will share three brief examples. 

Advocacy – we support the #UpForSchool campaign to ensure every child in the world goes to primary school. There are still 54 million children who are not in primary school. I was present in New York in September when former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, received 10 million signatures from people around the world calling for world leaders to keep their promise and make sure children go to school. Mr Brown presented the petition to the UN Secretary General

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Ban Ki Moon. It was very interesting to see which parts of The Salvation Army collected the most signatures – we work in countries where there is a good education system. Few signatures were collected in these places. However, where the education is poor and children are suffering, we received thousands of signatures. I was disappointed in the lack of interest from the wealthier parts of the world. Social justice requires us to join a campaign even when we will not personally benefit.

Research – we are currently developing an International Anti Human Trafficking strategy. The Salvation Army works in 127 countries around the world and is already doing anti-trafficking work. However, we have connections into many of the vulnerable communities and can do more. The Salvation Army is the lead agency in the United Kingdom for anti-trafficking. The Ministry of Justice in London has just renewed the contract for another two years. Our research is therefore able to reflect the voices and experience of people who are victims and survivors of trafficking.

Education – This is the reason I have been here in Argentina this week working with recently ordained Salvation Army officers. I have been lecturing on social justice understood as God’s justice. God created this world – it is his world. God is calling us to work with him to make the world better – ours is a God of justice. I have been discussing many issues with Salvation Army officers serving in Argentina and Uruguay. We have discussed community justice issues such as domestic violence and drug abuse; but also looked at injustice in the church, in The Salvation Army. We cannot call for justice in the world if we do not have justice in the church.

At this point, let me thank Argentina for your special gift to the world – Pope Francis. What a powerful influence he is having in the world. I was in New York when he visited recently. I did not get the opportunity to see him but you could see in the faces of people the deep impact he is having. Many people are asking why is he having this impact? I think it is simple – he is authentic. He is real. He is standing up against very powerful forces of injustice and we must stand with him.

How do we do that at the International Social Justice Commission? We work closely with other Faith Based Organisations at the United Nations. We have excellent relationships with Caritas, World Vision, Jewish World Services, Islamic Relief, Catholic Relief Services and many others. We are also working closely with the United Nations Inter Agency Task Force on Religion and Development. This is an important group who are giving a voice to people of faith across many of the UN agencies.

There is slowly a change of attitude to people of faith at the UN. Some are still very suspicious of faith but there is a greater recognition that people of faith can be part of the solution and not just a problem!

I pay tribute to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for his support for people of faith and also the World Bank President, Dr Jim Kim. Dr Kim has been very helpful in bringing world faith leaders together to address the issue of extreme poverty. The World Bank has two priorities – to end extreme poverty and to promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country. I will focus on the first:

1. Ending extreme poverty – In February 2015, Dr Kim called world faith leaders to a discussion at the World Bank. The outcome of that meeting was a declaration – a moral and spiritual imperative to end extreme poverty by 2030.

I highlight two main points a) A commitment to act guided by the best evidence of what works and what doesn’t; People of faith play a major role in helping the poorest people around the world. More than 40% of all the health care in many African countries is provided by faith-based health providers. However, FBO’s must be willing to be guided by the best evidence of what works… and be prepared to stop doing programs if they are not working. FBOs need to become more efficient and effective.

I am currently co-chairing a group in New York of FBOs, UN agency staff and some donors to develop faith sensitive measurement tools – we must be able to measure the impact on people and be held to account for our work by the people. Religious organisations and churches can still have rigorous evidence to show the difference we are making.

The new Sustainable Development Goals give us an opportunity. Although it is disappointing that the words faith, religion or spirituality do not appear in the text agreed by the member states, we are trying to encourage the UN and the member states to use a people centred measurement framework. At present extreme poverty is measured at US$1.90 per day. The World Bank increased the figure from US$1.25 last month.

But that is a very basic way to measure of extreme poverty. It is only measuring economic income.

There are many other factors affecting people as well as income – the cost of goods, the quality of their health; their education opportunities; relationships with family – and we believe – their spiritual health.

How we measure change is key. I will be very interested to learn from you if you have methods to measure holistic change in Argentina.

The second commitment by the 40 world faith leaders – including General Cox of The Salvation Army is To use our voices to compel and challenge others to join us in this urgent cause inspired by our deepest spiritual values.

We cannot deny we are motivated by deep spiritual values. FBOs must fight against any attempts by governments or other agencies to have our organization without our faith. We cannot leave our faith at the door. There is no such thing as a faith free zone – everyone puts their faith in something. It is not always God. Many put their faith in themselves; or put their faith in a particular ideology – such as humanism; but more than 80% of people in the world have a religious faith of some form.

It is unreasonable and impossible to expect people to leave their faith outside the door. Rather, we need to find ways to acknowledge the influence of faith – especially when it is an unhealthy, extremist faith such as we see in parts of the Middle East but also other parts of the world like India, Africa and the USA. In closing, I thank you again for this opportunity. I pray that there will be more opportunities for faith based organisations to partner with the government in Argentina in the fight for social justice. We do not just seek justice because we think it is a good idea; we fight for social justice because it is part of God’s plan for the saving of his world. We are The Salvation Army – we believe in salvation! A rich boundless, integrated, holistic salvation that touches every part of life. I pray we will all sense God’s presence and power in our lives today. Thank you.

ENDS