Hearing Sa’aq

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Summary

The Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit is engaged in what Walter Brueggemann calls practices of hopeful, liberating speech. We blog on the internet to try and create something of a glocal conversation that explores issues of social justice; we engage in advocacy and in public debate to challenge and counter changes in legislation that smack of elitism, exclusion, injustice, or the marginalization of low income families; we write discussion papers to try and fuel activism and something of a countercultural faith; we deliberately do research to debunk what is with images of what could be; we make submissions to Select Committees of Parliament to try and energize fatigued or tired social policy with alternative and fresh thinking; we sit on community boards and local trusts to hear the clatter of our neighborhoods; we mine the Scriptures to expose and confront our own preconceptions and prejudices and to look for counter-texts, new stories with which we can re-describe and re-narrate what is important, new words with which we can re-imagine and re-organize society; we speak at churches, with local Kaumatua and with different faiths; we give interviews on radio and on television; we intentionally sit down to listen to and learn from the clientele and staff of our social service centers; we poke fun at each other to not take ourselves too seriously; we pause to pray; and, whenever we can, we speak face-to-face with parliamentarians and policy makers to try and ensure that the future direction of our nation is compassionate, fair and inclusive of everyone.

We engage in these practices of hopeful, liberating speech to not only gain something of a hearing for our own Salvationist peculiarity; we engage in these practices to try and hear the 'cries' of 'sa’aq', to try and secure something of a voice for the voiceless.