We believe that the world and human life within it have ultimate meaning because they belong to the God of all-embracing love who was decisively revealed through Jesus Christ and is present everywhere through the Holy Spirit. The worth of life is bestowed by the One from whom all things come and to whom all things go. This gift of God's love is also the summons to live in harmony with it by loving all that God loves, our neighbor as ourselves.

Because this summons is addressed to all people, it ordains a human community in which each person understands herself or himself as neighbor to all others. God calls us to live in a community of love because God's love wills for all people a life that flourishes. At its best, the human adventure is the realization of our common humanity. In this world, the opportunity to be creative is received from the achievements of others and so depends on the communities of which we are a part, and we make the most of this opportunity when we pursue in turn a distinctive contribution to those communities. Mutuality is the form of human flourishing, and human diversity is fundamental to mutuality.

The context of human mutuality stretches from family, friendships, and local associations to the widest patterns of economic, social, cultural, and political life, including the peace and proper ordering of the global community. No person may be left behind, because the greater participation of each is the greater enrichment of all and, thereby, the greater fulfillment of God's purpose. Moreover, future generations should be treated as equal participants in the human community, because the divine purpose is everlasting.

The common good is the wider pattern of our common life insofar as it provides or promotes for all the general economic, social, cultural, and political conditions of human flourishing. Contributing to it should define the encompassing purpose of all associations in the society, whatever their differing specific purposes may be. We note especially the importance of religious associations to the creation of wider cultural patterns that promote and sustain pursuit of the common good. We also believe that this encompassing purpose requires fundamental change in our contemporary cultural and institutional orders, which are now profoundly shaped by the belief that our common life should be designed as a competitive process through which individuals seek private success and the satisfaction of consumer preferences.

Maximizing the common good is also the proper aim of public purpose and defines the nature of justice. The legal order and public policy are just when they maximize the general conditions of human flourishing that are equally available to all. This does not mean that justice requires absolute equality with respect to all general conditions of human flourishing. Some inequalities in wealth and income, for instance, may be consistent with justice or prescribed by it because thereby incentives are provided for important contributions to the common good. But any such inequalities are justified only because they are needed in order to increase the measure in which general conditions of human flourishing are available to all.

In the context of modern societies, maximizing the common good includes the following imperatives of justice. They are presented in the order of moral priority, so that the earlier principles define the essential bases for meeting the requirements of the later. Thus, for instance, constitutional rights override all other imperatives of justice, and the right of all to basic conditions of human dignity is an essential basis for all other pursuit of the common good.

1. Constitute and preserve a democratic governmental process in which all are equal members of "we, the people" and thus secure for all constitutional rights to

• private liberties, such as rights to life, bodily integrity, personal property, and conscience; and
• public liberties, such as rights to freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and to due process and equal protection of the laws.

2. Establish and preserve for all access to the basic conditions of human dignity, including

• economic well-being and opportunities for work sufficient to a secure and productive life;
• a safe and stable physical and social environment;
• health care;
• the social setting for psychological well-being and self-respect;
• public education; and
• social opportunity freely to contribute to self and others.

3. Assure the worth of constitutional liberties by maximizing the conditions of equal participation in the process of democratic discussion, debate, the election of governmental officials, and decision making.

4. Maximize the conditions of human flourishing available to all, including

• integrity and beauty in the natural and artificial environment,
• a context of cultural richness
• opportunity for vocational creativity
• free association and participation in associational decision making
• communities of mutuality and diversity.

Adopted by the Board of Directors of Protestants for the Common Good on June 14, 2000