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Ignoring Poverty Is UnAmerican, Christian Leaders Say
By Bob Smietana
WASHINGTON, DC (June 29, 2005) - In an average year, Americans give more than
$240 billion to charitable causes. That's the good news, says Richard
Stearns, president of World Vision U.S.
The bad news is that very little of that money - less than 3 percent -
goes to help the world's poorest people.
And the federal budget is even worse, says Richard Cizik, vice president
for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Less than two tenths of 1 percent of U.S. government dollars is spent on
foreign humanitarian assistance, he said.
Stearns and Cizik joined Evangelical Covenant Church President Glenn
Palmberg and eleven other U.S. Christian leaders Monday (June 27) in
urging the Bush administration to spend an additional $2 billion a year
in fighting extreme global poverty.
"Our total American commitment right now is not 25 percent of the budget
as most Americans seem to think from polls," said Cizik, "but (just) 15
cents a day for the American family."
"To add $2 billion a year would add just a few more cents to that
expenditure of 15 cents," he added.
The leaders held a press conference Monday at the National Press Club
before a meeting at the White House. They then flew to the UK to join
the London Forum, a meeting on world hunger with Christian leaders
there. The groups hope to put pressure on world leaders to take action
on the issue of global poverty during the upcoming G-8 summit,
Stearns put the devastation caused by global poverty in perspective by
pointing to the story of Natalee Holloway, the teenager from Alabama who
disappeared from the island of Aruba on May 30. Holloway's disappearance
drew worldwide attention and Stearns said his heart went out to her
family, "because each of us can imagine the heartache we might have felt
if that was our daughter or our son that had disappeared."
"But you know, on the same day that Natalee Holloway disappeared, 29,000
other children disappeared as well," Stearns said. "To be more accurate,
they died. They died because they were poor. They died because the water
they drank was unsafe. They died because they had no food to eat or
because they lacked a two-dollar malaria bed net to protect them from
malaria. They died because they caught a cold that turned to pneumonia
and there was no doctor to see."
But the death of those 29,000 other children didn't draw worldwide
attention. That's because "when something happens every day, it's not
news," said Stearns.
"The most tragic thing of all is that they didn't need to die. They died
because the world chose to look the other way," he said. "We're here
today as religious leaders to appeal to the goodness of the American
people and to declare that we must not allow ourselves to look the other
way in the face of these tragic deaths."
The additional $2 billion would be used for four basic priorities, says
Jennifer Coulter Stapleton of Bread for the World. Those priorities are
clean water, education, fighting malaria, and building infrastructure.
The fund would go toward practical assistance, such as building wells,
providing mosquito nets and anti-malarial medication, and funding for
schools, said Stapleton.
Bread for the World, and other humanitarian groups like Oxfam, Save the
Children, Heifer International, World Vision, and Church World Service
are working together on a global initiative to fight poverty called the
"One Campaign" (one.org). The goal is to convince the US to spend 1
percent of the annual federal budget on reducing global poverty.
Several of the leaders at Monday's press conference applauded a recent
decision by G-8 leaders to cancel $40 billion in debt to the world's
eighteen poorest nations. They also said that they want G-8 governments
as partners with churches and humanitarian organizations. Many of the
leaders at the press conference are from groups working in impoverished
nations.
"We are not just standing on the sidelines launching charge to the U.S.
government to do, do, do," said Rob Davis executive director of the
Mennonite Central Committee. "We're walking out there with the people."
President Palmberg pointed to the Covenant's work in Sudan, Congo, and
South Africa. "We are raising money to prepare roads, build bridges,
build hospitals, supply medicine," he said. "Contrary to what some of
the media would make us believe or would have us believe, evangelicals
care deeply about issues of hunger and poverty. There is nothing that
unites us more than the issue of poverty. We are well aware of what is
going on in Africa. It is in the hearts and the minds of evangelicals
and it is disturbing to us."
He added, "We are people who believe in the biblical mandate that to
whom much is given, much is expected. We are doing our part or seeking
to, but we need the government also."
Evangelicals like Palmberg have a prominent place in the delegation in
London. He's joined by Cizik, Stearns, and Geoff Tunnicliffe,
international director of the World Evangelical Alliance, along with
evangelical activists Jim Wallis and Ron Sider.
Cizik, noting that the Bush administration recently committed $700
million in emergency assistance for Ethiopia and Eritrea, pushed the
government to do more.
"We would like to see the Bush administration turn a good record on
Africa into a great record on Africa," said Cizik. "And we would like an
additional commitment of $2 billion, which could cut hunger significantly."
Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, is best known for
his landmark book Rich Christians in An Age of Hunger. He drew a
parallel between the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia in late
December, killing 200,000, and the destruction caused by extreme poverty
every day.
"The Asian tsunami shocked the world," he said. "The tragic death of
almost 200,000 innocent victims rightly provoked massive generosity. But
a tsunami killing even more innocent victims happens every week and we
hardly notice-29,000 or 30,000 children die every day of starvation,
malnutrition, and diseases we know how to prevent. That's about 210,000
children dying unnecessarily every week - a tsunami every week."
And that, Sider, said, is unacceptable, according to the Bible.
"The Bible says that God measures societies by what we do to the people
at the bottom," he said. "Today the U.S. gives the smallest percent of
its wealth, of its gross domestic product to help overcome poverty in
the world - less than .2 percent. As the richest nation and the richest
generation in human history, God demands that we double and redouble
both our public and our private efforts to dramatically reduce global
poverty.
"If we obey the Bible that we claim to treasure," he added, "Christians
will demand an end to the scandal of a deadly, unnecessary tsunami every
week."
For the first time in human history, Jim Wallis of Sojourners said, "the
world has the knowledge, the resources, the information, and technology
to really end extreme poverty as we know it."
What's been lacking, he added, "is the moral and the political will to
do so. We believe that generating such moral will is part of the
vocation of the religious community and today, very simply put, we are
all here because we believe God is acting on the issue of poverty.
Stearns added a challenge to those who say that fighting global poverty
is impossible. "We disagree strongly with those that say that
eliminating extreme poverty can't be done. We disagree because we're
doing it," he said.
" We may be the first generation ever that actually has what is needed
to eliminate extreme poverty in our world," Stearns added. "We have the
technology, we have the know-how, we have the programs that work, we
even have the economic capacity.
"But what we have lacked is a sense of moral outrage, a sense of
life-and-death urgency over the deaths of these children and we've
lacked the leadership that has the vision to use America's power and
influence to reshape the world in these positive ways and to show the
world the true greatness of our American values."
Stearns closed his remarks by claiming that in the end, refusing to act
in the face of devastating world poverty - where more than 1.2 billion
people survive on less than a dollar a day - is simply un-American.
"You know, these values that we learn in grade school talk about the
fact that all men are created equal and that each person has the right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he said.
"But let me ask you a question, are these values that only apply to
American citizens or are these values that we want to apply to every
child, every man, woman and child, across the world?
"In the 1940s, America demonstrated the greatness of its values as we
helped to defeat tyranny in Europe and then, in an extraordinary gesture
of generosity, we helped to rebuild Europe through the Marshal plan.
"In the 1960s, America showed the greatness of its vision by committing
to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and we did it.
Well, today, we on the platform here call upon our President Bush to
join with the other G-8 leaders to take up the challenge to make extreme
poverty history in our generation. And to say to the 29,000 parents who
lost a child today that they can take heart. That help is on the way
because America is no longer going to look the other way."
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
