By David Beckmann
The Lutheran, March 2005
For 30 years, U.S. Lutherans have maintained a focus on hunger. We’ve helped make progress against world hunger. But 2005 is a year of decision.
There are 850 million undernourished people in the world. About 5 percent of these people suffer from natural disasters, such as the South Asian tsunami or war. Ninety-five percent are just too poor to provide adequately for themselves. A child dies every five seconds from hunger-related causes.
In the United States, 36 million people live in households that struggle to
put daily bread on the table. Many of these families make do with cheap food
and sometimes skip meals. Hungry children can’t learn and develop their
God-given potential.
Lutherans make a difference
The ELCA World Hunger Appeal is 30 years old. So is Bread for the World, an interdenominational hunger advocacy movement in which Lutherans have played a leadership role. Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Services in America and the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA) are exceptionally strong and effective in helping the hungry.
Our Lutheran concern about hunger is rooted in the Bible and our experience of God. The Lord provides manna in the desert, loaves and fishes for the multitude, our daily bread, his presence in communion. God forgives our sin and fills our hungry souls with the Bread of Life. God cares for people in need and promises security and prosperity to the nation that seeks justice for poor people. When the Son of Man comes to judge the nations, he will judge whether we fed hungry people.
When I met Mother Teresa in Calcutta years ago, I introduced myself as a Lutheran pastor. She responded, “Oh, Lutherans! They send blankets.” My mother quilted LWR blankets, and I’m proud “Lutheran” for Mother Teresa meant quilts for hungry and poor people.
Together our efforts over the last 30 years have reached hundreds of millions of hungry people with emergency help and assistance in becoming self-reliant.
The ELCA World Hunger Appeal funds our church’s hunger ministry through a wide range of partners. Every day LWR combats the root causes of poverty in 50 countries, promoting HIV/AIDS prevention and taking care of AIDS orphans in Africa, for example.
Through the Lutheran World Federation we partner with Lutherans worldwide to fight hunger with relief, development and advocacy efforts. Lutheran Services in America, the nation’s largest social service network, helped about 6 million people in the United States last year. Thanks to the Jubilee debt relief campaign of 2000, led by Christian groups such as Bread for the World and LOGA, more children are in school and more medicines are in rural clinics in 25 of the poorest countries.
Lutheran commitment contributes to unprecedented progress against hunger. In 1970 more than one-third of the people in developing countries were undernourished, but that fraction has dropped to one-sixth. The number of hungry people has declined despite the growth in world population.
But progress can’t be taken for granted. The number of undernourished people in the world increased in the second half of the 1990s, largely because of setbacks in India. The AIDS pandemic has been a huge blow in some African countries. In the United States, the number of people in food-insecure households declined in the strong job market of the late 1990s — but rose when unemployment increased in 2001.
We know how to reduce hunger
We’ve learned a lot over the last 30 years about how to reduce hunger. Broadly, this is done through economic growth combined with focused investment in the nutrition, health and productivity of the poor. Government resources need to be combined with strong grass-roots participation.
The United States can play a powerful leadership role in reducing hunger worldwide. Most obviously, we should further increase funding for effective, poverty-focused programs of development assistance.
The most durable way to reduce U.S. hunger is to lessen poverty, principally
through good jobs. But we can make rapid progress by strengthening federal food
aid programs and their connection to community efforts to help the hungry.
All nations agreed at the United Nations to work together to cut hunger, poverty
and disease worldwide in half by 2015. As part of this, the U.S. government
committed to cutting hunger and food insecurity in this country in half by 2010.
President Bush promised to increase U.S. development assistance to poor countries,
and the United States sharply increased its aid over the last two years.
By one estimate, it would cost the United States $32 billion per year to cut U.S. food insecurity in half by 2010 and lead a global effort that would cut hunger, poverty and disease in half by 2015. This funding would go mainly to food aid in this nation and development assistance in poor countries. While $32 billion is a lot of money, the annual cost of extending the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 will be more than 10 times that much. The United States now spends more than $32 billion on military defense every month.
2005: A year of decision
The decisions of the next few months are likely to shape Bush’s second term. Bush and Congress are preoccupied with military defense, homeland security, tax cuts and reducing annual deficits. These priorities make it difficult to intensify efforts to reduce hunger. In fact, Congress and the president may sharply lower funding for food aid and other programs that help low-income people in this country.
The president promised to further increase development assistance to poor countries in 2005. But recent increases were less than promised and much less than what is needed. At this year’s G7 Summit and U.N. meetings, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and leaders of many other governments will urge Bush to join them in an intensified effort to reduce hunger, poverty and disease.
I pray the Spirit will move U.S. Lutherans and many other citizens to insist
that the hungry become a higher priority for our richly blessed country.
Bread for the World and LOGA have mounted a “Make Hunger History” campaign, inviting congregations to participate in a nationwide “offering of letters” to Congress. We want Congress to embrace the goal of cutting U.S. food insecurity in half by 2010 and take steps to strengthen community groups that work to end hunger. Bread for the World and LOGA also joined the “ONE Campaign” to urge our nation to do its part to reduce hunger, poverty and disease worldwide.
Hundreds of us are planning to meet at the Washington National Cathedral on the eve of Hunger Awareness Day (June 7) with ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson and other Christian, Jewish, Muslim leaders. We’ll gather in a spirit of prayer to call on our nation to deepen its commitment to overcoming hunger.
Help us celebrate 30 years of Lutheran leadership with hunger issues: Write Congress to urge that hungry people be a priority in the pivotal budget debate of 2005.