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Joining
voices as ONE
by Annie Lynsen |
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"Speak out for those who
cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak
out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor
and needy." Proverbs 31:8–9
Since I began working for
the ELCA Washington Office, one of the advocacy offices of
the ELCA, I learned that by using my voice I can stand
up for those who need my help in the United States and
around the world. My dollars, my time, and my voice are
all important. In addition to the one-to-one caring for
victims of injustice, speaking out at the governmental
level can help change systems that perpetuate injustice.
Getting started
During my first few days on the job as director for
grassroots advocacy and communication, I learned some
sobering statistics: More than 800 million people
around the world do not get enough to eat,
and more than 500
million are chronically mal-nourished. Eight million die
every year because they lack the most basic resources.
And while many of us have easy access to drinking fountains and bottled water from vending machines, 1.2
billion people live without access to safe drinking
water.
I’ve learned that of the
world’s 24 million people with HIV/AIDS, more than 93
percent live in developing countries. More than 840
million adults in our world have not had the opportunity
to learn to read or write. Furthermore, 160 million
pre-school children living in developing nations are
underweight.
This new-found awareness made me realize the magnitude
of the global task — before me, before you, before all
of us. Men and women, celebrities and community
leaders, can all come together as ONE, and that’s what
ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History is about.
ONE by ONE
The ONE campaign was founded by 11 non-profit
organizations*, including
Bread for the World,
that came together to make an impact on global HIV/AIDS
and poverty in the world’s poorest countries. About
3 million people have joined the ONE campaign, and
more than
2 million people have signed its petition to
the federal government asking that an additional ONE
percent of the United States national budget (or about
$25 billion over five years) be put toward meeting the
basic needs of the world’s poorest people and countries.
Major progress would be made toward ending poverty and
hunger; providing medicines, education, and
infrastructure; reversing the spread of deadly diseases
like HIV/AIDS and malaria; and improving access to clean
water. This effort also encourages debt cancellation,
trade reform, and anti-corruption measures to help
nations deal with the scourge of HIV/AIDS
and extreme poverty.
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The average American thinks the
United States spends 15 to 30 percent of its budget on
foreign aid. In reality,
less than 1 percent
of the United States budget
*
is spent on non-military foreign assistance. Less
than 1 percent!
* MDG Campaign research, 2004. |
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Because of its long history
of advocacy, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,
through its
advocacy offices and
ELCA World Hunger
efforts, has joined the ONE campaign and the effort to
rally Americans one by one to fight global AIDS and
extreme poverty. ONE Lutheran is the ELCA-specific
effort to promote the ONE campaign.
* Bread
for the World, CARE, DATA, International Medical Corps,
International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam
America, Plan USA, Save the Children US, World Concern,
and World Vision.
“A Tremendous
Opportunity”
ELCA presiding bishop Mark
Hanson says that Christians have a “tremendous
opportunity” to end poverty, thanks to new goals set out
by 180 countries, including the United States:
“The Millennium Development Goals give us a tremendous
opportunity: a plan to save the lives of the 8
million people who die every year from poverty,” Hanson
said as he urged ELCA members to learn about and support
the ONE Lutheran Campaign and the Millennium Development
Goals. If the United States were to devote an additional
1 percent of its budget toward meeting the
needs of the world’s poorest, America would demonstrate
its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.
With the broad goal of cutting extreme poverty in half
by 2015, the Millennium Development Goals include:
1. Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger
2. Achieving Universal Primary Education
3. Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women
4. Reducing Child Mortality
5. Improving Maternal Health
6. Combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases
7. Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
8. Creating a Global Partnership for Development
“Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the
right of the lowly and the destitute” (Psalm 82:3).
Annie Lynsen, 26, works at the ELCA
Washington Office.
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Faith Reflections
by Sarah Stadler-Ammon
How does God’s love abide in anyone who
has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet
refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but
in truth and action. … We love because [God] first loved us. Those who
say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for
those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot
love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from God is
this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
1 John 3:17-18, 4:19-21
I think we can get stuck when we try to
love our neighbors, especially those in need. We celebrate Jesus’
commandments to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves, but
we struggle to know how to do that or even what that means.
We think that loving our international
neighbors means giving money to relief work or supporting sustainable
agricultural projects. We think that loving our local neighbors means
volunteering at the food pantry and purchasing Christmas gifts for
low-income families.
I don’t think
Scripture would turn away from these expressions of love, but I think
the author of the “Hot Topic” might challenge us to expand our ideas
of what loving another means.
When we focus our efforts to love others on the problems of others, we
forget why our neighbors suffer poverty or other injustices in the
first place. Asking what it means to love in truth and action brings
us to the scary place of acknowledging that the ways we contribute to
racism, sexism, classism, environmental degradation, and globalization
are actually not very loving acts. To truly love those in need, we
also must acknowledge our own need for transformation. This requires courage. I would imagine that God also had to be
very courageous to come share this precarious life with us here on
earth.
God showed us how to love in truth and action, not just in word or
speech. God created us with a word and then re-created us through the
life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Still today, the Holy Spirit
(named by the feminine Sophia or ruah in the Old Testament)
blows through our lives in the most unexpected ways; she shapes and
forms our passions, our hopes, and our dreams.
This life-giving Spirit fills us with
the energy to do the work to which she has called and prepared us. She
provides us with the courage we need to face our fears and to
critically assess our action. We can love in truth and action, despite
our fears, because of the creative, redeeming, and sustaining work of
God.
The ELCA has committed itself to
supporting the ONE campaign. This campaign seeks to put an end to
extreme poverty and hunger, to combat HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, to
ensure environmental sustainability, and to promote gender equality
and empower women in our world’s developing countries, among other
things. The partners of the ONE campaign hope to move our nation’s
leaders toward designating 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget to the
concerns mentioned above.
Our church’s commitment to social and environmental justice — spurred
on by the Holy Spirit — is a call to love in truth and action.
Responding to this call may be as simple as signing the declaration
on the Web site or contributing money to the campaign. At the
same time, responding to this call may require more courage than that,
courage to examine our own need for trans-formation. The Spirit calls
us to this work of loving courageously and creating justice, not only
for the sake of those who experience poverty, illness, and other forms
of injustice, but for our own sake. We too are broken by our privilege
and our greed, and we are in need of healing. We need the gifts that
following the Spirit can bring to our lives. Exploring the call to
justice is not a matter of giving only, but giving and receiving.
Receiving the gifts of the Spirit and of our sisters and brothers “in
need” is often more difficult because, through it, we are transformed.
God already loves us and now calls us into a relationship with God
through our sisters and brothers whom we can see. Let us open our eyes
and be transformed. Amen.
Sarah Stadler-Ammon is a soon-to-be master of divinity graduate of
the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She is awaiting her first
call as a pastor in the ELCA. |
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