Exodus From Hunger (3 page)

This Is God at Work

 

I have come to see this generation’s struggle against hunger and poverty as a great exodus in our own time. It is like the Lord’s deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt on a much larger scale, and God did not send Moses to Pharaoh’s court to take up a collection of canned goods and blankets. God sent Moses to Pharaoh with a political challenge: to let Hebrew slaves go free. Moses then led the Hebrew slaves in a great escape across the Red Sea and through a long wilderness journey toward the promised land.

Most spiritually alert people are thoughtful about what God is doing in our individual lives, but often less attentive to God’s saving presence in world history. Yet the defining revelation of God in the Old Testament is the exodus from Egypt, and the prophets discerned the presence of God throughout the turbulent history of Israel and Judah. The New Testament then announces that God changed the course of history through the death and resurrection of Jesus and his disciples’ mission to the world.

We can recognize God’s continuing presence in the world’s recent progress against hunger and poverty. When mothers in Central America can’t feed their babies, they pray. If they are able to work their way out of hunger so that their children can eat and even go to school, many of these mothers remember to thank God. Those of us who are able to see the scale of progress against hunger and poverty worldwide should thank God for a massive liberation.

As God struggles to overcome hunger and poverty in our generation, God invites us to do our part. We can and should help people in need directly, but one of the most powerful ways to help is also the most neglected: citizen activism.

Why Politics?

 

Most people keep their distance from politics. All of us are preoccupied with our personal lives. Some people struggle with serious personal problems and really can’t devote much attention to public affairs, but more of us just find it easier to focus on ourselves and those closest to us. Many don’t bother to pay much attention to what’s happening in the wider world.

Americans also tend to have a low opinion of government. We think government programs are inefficient; many people think government is too big and intrusive, and we don’t trust politicians. Trust in government usually goes down when the economy is sour, and only 22 percent of Americans now trust the government in Washington. Sixty-six percent of Americans now think that middle-class people get less attention from government than they should; that figure has climbed over the last fifteen years.
⁵

Most churches in this country encourage people to help poor people directly and through charities, but say little about changing laws and structures that keep people poor—even though the God of the Bible insists on just laws and is concerned about the behavior of nations as well as individuals.

When I speak in churches, I ask people how they help hungry people. Typically, almost everybody contributes to food charities. Nearly all the religious congregations in the country collect food, maintain food pantries, or support soup kitchens. Some of their members volunteer at food charities. In many congregations, donated food is brought forward to the altar every Sunday morning.

Since the early 1980s the United States has developed a massive system of charitable feeding, and the U.S. religious community has been a driving force. Religious congregations have responded to high unemployment by again expanding their collection of food for people in need. Food banks and food charities now distribute an estimated $5 billion worth of groceries every year. This is a wonderful demonstration of concern, and food charities provide urgently needed help to many people.

But when I ask people in churches whether they have ever contacted an elected official about the national nutrition programs, such as food stamps and school lunches, only a few people raise their hands. Yet all the food provided by all the charities in the country amounts to about 6 percent of the amount of food that poor people receive from federal food programs such as school lunches and food stamps.
⁶

In August 2010, Congress passed a bill to provide financial aid to the states. They decided to pay for it partly by cutting $12 billion from future food stamp benefits. That one, quick decision by Congress took away from needy people more food than all the charities in the country can mobilize in two years. But few of the millions of people who contribute to food charities even noticed.

Charitable programs are important to hungry people, but it is impossible to food-bank our way to the end of hunger in America. If we want to make serious progress against hunger, we also need to make our government an active and effective part of the solution.

The national nutrition programs also show that inefficient government programs can be improved. The food stamp program once had a reputation for waste and abuse, but the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations both worked to address those problems. Groups of concerned citizens encouraged the process from outside. The food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has become a model of effectiveness. Instead of food stamps, recipients receive a debit card, which makes it easier to track how benefits are spent.

Americans also give generously to charities that work in poor countries. We give more to poor people in developing countries through charitable channels than people in the other industrialized countries (such as Canada, the European nations, and Japan).

But U.S. government programs of development assistance are bigger than all of our international charities combined, and U.S. official development assistance amounts to only two-tenths of 1 percent of our national income—less than the other industrialized countries give.
⁷
So we’re generous in a relatively small way, but less generous when it comes to the most important flow of assistance to developing countries.

People who want to overcome hunger and poverty should definitely support international charities. They work directly with poor communities and help them in ways that official programs cannot. But it’s also important to support strong and effective U.S. government assistance to developing countries. The U.S. government can do some things charities cannot do. For example, it can help developing-country governments do a better job in providing public services like schools and rural roads. The U.S. government’s decisions and international leadership on trade policies and questions of war and peace also have a big impact on poor people around the world. So in order to achieve the dramatic progress against hunger and poverty that is possible, we must influence how the U.S. government deploys its massive resources and power.

In their pastoral letter
A Place at the Table
, the U.S. Catholic bishops imagined society as a table at which everyone should be welcome and have enough. They described four sets of actors—families and individuals, community organizations and faith-based institutions, the marketplace and businesses, and government—as four legs of the table.
⁸

We need all four legs to provide a table at which everyone in our country—and around the world—can eat and be satisfied. Progress against hunger and poverty depends mainly on what families and individuals do for themselves. Community organizations and faith-based institutions provide vital, personal help to people who are struggling. What poor and near-poor people most need is good jobs, so well-managed businesses and a strong economy are important. But government policies and programs are also essential, and government is the wobbliest leg of the table. Our government does much less and is less effective than it should be, partly because so many of our citizens fail to do their part in the political process.

The U.S. federal government is especially important, because it establishes the framework within which individuals, charities, businesses, and state and local governments make their contributions. The U.S. government also affects the prospects of hungry and poor people worldwide.

The binding
constraint on
progress against
hunger and poverty
is political will
.

 

About This Book

 

This book is designed to help spiritually grounded people be effective leaders in achieving changes through U.S. politics that would dramatically reduce hunger and poverty in our country and around the world.

The recent setback for millions of hungry people makes this action urgent, and the current political environment makes big changes for the better possible—but only if there is a significant and sustained increase in activism among people of faith and conscience.

Chapters 1
–
3
discuss the damage that hunger and poverty do, the global recession, the prospect of overcoming hunger and poverty over the coming decades, and what we can learn from countries that have reduced poverty.

Chapter 4
reviews what the Bible teaches about God moving in history with a special concern for poor people. Whatever we believe about God, doing our part to help people in need is crucial to our spiritual integrity. Christians are motivated by the love of God that we experience in Jesus.

Chapter 5
makes the case that a stronger national effort to reduce poverty would be good for the United States. Our nation faces big problems, and getting more serious about justice for poor people would help to maintain the extraordinary security we have long enjoyed.

Chapters 6
–
7
argue from the experience of Bread for the World and from some encouraging developments in U.S. politics that we have a real chance to get the U.S. government to do more to reduce hunger and poverty.
Chapter 8
argues that we are at a pivot point in the history of hunger and poverty, outlines an agenda for policy change, and calls for increased activism among people of faith and conscience.

Chapters 9
–
11
are about how God has drawn me into this work and how you can get more effectively involved. We need God’s help and loving presence.

This book draws together economic analysis, insights from the Bible, and political experience. They are all part of the movement to overcome hunger. I am an economist, a Christian pastor, and an activist, and these pages share what I’ve learned from all these perspectives.

This book is supported by an interactive Web site,
www.exodusfromhunger.org
, and I hope you will use it to share your experiences, plans, and ideas. The Web site also provides additional resources, including a study guide for groups who want to read this book together.

In an era of historic possibilities to reduce economic misery, our nation—the world’s superpower—can either assume the role of pharaoh or open opportunity to hungry and poor people within its borders and around the world. Throughout history, most superpowers have assumed the role of pharaoh, oblivious to movements of history until the old political order is eventually overthrown. Yet the United States has always had high ideals, and people of faith can rouse our nation to contribute actively to the great exodus from hunger that is under way. Big changes for hungry and poor people depend on committed people across the country—people like you and me. God is calling us to change the politics of hunger.

I want to acknowledge the tens of thousands of people who make up Bread for the World’s network: Bread members, activists, donors, church leaders, board, and staff. This book grows out of our experience together as Bread for the World. All the royalties from this book will go to Bread for the World.

I am especially grateful to Eleanor Crook, Pat and Bob Ayres, Terry Meehan, Gerry Haworth, Joe and Mary Martingale, Bob Cahill, Dave and Robin Miner, Barbara Taylor, Jack and Lucy Taylor, Tom White, Malcolm and Lou Street, Paula and George Kalemeris, Carol and Dave Myers, Judy Miller, Tom and Marilyn Donnelly, Nick Zeller, Charles Butt, Jerry and Karen Kolschowsky, Rick Steves, Anne Steves, and Ted Carlson and Catherine Mouly. These individuals have been among the leading contributors to Bread for the World’s work for hungry people over the years.

I’m also grateful to the colleagues who helped me write the book: Jim McDonald, Adlai Amor, Jennifer Coulter-Stapleton, Jamie Thomas, Molly Marsh, Hilary Doran, Steve Hitchcock, Salik Farooqi, Sophie Milam, and Eric Munoz. Thanks, too, to David Dobson and his colleagues at Westminster John Knox Press.

And deep gratitude to my wife, Janet.