The Baptist World Alliance is among some 260 Christian relief and development agencies that launched an ambitious global anti-poverty campaign Oct. 15.
Paul Montacute, director of Baptist World Aid, joined other representatives for the launching ceremony of the Micah Challenge at the United Nations headquarters building in New York City.
The Micah Challenge aims to cut the world’s poverty in half by 2015.
It takes its biblical mandate from Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
The BWA’s General Council endorsed the Micah Challenge at its meeting in Seoul, South Korea, last July.
At the U.N. opening, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, South Africa, urged churches around the world to fight global poverty.
“How can we claim to follow Jesus if we are not prepared to work to achieve his gospel good news for the poor?” asked Ndungane. He urged congregations to take the lead in putting pressure on governments to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals, which were adopted by the U.N. in 2000 to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.”
“Christians can play a vital role in helping global leaders meet their commitments,” he said. “When Christians work with one another, united across nationalities and races, across rich and poor, across men, women and children, we have an enormously powerful and influential voice. We must speak loud and clear.”
Describing poverty as “evil” and the Millennium Development Goals as the most “ambitious commitment the world has ever made to combating poverty,” Ndungane said, “There is no doubt that the world can afford to do all that is necessary to meet the Millennium Development Goals. But there is a large question mark against whether or not we have the will power. … Governments and business can say the words, but they need all the encouragement, all the pressure, that we can give, to deliver the goods.”
Montacute said he supported the Micah Challenge because “its results will lead to the alleviation of poverty in many parts of the world.”
“Our world leaders have already committed to this, in the Millennium Development Goals, and we now need to help them to keep their eyes on the goal,” he said. “I am delighted that the BWA General Council affirmed the Micah Challenge, and so would encourage all Baptists to familiarize themselves with this challenge, and play their own part in the achievement of the Millennium goals.
“As I travel to some of the poorest part of the world, I see too many children lacking the basic essentials of life: food, clean water, basic medications and educations,” Montacute continued. “They deserve better than this, and achieving the Millennium goals will help. I was at the United Nations as a sign of my own personal commitment to the Millennium goals, and also to represent many Baptists from around the world.”
Other Baptist leaders who attended the opening were Doug Balfour, general director of Tearfund, the largest evangelical relief organization in Great Britain. A member of London’s Ashford Baptist Church, Balfour is considered one of the key instigators of the Micah Challenge, along with Michael Smitheram, international coordinator for the Micah Challenge and a member of Canberra Baptist Church in Melbourne, Australia.
Other Baptists involved include Gwyne Milne, national president of the Baptist Union of Australia; Les Fussell, national director of Baptist World Aid Australia; Graham Paulson, chairman of the Aboriginal and Islander Baptist Conference of Australia; and Tim Costello, former pastor of Melbourne’s Collins Street Baptist Church and now director of World Vision Australia.