NEW YORK (ABP) — Christian leaders from around the world will launch a major anti-poverty initiative Oct. 15 in New York City with an ambitious goal — to cut worldwide poverty in half by 2015.
The campaign — named the Micah Challenge after the Old Testament prophet of justice — represents more than 3 million congregations worldwide and 260 Christian relief and development organizations, including the Baptist World Alliance and Baptist World Aid.
But those groups don't plan to fight poverty alone, said Michael Smitheram of England, international coordinator for the Micah Challenge. Instead, they are “calling on their [political] leaders to live up to a promise they have already made,” Smitheram told Associated Baptist Press.
He referred to the United Nations-approved Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the U.N.'s member countries in 2000. Those eight goals represent “kind of a benign framework [Christians] can get behind,” he said, adding, “We're not asking them to get into an argument” over which anti-poverty strategies are best.
Central in the international strategy is canceling the debts of Third World countries and eliminating trade inequities, Smitheram said. But even that won't be enough to cut poverty in half, he said.
It will require commitment to all eight U.N.-adopted goals: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.
The Micah Challenge was initiated by the Micah Network, an association of 260 Christian relief and development organizations, which recognized the need to “become more involved at the political level to support what they are doing on the ground,” Smitheram said. The network sought the help of the World Evangelical Alliance, the primary international network of evangelical churches.
The Micah Challenge will make its international debut at a ceremony and press conference at the United Nations in New York Oct. 15 — coinciding with the U.N. International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Smitheram said the objective is to get the attention of the international Christian media.
Participating will be Njongonkulu Ndungane, archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa; Katherine Marshall of the World Bank; Salil Shetty of the United Nations Millennium Campaign; and Christian leaders from Africa, Asia, South, Central and North America and Europe.
Within days of the New York debut, national campaigns will be launched in Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, India, Peru and the United Kingdom. Campaigns are forming in nine other countries, including the United States, Smitheram said.
Progress in the United States has been slow, he acknowledged.
“What we tend to have in the United States is parts of the evangelical church that are well used to being involved in social action,” he said, naming several Baptist and Mennonite groups, “but then there is an enormous amount of evangelical Christians who are reticent to be involved in multinational [social] efforts.”
The Baptist World Alliance, through its General Council, endorsed the Micah Challenge Aug. 1, calling Christians to take “prayerful, practical action in their nations and communities” and to hold their nations and global leaders “accountable in securing a more just and merciful world.”
So far, however, the National Association of Evangelicals, the largest U.S. evangelical network, has declined to sign on to the Micah Challenge, although its humanitarian arm, World Relief, is involved. “NAE is broadly supportive of the Micah Challenge, but they're not looking for a leadership role,” Smitheram said.
“There's lots and lots of interest in the United States,” he continued. “We're just taking our time, trying to create the best campaign we can. It's just going slowly.”
The group is trying to enlist 25 million Christians worldwide to endorse the movement through its Web site, www.micahchallenge.org.
“If we can get something that grows from underneath, maybe the leaders will take a more active role,” Smitheram said.
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