Marv Knox
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(ABP) — Will you invest a quarter-hour to lift millions of people out of poverty and chronic hunger?
That’s all the time you need to participate in Bread for the World’s 2011 Offering of Letters. The Christian hunger-fighting organization sponsors the annual campaign to encourage Congress to adopt policies and budgets that will help end hunger in the United States and around the world.
“Write now, and write often,” urged Bread for the World President David Beckmann. “It takes time to make political change, especially to influence foreign assistance. And Congress is being pressured to cut programs that assist the poor in order to reduce the federal deficit. So, people need to call or write and say: ‘I appreciate the need for deficit reduction, but don’t balance the budget on the backs of the poor.’”
This year’s Offering of Letters focuses on encouraging Congress and the Obama administration to make sure U.S. foreign aid is effective in reducing poverty, Beckmann said. “There really is urgency to this. Washington is log-jammed by partisan conflict to reduce the deficit. But church people can say, ‘This is not a Republican or Democratic issue; it’s not liberal or conservative. It’s about making (aid) programs more effective.’ It’s not about spending more money, but about using dollars well. The challenge in a sharply partisan political environment is to get bipartisan legislation that is long-lasting. We know (House Speaker) John Boehner and President Obama think about the same thing on this. So this is a great year for conservative Christians to offer letters.”
Through the Offering of Letters, Bread for the World is keeping up the pressure to insist on accountability from the two-dozen U.S. agencies that operate foreign-aid programs, Beckmann said.
“Why should Christians impact government on behalf of the world’s poor?” he asked. “Because it’s so important. And because churches and charities can’t meet the need alone.”
For example, all the food provided by churches and other charities nationwide totaled only 6 percent of the food assistance provided by federal programs, he reported. Tax credits provided for the working poor doubled all the support poor people received through food banks and charities.
“Churches and charities can’t do it all. We’ve got to get the government involved. It’s essential,” he said.
“It’s also biblical and central to the Christian faith. In the Old Testament, Moses and the prophets went to the kings and insisted on justice for the poor people. In the New Testament, Jesus showed concern about the laws that marginalized poor people. … Helping people express care for justice and advocating for laws and systems that enable people to care for their kids is close to the heart of God.”
Recent research by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, authors of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, demonstrates “a statistical relationship between people who see God as a loving presence and those who support government programs that help the poor,” Beckmann said. “The living reality of God’s love for us moves us to care about people in need—and to trust God a little bit.”
Bread for the World urges Christians to participate in the Offering of Letters because “letters still work,” noted Marco Grimaldo, a Texas native and regional organizer for Bread. The personal tone touches lawmakers and influences their decisions, he stressed. And direct reports from Christians who have seen poverty on mission fields also make an impact, Beckmann added.
You can sponsor an Offering of Letters in your church or Bible study class. For more information, visit the Bread for the World website, www.bread.org, and click “Bread’s 2011 Offering of Letters,” about halfway down the homepage.
Also, mark your calendar for May 24-25 and plan to attend a symposium on world hunger at Dallas Baptist University, sponsored by Bread, DBU, the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, the National Association of Evangelicals and Micah Challenge. More on this later.
Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard. Visit his blog at www.baptiststandard.com.
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