wfn.org | Episcopalians: Global reconciliation panel says poverty and disease should--and can--be over

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

April 22, 2002

2002-101

Episcopalians: Global reconciliation panel says poverty and 
disease should--and can--be overcome

by Tracy J. Sukraw

(ENS) At a recent symposium on global reconciliation at 
Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 
message from prominent Anglican leaders that we must overcome 
poverty and disease in our world, coupled with a Harvard 
economist's belief that we can actually do it-and do it 
nowmade a compelling case for action toward making "God's 
dream" come true.

Panelists Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop of the 
Episcopal Church, and Desmond Tutu, retired archbishop of Cape 
Town, South Africa, each spoke of the power of human agency in 
fulfilling "God's dream," in Tutus words, that creation might 
live justly and in peace. 

But surprisingly, it was the economist in the group, Jeffrey 
Sachs, director of the Center for International Development at 
Harvard University, whose message was perhaps the most 
optimistic.

"We can actually end absolute poverty in the world," Sachs 
said. The unprecedented wealth of countries like the United 
States and the scientific and technological progress of this 
"new age" of globalization "make it possible for us to reach all 
of the world if we care to do so. We have become so 
extraordinarily rich without knowing it, because we're always 
looking across the street and perhaps not looking across the 
world," he said. If we cared to shift our gaze, he said, "we'll 
find ways to have neighbors of prosperity in all parts of the 
world."

Rich and poor as partners

The April 6 event marked the 10th anniversary of Episcopal 
Divinity School's Anglican, Global and Ecumenical Studies 
program. Other panel members were Archdeacon Fagamalama 
Tuatgaloa-Matalavea, the Anglican observer to the United 
Nations, and the Rev. Dr. Joan M. Martin, associate professor of 
Christian ethics at EDS.

Globalization"not a simple you're for it or you're against 
it" phenomenon, Sachs told the audience of several hundredhas 
not solved the problems of the world's poor. In terms of some of 
its economic, political, ecological and cultural ramifications, 
it has actually had an adverse effect in some of the world's 
poorest and conflict-ridden parts.

"People are not just suffering, they are dying by the 
millions, going right over the edge every year for lack of food, 
lack of access to the most basic health services," Sachs said. 
He cited annual death tolls in the millions from AIDS, as well 
as curable diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, respiratory 
infections, tetanus and measles.

The $35 to $40 per person that Sachs said it would cost to 
bring live-saving measures to 8 million people in the lowest 
income countries is well beyond those countries' reach. "It's 
not that the money involved is so vast, but that the poverty is 
so extreme," he pointed out.

Yet as disastrous as the current picture is, Sachs said, the 
future is not yet written. "Indeed we do have within our means a 
way to find a path around the abyss. It really lies within our 
hands" to "spread the benefits of prosperity and economic 
productivity which [now] are enjoyed by only a sixth of 
humanity."

Sachs estimated that one penny of every $10 earned in the 
world's wealthiest nations would save 25,000 lives every day: 
"We can do this. We can do this for health, we can do this for 
education, we can do this for hunger, we can do this for access 
to clean water and sanitationif the rich and the poor of the 
world will be partners."

By spending one penny out of every $100 on international 
health assistance, the U.S. is "the stingiest of all donors in 
the world," he said, ranking 22nd out of 22 donor countries at 
the beginning of this year. President Bush's February commitment 
of an additional $10 million for the world's poor is a hopeful 
step, Sachs said.

U.S. citizens must make their political leaders see that "a 
vote for foreign aid is not a dangerous vote, it's a necessary 
vote. It's something we have to do for our own humanity and our 
own security," Sachs said.

Questions of power

Sachs called for "a global ethic that is consistent with our 
global times," and ethics professor Joan Martin, in her 
response, asked, "Who has the power and by whose power do we 
live?"

"It seems to me that unless we talk about the structures of 
power...unless we talk about what equity means in a world where 
there are very rich nations and very poor nations, then we will 
not address some of the fundamental obstacles," Martin said. She 
criticized U.S. domestic policy on environmental and welfare and 
employment issues, saying that the U.S.'s track record for 
serving the poor at home makes her question its will to form the 
partnerships required internationally to address the plight of 
the world's poor.

Martin said that if it is true that local congregations are 
the fundamental channels of God's mission, then "there are many 
implications for the training of women and men in local 
churches" and in seminaries for "training leaders for the church 
and the world" in light of commitments to justice, compassion 
and reconciliation.

"Every one of us as Christians, we are sent, even as Jesus 
was sent, to recover that which God has given us and which we, 
through our humanly constructed world, have lost," she said.

Network of relatedness

Griswold spoke of ongoing work by the Episcopal Church's 
House of Bishops toward reconciliationindividually, communally, 
globally and across faiths. "I think often people of faith are 
rather passive in the face of the overwhelming complexities that 
determine our common life, and I think that in a variety of 
ways, God says to us, I'm involving you in my project."

He praised the work of the Episcopal Church's Office of 
Government Relations in Washington, D.C., as well as Episcopal 
Relief and Development, but said that the Anglican Church, as "a 
worldwide network of relatedness," has "not yet taken seriously 
the possibilities that reside in those multiple relationships."

Matalavea, who as Anglican observer to the UN represents 73 
million people in 165 countries, too, talked about the 
possibilities within the Anglican Communion, and spoke for the 
well-being of families worldwide. "Women and children are among 
the most vulnerable people in the world and are numerous among 
the have-nots in our global community," she said.

God's plea: 'Help me'

Referring to Sachs's statistics that 25,000 die every day for 
lack of food and basic health care services, Archbishop Tutu 
pleaded with the assembly to remember, "That's somebody's 
mother. That's somebody's son."

In whispered tones that brought the room to a dramatic hush, 
Tutu spoke of "an incredible paradox": "We have an extraordinary 
God, a God who is omnipotent and so extraordinarily impotent. 
'Help me," is God's plea."

The image of all people being called by God into one human 
family is not sentimental, but radical, because it requires 
provision "to each according to their need, not according to 
their ability," Tutu said. "God says, Go and be what you are 
already. Go, go, go and wipe God's tears."

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--Tracy J. Sukraw is editor of The Episcopal Times, the 
newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.