wfn.org | WCC UPDATE: Kobia opens 'Brot fuer die Welt' campaign

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - Update Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363 media@wcc-coe.org For immediate release - 28/11/2005

FOOD FOR ALL, A MATTER OF JUSTICE

The issue of food must be addressed "from a justice perspective". This
will "not only ensure that people have food, but that their livelihoods
and dignity are protected" while also protecting the environment, World
Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Samuel Kobia affirmed at
the opening worship of the 47th Bread for the World (Brot fuer die Welt)
campaign.

Preaching at the campaign's opening worship in Herrnhut, Germany, on 27
November, the first Sunday of Advent, Kobia affirmed the "ecclesial legacy
of distributive justice as a basis for humanitarian assistance". Churches
"have always [...] been engaged in the sharing of resources for the
eradication of extreme poverty and hunger," he said.

Kobia recalled that "there is enough food for everyone in the world,"
but that "some 800 million starving people in the world" are hungry
"because they do not have the purchasing capacity to buy food". Therefore,
Christians should "question the dominant economic paradigm" that "places
all trust on the market to solve hunger".

The 47th campaign of Bread for the World, a German evangelical aid agency
created in 1959, which currently supports more than 1000 projects in
Africa, Asia and Latin America, has as its theme: "God's rules for a
just world" ("Gottes Spielregeln für eine gerechte Welt").

http://www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de [German only]

This material may be reprinted freely.

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 347, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.