'Eradicating Global Poverty:' a new study guide from the NCC
Eradicating Global Poverty:
A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals 61 pages, Friendship Press, 7830 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH 45237 $7.95. Order toll-free, 800-889-5733, or fax, 513-761-3722 Order by e-mail at Rbray@gbgm-umc.org
New York, February 2, 2006 -- If the poor will always be with us, why should we eradicate extreme poverty?
Because we can, experts say. Humanity has the means to end worldwide poverty in our lifetime. The real question is, will we do it?
A new study guide released today by the National Council of Churches USA, Eradicating Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals, tackles these and other pressing issues.
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight goals to end extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015, agreed to be world leaders in 2000. (See the goals below.)
The study guide aims to motivate people to make the goals a reality, according to Lallie B. Lloyd, an editor of the guide.
"Since the Millennium Development Goals were announced in 2000," Lloyd writes, "a global movement has emerged. Around the world, and across the United States, Christians are joining other people of faith . . . in a unified effort to eradicate extreme poverty."
The goal is not a fantasy, says economist Jeffrey Sachs. "Ours is the first generation in the history of the world with the ability to eradicate extreme poverty. We have the means, the resources and the know-how. All we lack is the will."
Jesus told his disciples that there will always be poor people, and so long as sinful humans are in charge of the earth, that will remain true. But millions around the world are trapped in a relentless, hopeless poverty that kills people -- that allows children and their parents to suffer and die from starvation, disease and political neglect.
The study guide editors have no doubt that Jesus would be appalled by poverty this extreme, and by Christians who are indifferent to it.
"If we were to learn today, for the first time in human history, we have the tools, knowledge and wealth to end extreme poverty," asks Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, Associate General Secretary of the NCC for International Affairs and Peace, "would we take the necessary steps to do so?"
The editors and writers of Eradicating Global Poverty believe the answer is, yes.
The study guide has six sessions for use in congregational church school classes and other settings "to foster an understanding of the pertinent issues and promote this worldwide effort on behalf of the poor," said Kireopoulos, the guide's editor. Each session examines one or more of the Millennium Development Goals. An appendix to the guide examines the special economic and political challenges facing the African continent.
All study sessions are timely and at times emotionally compelling. The guide's reminder that millions of poor women experience pregnancy and childbirth without medical support, and 500,000 women die in childbirth each year, will inspire many readers to get involved in eradicating global poverty. Similarly, it is heart-rending to read that 11 million children under 5 died from the lack of medical care -- and that 43 developing countries account for 90 percent of the world's deaths of children under 5.
The study session on HIV/AIDS draws a vivid contrast between the ready availability of AIDS treatment in North America and Europe and the almost total lack of it in the developing world. By the end of 2004, 39.4 million people were living with HIV (the highest number ever). In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly two-thirds of the population has HIV. (A sample selection from the chapter on HIV/AIDS is below.) The figures will be jarring to Americans in church study groups who are no longer seeing HIV/AIDS reported as a major new story in U.S. media. The facts suggest that HIV/AIDS remains one of the most tragic news stories on the globe.
The idea for the study guide grew out of a meeting hosted by the NCC that included a presentation by Sachs, director of the Millennium Project, a UN-commissioned advisory body that proposes solutions to meeting the goals by 2015. The NCC governing board has endorsed the U.N. Millennium Development goals. The study guide was made possible in part by a grant from industrialist Chang K. Park, a Christian layman from New York.
The editors of the guide believe the time may be ripe for a major movement to implement the U.N. goals and effectively end the poverty that is killing millions around the world.
"Christians were at the forefront of several major movements for social change," Lloyd writes. "From the establishment of the earliest orphanages, hospitals and public schools, to the abolition of slavery and forced child labor . . . Christians have heard the cry of the suffering and said, 'Enough, it's time to stop.'" _____ MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
. Halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. . Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015.
2. Achieve universal primary education
. Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality.
. Reduce by two-thirds the under-5 mortality rate by 2015.
5. Improve maternal health
. Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio by 2015
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases . By 2015 halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS . By 2015 halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources. . Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation . By 2015 achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
8. Create a global partnership for development with targets for aid, trade and debt relief . Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable non discriminatory trading and financial system . Address the special needs both of the least developed countries and of landlocked and small island developing countries. . Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable . In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth . In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries} . In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications. _____ REFLECTION: HIV/AIDS
(Excerpted from Eradicating Global Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals, Page 34.)
The extent of human suffering brought about by the global HIV/AIDS pandemic has rarely been seen before in the history of the world. HIV/AIDS is increasingly a disease of the young and the most vulnerable, particularly girls. AIDS has orphaned 14 million children and left millions more extremely vulnerable. Statistics available from 2002 show that 720,000 babies became infected with the virus during the mother's pregnancy, during birth or through breastfeeding.
The scourge of AIDS is not unlike the group of diseases known to ancient peoples as leprosy. Like AIDS, leprosy was associated with poverty, stigma and uncleanness; it marked the sufferer as one to be marginalized, cast aside by the community. Fear of contagion and the social isolation of disease meant one's friends, neighbors and even family averted their eyes and kept their distance just when help and support were needed most.
In Jesus' time lepers lived separately from the community in a kind of quarantine but without any care or support from the community. They were cast out and shunned, The disease was contagious, so the community was protecting itself, but the cost borne by the sufferers was enormous. Not only were they ill and prohibited from earning a living, but they also were cut off from the normal social systems of support and identity that would have been available to others.
South African theologian Denise Ackerman asks, "What does it mean to confess to being the 'one holy, catholic, and apostolic church' in the midst of the 'bleak immensity' of the HIV/AIDS crisis?" She suggests:
If we are truly one, we are the church with HIV/AIDS. People living with HIV/AIDS are found in every . . . religious denomination. We are all related; what affects one member of the Body of Christ affects us all. We are all living with HIV/AIDS. There is no "us" and no "them." We dare not forget that inclusion, not exclusion, is the way of grace. If we are holy, we are not living some superhuman mode of existence . . . Holiness is not withdrawal from the smell of crisis, sickness, or poverty, but engagement, often risky, in situations where God is present. If we are catholic, we are in solidarity because we are connected, in communion, with those who are suffering and who experience fear of rejection, poverty and death. If we are apostolic, we stand in continuity with the church in its infancy . . . This means that we are zealous for the Word, and that we continuously examine the ideals of the early church and measure ourselves against them. This is nothing new. It is simply a call to put the words of the creed into practice.
Inclusion, engagement, connectedness and continuity -- these are the values Ackerman calls the church to live out as it lives with AIDS.
How did Jesus respond to a sufferer of a deadline and stigmatizing disease? As we see in Luke 5:12-14, we see that Jesus included the leper, engaged him, connected with him and brought him back into the continuity of their shared tradition.
Jesus included the leper by accepting the leper's request to be in relationship. "If you choose," beseeched the leper; "Yes, I do choose," said Jesus. Jesus engaged the leper by stretching out his hand. He actively reached toward him, closing the physical distance by his action. Jesus connected to the leper by touching him, shocking the leper and Jesus' followers alike, and violating the norms of their shared culture. Jesus brought the leper back into continuity with their community by telling him to abide in their tradition's requirements and so return to life in community.
This story gives us an image of what it might mean to be the church with HIV/AIDS. If we follow Jesus' example we will be inclusive, engaged, connected and in continuity.
Eradicating Global Poverty:
A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals 61 pages, Friendship Press, 7830 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH 45237 $7.95. Order toll-free, 800-889-5733, or fax, 513-761-3722 Order by e-mail at Rbray@gbgm-umc.org
Contact NCC News: Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2252, pjenks@ncccusa.org; or Leslie Tune, 202-544-2350, ltune@ncccusa.org