Episcopal News Service March 9, 2007
TEAM: Speakers set MDGs in theological context
Shetty, Wangusa, de Gruchy urge active role by church in eradicating poverty
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[ENS] Participants in the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference, meeting in Boksburg, South Africa, heard two speakers on March 9 say the churches of the Anglican Communion are uniquely positioned to work for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_77743_ENG_HTM.htm).
Churches are one of the few organizations that get in touch with their constituencies every week, said Salil Shetty, director of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals campaign (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals).
Helen Wangusa, the Anglican Observer at the United Nations (http://www.anglicancommunion.org/un), said in her response to Shetty's presentation that Anglicanism's theological emphasis on the incarnation and the importance of embodiment fits well with the MDGs' concern about people's physical well-being.
Later in the day, Steve de Gruchy, who teaches at the School of Religion and Theology at University of KwaZulu-Natal (http://www.ukzn.ac.za), told the conference that 'rich companies, rich people, rich nations and, I have to say, rich churches stand in judgment against us" when contrasted with the extreme poverty in the world.
Shetty told the TEAM conference that churches form on-the-ground networks that are in touch with needs at a fundamental level. "You can walk and walk, and at the end of the road, there is a church. You are there," he said.
Yet, Shetty said churches often underestimate their strength and said that the moral force of faith communities must be brought to bear on what he called a "series of interlocking crises."
Those crises include, he said, a "crisis of security" at all levels, not just the search for peace in the world but peace for individuals in their own lives. Then there is the "crisis of intolerance," both of Christians for Muslims and Muslims for Christians, as well as a general "crisis of respect for diversity." The "crisis of representative democracy" has arisen because people have not seen the benefits of such a governing system and thus have become skeptical of government in general.
Finally, there is the "crisis of poverty and inequality," he said, reminding listeners that 50,000 people would die of hunger that day, many of them children, and that 1 billion people live without sanitation, and 120,000 million children have no access to education and many others are poorly educated.
"The greatest weapon of mass destruction is staring us in the face," Shetty said, calling poverty a "fundamental denial of human rights."
Yet, "the world has never seen so much prosperity," he said. Shetty noted that Fortune magazine had announced March 9 that there are now 946 billionaires in the world, more than ever before, who hold $3.6 trillion in wealth.
Full story and photos:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83323_ENG_HTM.htm
-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.
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