June 13, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC – More than 40 leaders of religious groups including Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist traditions, participated June 6 in an interfaith convocation at the National Cathedral here. They declared their commitment to work together to influence U.S. political leaders to make reducing hunger in the United States and worldwide a greater funding priority.

Key Lutheran leaders at "Hunger No More: An Interfaith Convocation" were the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Chicago, and president of the Lutheran World Federation, Geneva, Switzerland, and the Rev. David M. Beckmann, ELCA pastor and president of Bread for the World, a Christian citizens' movement against hunger.

Some 1,500 worshippers were at the convocation. Among other things, they prayed that President Bush and members of the U.S. Congress would preserve and enhance funding for programs that reduce poverty and hunger.

The convocation was the culmination of a 4-day conference of 600 people leading anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs. On June 7 – National Hunger Awareness Day – many went to Capitol Hill here to lobby members of Congress to support specific anti- hunger legislation.

Most of the 40 religious leaders signed a letter delivered to Bush, asking the president to provide "stronger" leadership to prevent cuts in nutrition programs and to work with other world leaders to increase development assistance, debt relief and develop international trade policies that reduce poverty and hunger.

At the convocation Hanson called on the participants to work to end poverty and hunger, and to make known their commitments to President Bush and to the Congress. Commitment cards were handed out to the participants, asking each what they were willing to do to alleviate hunger and poverty.

At a news briefing before the convocation here at The American University, Hanson said a gathering of such a broad spectrum of religious leaders for a common purpose was "an historic moment."

"The United States must exert leadership in contributing major resources to the reduction of poverty in Africa," Hanson said.

Hanson said he is "delighted" at the level of financial gifts by Lutherans to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal, the Stand With Africa campaign and to Bread for the World, an organization that the ELCA supports.

"In the ELCA we are so mindful of our differences," he said, "and yet in the midst of that, isn't it wonderful that we can find commonality not only in our compassion for those who are hungry but in our commitment and resolve to be part of the solution?"

The convocation's keynote speaker was the Most Rev. Njongonkulu W. H. Ndungane, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa. "The promise of heaven is no more hunger," he said in his remarks. "But the message of all our readings is that the plight of the hungry must not be left for heaven. It is to be our concern as God's instruments."

Politicians must be reminded that public opinion "demands justice in relation to poverty and hunger," Ndungane said. "This year, everywhere politicians turn, they will find poverty and hunger on the agenda. They cannot escape."

"Americans [want] something to unite us," Beckmann said after the convocation. "Leadership for reducing poverty has to come from the ‘guts' of America. It has to come from the heart[s] of our own people. If they (religious leaders and local activists) go home and provide leadership in their churches, in their synagogues, in their mosques, so that the whole faith community of America insists on progress against poverty and hunger, we can move the nation and the world."

Bread for the World is working on specific legislation in Congress, Beckmann said. One piece is the Hunger-Free Communities Act (S. 1120, H.R. 2717), aimed at protecting funding for nutrition programs such as the federal Food Stamp Program. The organization also wants members of Congress to cosponsor the Millennium Development Goals Resolution (H. Con. Res. 172), which urges Bush to use the G-8 and U.N. summits to increase development assistance and debt relief, and to create trade policies that reduce hunger, poverty and disease.

Convocation sponsors were the Alliance to End Hunger, America's Second Harvest: the Nation's Food Bank Network, Call to Renewal, the Episcopal Church, the National Cathedral, Bread for the World and anti-hunger coordinators representing several religious groups including the ELCA.

ELCA News Service