February 13, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS – Linda Bloom with United Methodist News Service announced today that two books from Fortress Press are featured recommendations in a new study guide from the National Council of Churches.

"To help churches take action on poverty, the National Council of Churches has released a new guide, Eradicating Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight goals to end extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015, agreed to by world leaders in 2000." Two resources used in the new study were the book, Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith, written by Donald E. Messer and former Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern; and Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis, by Donald E. Messer.

"In a world of plenty, Christians dare not accept the moral scandal of allowing one person to die in this world every three seconds because of the misery-go-round of extreme poverty, hunger and disease," said Messer, a United Methodist pastor and former president of Iliff School of Theology in Denver. "Now is the time to make hunger history and to work toward an AIDS-free world."

"The 64-page 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 Antonios Kireopoulos, an NCC executive and 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." Praise for Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis.

"A passionate and well-articulated call to mission, this book demands answers to questions such as, Why has the church failed to respond to the worst health crisis in 700 years? Similarly, why are Christians ‘curiously silent and tragically apathetic' in the face of more than 7,000 deaths per day? Messer's hard-hitting, plain-spoken account will be the subject of study as men and women confront the truth that this neither a ‘liberal' nor a ‘conservative' cause-rather it is a Christian cause. Their response in prayer mission, service and advocacy cannot come soon enough." – Rev. Robert Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Christ USA

Praise for Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith ". . . It is essential reading for all people of faith and indeed for anyone who believes we can and should make the world a better place for all." – James Morris, Executive Director, United Nationals World Food Programme

Ending Hunger Now has received overwhelming praise from Feed the Children, Bread for the World, World Vision International, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and many others.

The Ending Hunger Now web site: http://www.endinghungernow.org/ provides further information about the book, the foreword by President Bill Clinton, author bios, links to hunger organizations and networks, news and events, suggestions on how hunger organizations and congregations can partner in this effort, and a discussion forum.

Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith, by George McGovern, Bob Dole, and Donald E. Messer, Format: Paper, 128 pp., ISBN: 0-8006-3782-8, Price: $12.00, Publisher: Fortress Press.

Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis, by Donald E. Messer, Format: 144 pp., ISBN: 0-8006-3641-4, Price: $15.00, Publisher: Fortress Press.

To order Ending Hunger Now or Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the web site at http://www.fortresspress.com/.

To order the National Council of Churches' study guide, Eradicating Global Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals, contact Friendship Press, 7830 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH 45237. The cost is $7.95. To order, call toll-free (800) 889-5733, or send a fax to (513) 761-3722. Order also can be sent by e-mail to Rbray@gbgm-umc.org.

Fortress Press