Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Tim Huffman, now retired from Trinity Lutheran Seminary, describes the importance of advocacy, action, and building relationships toward a more just world, including within our own church. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Samuel Torvend of Pacific Lutheran University talks about justification and justice, the experiences that shaped his own perspective, and how to reconcile Luther’s conservative positions with the Reformer’s progressive call for economic justice. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Omnivore, locavore–yes, invasivore! Already on the list of new words for 2011, an invasivore is someone who eats species that are crowding out natural species. Click here to google the term (otherwise Google will try to convince you you’ve misspelled invasive) and you’ll find clever articles and www.invasivore.org ‘s tasty recipes for Himalayan blackberry (a pest in Washington state and 24 others), garlic mustard, kudzu, and annoying animal species like the Chinese mysterysnail, now invading many freshwater lakes.

While you’re smiling, note the bottom line: We humans are great at eating species out of existence, but when we’ve depleted their stock, we “farm” them or introduce a new, similar species from somewhere else. Thus, we farm tilapia for our dinner plates—but the little fish make the invasive list when they escape their “farm” and start dominating their immediate environment. And the Himalayan blackberry introduced to our country by Luther Burbank in the 19^th century is making a mess of everything.

Tasty, but pushy, and crowding native species out of their space.

Friends of mine are working hard to get the Himalayan blackberry out of their woods. I’m thinking hard about the wisdom of humans moving plant and animal species to new parts of the world—and planning to make a lot of blackberry jam and pies this summer.

Conflict food is another emerging trend. (Too bad conflictarian isn’t as catchy as invasivore.)  Started by artists in Pittsburg, the Conflict Kitchen only serves food from nations with which the U.S. has conflicts. Every four months, the look and menu changes. The Kubideh kitchen, serving Iranian food, was first. Now open is the Bolani Pazi Afghan takeout restaurant, created with local Afghan refugees and featuring events and discussions about culture and conflict. Coming soon: North Korea and Venezuela.

Food not Bombs, which I heard about last summer from a young woman at Holden Village, collects and cooks surplus and wasted food and serves vegetarian meals for free in many cities. You’ll get the basic story but not the specifics on the web, because it’s controversial; some of the food comes from dumpsters, and FNB often has skirmishes with local municipalities over food licensing. But I appreciate their strong challenge to our wasteful system, which wastes or discards about 40% of our food.

Lenten supper season will soon be upon us. How about replacing the same old thing with meals of invasive, conflict, or scavenged foods? As a cook, I’d love to investigate and prepare local invasive plants and animals. Or learn about a different culture, a conflict, and its implications as I cook a dish from a conflict country. Or even find out firsthand how much food is wasted in my town, by trying to scavenge something for a meal!  Besides challenging the cooks, all three would open bold new conversations around hunger.  Shall we give them a try?

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

I just finished reading Peter Singer’s new book, The Life You Can Save. The book is engaging and accessible and argues persuasively not only why we should give but also how much is reasonable for us to give.

All in all I enjoyed the book and encourage you to spend some time with it. For those of you in the Chicago area, a group will gather to discuss the book on June 11 at 7:30pm at United Lutheran Church in Oak Park (409 Greenfield Street). I invite you to join us for what promises to be a lively dialogue!

David Creech

I became a mother for the first time in October, 1997. Even though I knew I would love my child, I was unprepared for the completeness and intensity of my love for my son. I was also unprepared for the fact that I began to see my child in the faces and lives of other children, children known to me and children not known to me. I became a better pastor and teacher when I became a mother. I recognized the triumphs and fears in the parents and children around me. They seemed very real and very familiar.

At this same time, it was also hard for me to see pictures of and read articles about children who were hurt or were starving. I knew it happened, of course, but I did not want to see evidence that children suffered so greatly. Those children were no longer abstract children to me. They were children who were someone’s greatest treasure.

My son is now eleven, and he has a brother and a sister. I now make myself read articles and books about hunger and poverty because I know that mothers whose children are hungry, love their children just as I love mine. I feel that I have to keep track of these women and their children in order to fulfill my call to preach and teach the Gospel. It is still hard. I cannot always look at the pictures, but I know that if their stories are not known and told, nothing will change. I work every day to hold on to my hope that hunger will end and that every mother’s treasured child will have enough.

The Rev. Stacy K. Johnson

Stacy Johnson, Ph.D., is an ELCA pastor and the author the new World Hunger curriculum, Taking Root: Hunger Causes, Hunger Hopes.

Check out these new resources:

ELCA World Hunger just released a hunger education resource for congregations. The Hunger Education tool kits will help you design, host, and lead a learning experience on hunger or hunger-related topics. It is adaptable to your audience, including participant activity level (low, medium, and high) and your time frame. The resource is practical, easy-to-use, and intergenerational. At present we have two kits: one introducing the work of ELCA World Hunger and another exploring the connections between climate change and hunger. Visit www.elca.org/hunger/toolkits and see how you can use them!

We also just released a new hunger education curriculum, Taking Root. The curriculum is divided into five two to three hour sessions that can be easily broken up into shorter lessons. The curriculum is designed for three different age groups: grades 3–6, grades 7–9 (junior high), and grades 10–12 (senior high). Taking Root helps students explore biblical texts that envision a world without hunger, discover steps that can transform that image into reality, and challenges them to imagine a better world. For more information, visit the Taking Root Web site, www.elca.org/hunger/takingroot. For a free sample of the curriculum, visit the Augsburg Fortress website.

As I noted in a previous post, I am now on Twitter, with the user name hungerbites. I am posting two to three times a day with articles I’m reading or thoughts I’m having on hunger. I do not always have the time to pass along all that I get to read on the blog so Twitter opens up new avenues for information sharing. A little plug to join Twitter: not only can you follow me, you can follow other aid organizations (such as Oxfam) and concerned citizens (like Bono). It is a great tool.

In April, PBS will air a new documentary on the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai. The documentary, entitled Taking Root (not to be confused with our new curriculum!), explores interconnections between climate change, human rights, and democracy. The show premiers on Tuesday, April 14. For more details about the show and its premier, visit http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/takingroot/.

Finally, the American Bible Society has put out a great new resource entitled, Poverty and the Poor in the Bible, available free at http://www.bibles.com/products/ABS_NEW/121715.aspx. The short booklet is a collection of biblical texts that deal with poverty. It also has three appendices–letters that have been written by various Christian groups (one of which that was signed by our own Bishop Hanson) that speak to the injustice and scandal of modern poverty. I am excited to use this resource. I think it highlights well the way in which our foundational document calls us to be on the side of those who are poor and to walk with them in their struggle for justice.

David Creech

Hunger Rumblings will periodically highlight the work of organizations that received financial support through an ELCA Hunger Education/Advocacy grant in 2008. We hope you are as inspired by these stories of our faith in action as we have been!

Tour de Revs – 100 Days for Hunger and Wellness
www.tourderevs.org
2008 ELCA World Hunger Education Grant Recipient

The 2008 ELCA Hunger Education/Advocacy grant was used to plan for the 2009 Tour de Revs Bicycle Ride, and to create a promotional DVD and other printed materials. From May 13 – August 20, three ELCA pastors from the West Virginia/Western Maryland synod will ride over 13,000 miles on a bamboo bicycle built for three to increase awareness of world hunger and generate financial support for the ELCA World Hunger Appeal. Tour de Revs will be making stops at each ELCA synod, the 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering and the ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

A prologue ride was taken to all the congregations of the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod in September, 2008, with much success. In the evenings, most churches hosted a dinner and invited the community, resulting in contributions to ELCA World Hunger of over $2000 (some of those funds were also matched by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans). The prologue ride received a lot of press, allowing many people outside the Lutheran church to learn about ELCA world hunger efforts through local and state newspaper coverage. We expanded our audience further by posting a promotional DVD on YouTube where it has been viewed over 1,100 times, and by creating a group on Facebook that has gained over 200 members.

Two of the three Tour de Revs pastors were at Camp Luther, the synod’s youth summer camp. Interest in the ride and in hunger issues became a secondary part of the camp experience. Some campers gave much of their money brought from home to World Hunger instead of buying treats at the camp store as they had originally intended. At the end of the week, over $2000 had been raised – an amount made even more significant and touching given the average camper age was 13.

Tour de Revs and the grant from ELCA World Hunger have caused many churches in the WV-WMD synod to rethink their commitment to ending world hunger and increase their giving to ELCA World Hunger. One church indicated a planned increase in ELCA World Hunger giving of 400% for 2009! We hope that by the end of the Tour de Revs ride many more congregations around the country will respond in as generous a manner.

Connie Twedt
Tour de Revs

posted by Erin Cummisford