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Hunger Policy Podcast: May 18, 2021

 

We know that hunger is not just a matter of food but a matter of policy. Public policies impact where our food comes from, the kinds of food we eat, how we acquire food – and what our options are when we don’t have enough. In this new kind of post for the ELCA World Hunger blog, John Johnson, director of domestic policy for the ELCA, joins Ryan Cumming, program director for hunger education with ELCA World Hunger, for a conversation about hunger and policy, including important public policies that could impact people experiencing hunger and poverty in the United States. Links to both the audio and the video are below.

Interested in more conversations like this about hunger and policy? Are there specific public policy issues you’d like to hear about? Let us know! Email Ryan.Cumming@elca.org to share your feedback and ideas.

Subscribe to the ELCA World Hunger blog, and sign up to join the ELCA’s network of advocates.

(If you are one of our regular subscribers to the ELCA World Hunger blog and reading this via email, the audio and video files may not show up. Just click on the title of the post to head over to the main blog webpage to listen in.)

A New Video Resource – Luther and the Economy (5/5)

 

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 final excerpt from the video series, Dr. Jon Pahl of the Lutheran School of Theology at Philadelphia contrasts the devastating consequences of self-serving greed with the joy that can be found in working together toward a world in which all are fed – and how congregations, organizations, and partnerships can get us there. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

A New Video Resource – Luther and the Economy (4/5)

 

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. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary talks about her personal journey as an advocate for justice and the importance of seeing the well-being of the neighbor, including economic well-being, as a matter of faith. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

What are you thankful for?

Solidarity is a big piece of “accompaniment” – a way of engaging the world in mission which the ELCA defines as “Walking together in solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality.”

It seems to me that we have at least two ways to walk together in solidarity with others we accompany. First, we can respect what they value. Second, we can try to understand the roots of their challenges, and then refuse to participate in behaviors that escalate those challenges.

Which brings us to a big uh-oh.

Theologian Cynthia Moe-Lobeda doubts that North Americans can actually accompany anyone authentically. At the recent ELCA Accompaniment Conference at Luther Seminary, she asked participants what it means for us Lutherans to accompany people “we are unwittingly or unknowingly killing” through our participation in an economic system she calls “life giving to us, but death dealing to others.”

She cited a woman strawberry picker in Central America who told her, “our children go hungry because this land grows strawberries for your tables,” and a community in India displaced from hereditary lands into urban poverty by bauxite mines that make aluminum for North American consumption.

Rather than examining our system to see how it harms others, she says, “We think our life is a good one, and we give thanks for it.” Professor Moe-Lobeda notes that while our hymns don’t typically thank God for material goods, our prayers do. “And a lot of those material goods are stolen goods.”

Welcome to the week we give thanks for our way of life, no matter what suffering it causes! Now what, as Christians and people concerned with hunger, shall we do?

Instead of reflexively thanking God for our lifestyle, can we reflect on how our prosperity harms the earth and others? Professor Moe-Lobeda believes that our faith calls us to recognize, name, and resist “social structural evils” that mean, for example, that a child born in North America will consume, waste and pollute in his or her lifetime as much as 50 children in developing countries.

Just being willing to question ways of life assumed to be good is a significant first step. Owning up to our complicity in the systems that support it—confessing that we participate and benefit—is a second step. Avoiding the temptation of shrugging our shoulders and declaring ourselves powerless to change anything is a third step. Seeking to create or nurture fairer alternatives is a fourth step.

That’s a lot of ground to cover over the mashed potatoes on Thursday. Since I’m not always tactful, I’ll probably focus on my fork and limit my efforts to leading a slightly less self-centered prayer.

Friday is another story! No early mall trips for me–I’ll be celebrating Buy Nothing Day, a holiday that helps me think about shopping and realize more deeply how tangled I am in our consumer economy. This year I’m hoping to be inspired to do less willful “not seeing” and creep a little closer to embracing what Professor Moe-Lobeda calls “the pan-human and inter-faith “great work” of our day: forging ways of living—at the household, institutional, and societal levels—that Earth can sustain and that build economically just inter-human relations.” [Read Cynthia Moe-Lobeda’s ideas in this paper and this paper, and look for her title in the Lutheran Voices series, Public Church: For the Life of the World. Find some really radical ways to celebrate Buy Nothing Day, at home or with others, by clicking here or on the poster below.]

This year, let’s reconsider and redefine our blessings instead of counting them—and take a day to appreciate the world God has given us without using our credit cards. It could be revolutionary!

Anne Basye

“Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal”