November 11, 1999

CLEVELAND—Forum leaders Dr. Molefe Tsele, Dr. Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Ms. Barbara Howell agreed that poverty is ecumenical. It knows no national, ethnic, geographic or religious boundaries. Likewise, effectively addressing poverty is indeed a truly an ecumenical endeavor that must involve people throughout the world.

Dr. Tslele, Lutheran pastor and executive director of the Ecumenical Service for Socio-economic Transformation in South Africa, said that the church must be "a humility church, a church of servitude" if it is to be a force in the efforts to address global poverty.

"The church must acknowledge the poor amongst us, including the poor who are in the church itself. The presence of the poor is disturbing and a challenge to the church but it is a challenge that must be embraced. We must debunk the theology that poverty is something divine, something honorable. God doesn’t make people poor. Systems do."

Tsele noted that more than one-third of the world’s 6 billion people live in extreme poverty. Today the "have’s and have not’s" can be better characterized by saying "the have all’s and the have nothing’s." Tsele noted that it is important that the church study and better understand the social conditions of the day as it strives to respond faithfully to the needs of people throughout the world.

Dr. Cohen, Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University at Burnaby, British Columbia, echoed the importance of helping people understand the intentional and systemic approaches that are employed to control wealth, production and trade in the modern global marketplace.

"Unfortunately, the goal of global trade agreements is profit and support of the international corporate agenda. Trade agreements are shifting people and communities away from household production to larger scale, corporate dominated industries which limit democratic input by limiting the ways that nations involve their citizens in trade policy development."

The results of such actions are very disturbing, according to Cohen. "There is enhanced pressure by organizations such as the World Trade Organization to eliminate government-sponsored services such as education and health care, replacing them with private, corporate providers. This movement further puts people farther from the decision-making tables and enhances the risk of poor people. Simply put, if the profit margin is not strong, well, there go the services or the marketplace for the product."

Cohen urged churches to advocate against these practices noting that a good opportunity to so exists with the upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organization, Millenium Round, scheduled for Seattle in late November.

Ms. Howell, Public Policy Director for Bread for the World, a Washington DC based ecumenical anti-hunger organization further emphasized the need for education and advocacy. "It is the time to push for big agendas to end poverty and the time may be right," Howell said.

"It is also time to question welfare-to-work statistics that supposedly show that people are working and no longer need public support. It is ironic and disturbing that while unemployment statistics are at a record low, more people are being added to the poverty roles, more working families need greater supplemental food and more children are in dire need of health care."

Howell urged participants to take a comprehensive approach to addressing poverty. Support of additional federal support for the Food Stamp Program, material increase in the minimum wage, monitoring welfare reform, and support of debt retirement legislation are all important means of addressing the complicated issue of poverty in this country and abroad.