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Inter-Provincial Workshop on Hunger Meets in Denver

Diocesan Press Service. March 31, 1975 [75119]

Salome Breck, Editor, Colorado Episcopalian

DENVER, Colo. -- On Jan. 23 Presiding Bishop John Allin issued his pastoral letter on the world hunger crisis.

"I believe God's spirit is calling our Church to respond creatively to one of the most crucial issues ever to confront humanity," he wrote.

Bishop Allin's message met with quick action. Members of the Executive Council's Hunger Task Force gathered soon after. They designed two inter-province workshops.

The first met early in March, in Denver, Colorado and was attended by representatives of Provinces 5, 6, 7, 8 (mostly western) and several overseas dioceses.

The second was held the week of March 16 in Louisville, Kentucky with representatives from Provinces 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The tightly structured sessions combined talks by a highly skilled training team, much discussion, and small workshops which provided opportunity for province representatives to get acquainted and develop plans.

Each province team began to set up the machinery for training workshops in its dioceses. In turn, diocesan teams will assist their own parishes and missions in originating long-term programs to cope with hunger on the local level, as well as overseas.

In this way the Episcopal Church will establish the structure through which its people may be educated to help alleviate the world's number one problem -- hunger.

The Rev. Norman Faramelli, co-director of the Boston Industrial Mission and chairman of the Hunger Task Force, believes the first step in understanding the situation is to "clear up our own thinking, our teaching and our actions."

"Poor distribution of resources is our principal and immediate problem," he explained. "Hunger is not simply the result of bad weather, or too many people in the world, or 'the will of God '.

"Rather it is the result of the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor of the world. The gap has been growing for years. Now we have come to the point where we must not only look at the symptoms (of which hunger is but one) but deal squarely with the problem itself. "

Mr. Faramelli asserts that there is no real shortage of food in the world. "But there is a definite shortage of money for many people, and there is a great deal of wasted food. "

The chairman noted three typical reactions to the conditions which are to be found in the average homogenous Episcopal parish.

First is the complacent, "Well, I've got mine -- this is your problem" syndrome. Then there is the response one sometimes finds in editorials: "We aren't ignoring the hunger of the world. So if there are inequities, we aren't responsible. If we in the United States have plenty it is because we deserve it. "

The third typical reaction is, "I am terribly perplexed. I've studied the problem, and I am paralyzed by it -- but there is nothing I can do!" Mr. Faramelli continued. "In every parish you will find people who say, 'so there isn't enough food. So let's concentrate on giving the food where it will do the most good. ' This we label the 'life- boat ethic, '" he continued.

"Among those who indulge in the 'blame the victim ' syndrome are those who say, 'if these countries can't control their own population it's not our fault. There are just too many people in the world. '

" Those people blame the bedroom rather than the board room. But experience has demonstrated that until people have social justice -- decent food, clothing, lodging and medical care -- population control programs simply aren't going to work. "

Fasting and sending money saved to the poor is fine as far as it goes, but by itself it is " shortsighted, " and it isn't nearly enough, he believes.

"However, let's not apologize for relief methods. We must do it this way to 'buy time. ' The question is, what are we going to do with the time we 'buy'? he asked.

Faramelli emphasized that the development of social justice around the world must be the ultimate aim, because it is the only long-range solution. And he sees the Church as shortsighted if it simply provides money for food and refuses to involve itself in solving social problems around the world.

"We have expected poor people to bear the brunt of our foreign policy, " he said. "We have urged dependent nations to expand industrially at the expense of developing their own agricultural methods. The United States must move toward providing countries with food-producing aid rather than jets and weapons.

"And this means that Church people will have to get involved in politics and economics. Many Episcopalians believe we have to 'transcend' these activities as a Church. The truth is that the Church has not transcended. The Church for the most part has simply bypassed and ignored politics and economics.

"We have to begin with a theology of common humanity. The virtue we must develop is justice, not charity. Love based on charity produces dependency. Love based on justice does not, and it is not sentimental and destructive.

"Any viable program planned to deal with world hunger must deal creatively with political and economic problems, because they are at the root of the problem itself. " People may wonder why we push these aspects. It is because the Church finds It so easy to forget the theology of economics and justice. We must learn the theology of liberation and development.

" The Church is mission and this means giving, not because of moral obligation or because it makes us feel good. We've got to give because our very salvation depends on service to other people. "

Pat Page, formerly of the Church Army, who soon will become head of the National Institute of Lay Training,* also emphasized "mission", defining it as "God-Christ at work in the present historical events, the material, social and cultural revolutions of our time, to bring to fulfillment the reconciliation of man to God, man to man (intra-personally and inter-personally) and man to his environment. "

A change in the way Western Christians have traditionally looked at things can come about only as they learn to receive as well as give; and to learn by sharing, she believes.

She quoted Canon Subir Biswas of St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta: "In the West too many of you are not liberated. You do not even have a theology of acceptance. You want to help. But to give true assistance you must treat those you would help, not as objects of charity or subjects for conversion, but as persons with whom you share. "

In the words of Dr. Emilo Castro, we are today "at the end of a missionary era and at the beginning of world mission. "

Stephen G. Brooks, one of the attorneys working through the Food Research and Action Center, New York City, dealt with hunger as it is experienced in the United States, and gave some practical suggestions about what individuals and church congregations can do about it.

Mr. Brooks said that unfortunately the extremely complicated situation of domestic hunger had to be dealt with in "bureaucratic terms."

"We don't like to believe that in this country we have people who don't get enough to eat. We can't understand why, with all the governmental agencies we have working on it, we still have thousands of hungry people.

"But hunger here is every bit as real as hunger overseas. The difference is that in the United States hunger consists mostly of continuous malnutrition. Here it is linked to our economic system. People who have enough money are not hungry. Our hungry are the poor. Many of them are old, and many are very young.

"The rest of us complain about the rising cost of food, but we can still buy food. We simply 'spend down' -- that is we buy less expensive cuts of meat and cheaper canned goods. But the poor can't 'spend down. ' Prices on the foods the poor depend on most -- such as rice and beans -- are the prices which have risen proportionately the highest."

Brooks called the food stamp program as it is administered in many areas "a degrading process for everyone who must use it. "

He believes it has been poorly administered and that people who must use it often have not been provided with enough information on how to go about it. Because cost of food stamps is based on income, many people simply don't have enough cash to buy stamps.

Applicants must wait 30 days after filling out the forms before they are eligible to get stamps, and applications must be recertified every three months.

Mr. Brooks described food stamp lines as forming at five or six o'clock in the morning in many cities, and numerous food stamp offices as a "thicket of red tape. "

Where there is incompetence in food stamp distribution he suggests that church people "monitor" the program, help people fill out their forms, and simply "be there" as a witness for kindness to people.

Stephen Brooks says his office has found numbers of programs designed to help children are not being used to capacity.

Some nine million youngsters are beneficiaries of the School Lunch Program, he said. But fewer than half a million get the benefit of the fully funded School Breakfast Program. This is available for any school which will utilize it.

Another funded program, planned for pre-school children, is used by only about 25 percent of those who need it, he asserted.

Lack of decent food distribution is especially acute on Indian reservations. Both the Denver and Louisville meetings featured minority representatives who described specific needs within their own groups.

In all sessions it became increasingly clear that the Christian who is committed to the fight against hunger must also be committed to new understanding of how government programs are structured and how they are administered.

Ground work for province programs has now been laid. As diocesan programs are organized they will reach the parish level, where the real work must be done. The two hunger sessions were obviously only the first steps in an enormous program which must not only continue but also develop and grow if Episcopalians of this country are to meet in any concrete manner this great challenge to "mission. "

* The new name for the Church Army in the U.S.A.

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