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Provincial Task Forces Grapple with Problems of World Hunger

Diocesan Press Service. March 31, 1975 [75120]

Robert C. Harvey

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A note of hope both for world and Church was sounded recently when fifty-two churchmen met at a four-day conference on world hunger. The training session, held in Louisville for teams from Provinces One through Four, brought representatives from twenty-seven eastern dioceses.

Coming two weeks after a similar meeting in Denver for the western provinces, the event marked the critical first steps of a program initiated at the December, 1974, Executive Council meeting by the Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. John Maury Allin. Both meetings were spearheaded by members of the Church's national staff and a select group of outside speakers.

The purpose of the conference was to single out the causes of world hunger, to clarify the issues and to develop plans to enable dioceses and parishes to deal with the problem in its personal and logistical dimensions. It was hoped that resulting programs might increase churchfolks' awareness both of the issues involved and of desperate human need, as well as lead to appropriate action by Christian communities and individuals. The programs would deal, both at home and abroad, with short term goals of relief and with longer term goals of rehabilitation and economic development.

As speaker after speaker emphasized, the problem of hunger is one of immense complexity, with each issue related to every other. In part it is based on natural causes, such as an unfavorable cycle of rainfall. In part it is based on widespread ignorance and greed -- the cause of soil erosion, pollution, overpopulation, the misuse and the unequal distribution of natural resources, and the indulgence that puts meat on the tables of affluent nations at the expense of grain in third world markets. In part it is caused by the workings of economic laws that men have not yet learned to turn to their advantage -- and that lead to such dislocations as inflation and unfavorable balances of trade.

In part, however, the hunger problem was shown to have been caused by political decisions in high places that turn out to have had a catastrophic effect. One was the decision by Soviet leaders in 1973 to buy American grain for cattle feed, to satisfy the Russian consumer's newly developed taste for beef. This was an action that virtually wiped out the U.S. reserves of grain.

Another was the 1974 Arab boycott on petroleum that led, among other things, to U. S. and Japanese withholding of fertilizer from the third world nations that had been depending on American technology's "green revolution."

A third was the resulting decision in Washington to give food priorities to countries like Vietnam and Egypt, where the gifts could be returned in military and diplomatic advantage. The result has been that millions have starved in countries like India and Bangladesh, and in such Sahelian lands as Mali, Mauretania and Upper Volta.

Some of the speakers told of discrimination in parts of the world where they have lived. This included such places as the inner city, Appalachia and the Indian reservations of the West, and such overseas sites as the Caribbean islands and central and southern Africa. Others described opportunities for Christian help, both in the direct giving of time and money, and in bringing the Church's influence into the places where legislative and bureaucratic decisions are made.

During the conference it became apparent there are innumerable things the Church, at various levels, can do. One is in the area of "consciousness"; it can alert its members to the problem of hunger, its relevance to the Christian calling and its demand for Christian action. This requires informing, educating and planning.

The second is the carrying out of those plans. There are some things that can be done spontaneously by individuals: ending thoughtlessness and injustice in every department of daily life. There are other things that can be done in families: attention to simple diets, frugality in the use of things, life styles that permit the sharing of resources, and a deliberate end to waste and pollution.

It was agreed that some actions to reduce hunger can only be done by churches acting in concert: legislation favoring exports of food to hungry nations, legislative programs for rehabilitation and development, increased consumer pressure to reduce extravagance and waste in industrial production, and above all a comprehensive national policy on food and transportation.

It was also acknowledged that the Church might better serve the Lord in this time of crisis if it could devote itself to being the servant Church, rather than burn itself out in such flammable -- but internal -- issues as women's ordination and Prayer Book change. Two things were agreed upon by nearly every participant -- that the hunger crisis, while desperate, is still within the power of churchmen to act upon, and that a crisis of such immensity can provide a divided Church with an unparalleled opportunity for acting in unity -- and with power.

There was a third point brought up, although one that can only be dealt with by the Church in acting out its own mission of relief. It is the undeniable fact that every extraneous cause will use world hunger as a means of sharpening its own particular axe. Consumerism, disarmament, welfarism, pressure groups old and new -- all will somehow get into the act.

The same is true inside the Church, where conservative and liberal causes will undoubtedly try to get the jump on each other. Yet despite the truths that every cause propounds, none has a corner on the truth of God, and every gospel has been found to turn off many.

The prophetic voices at Louisville seem to have been those who felt that the most impressive results might be obtained where every would-be hunger-helper were encouraged to do his thing, but where the Church's money might be used for the furtherance of objectives to which everyone might agree. And those objectives, almost by definition, must boil down to one: the feeding and reclaiming of hungry, starving people.