LWF Assembly Focused on Alleviating Hunger

Posted by Amy on Wednesday, 21 July 2010

From the ELCA NEWS SERVICE July 20, 2010

STUTTGART, Germany (ELCA) - Saying that "hunger is not God's fault, it's our fault," the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, introduced the theme of the LWF's Eleventh Assembly, "Give Us Today Our Daily Bread," at a news conference here July 19, according to an LWF news release.

"If people lack what they need for daily life, it is because we have failed to ensure that the good things of God's creation are justly and equitably distributed to all," Hanson said.

Hanson said that even among assembly delegates there were some who know what it means not to have enough food. "So we are not talking about this subject in the abstract … but in the context of our lived experiences," he said.

Hunger, though, does not refer only to the absence of food, the release said. "There are also those who hunger for peace in the midst of warfare," Hanson said. "There are those who hunger for human rights. They are marginalized because of HIV/AIDS, or because they are first-nation people, or because of their gender or generation."

In Nicaragua the theme of hunger is fundamental, said Dr. Victoria Cortez Rodríguez, bishop of the Nicaraguan Lutheran Church of Faith and Hope. "We have people in our country who live each day and go to bed hungry," she said, according to the release.

Reinforcing the theme introduced by Hanson, Cortez Rodríguez said that "poverty did not come from God … God created enough for everyone." The people of God are responsible to care for each other and to treat every person with dignity "because every person was created by God," she added.