By Editor Bob Terry
It is that time of the year again, the time when churches and individual Christians focus on Thanksgiving meals and Christmas baskets for the less fortunate. In some churches, this includes stocking church or community food pantries so help will be available to needy families all year long, not just during the holidays.
For Alabama Baptists, these efforts follow closely behind October’s World Hunger Sunday emphasis. Through a special offering, Alabama Baptists join hands with Baptists across the nation to provide funds for hunger relief programs in the United States and around the world conducted through Southern Baptist agencies.
Last year, Alabama Baptists gave nearly $700,000 for world hunger relief. The 2007 numbers are still being tallied, but the goal for 2008 is $875,000.
These are all worthy projects. Countless Alabama families are helped by the compassionate efforts of individuals, Sunday School classes, churches and community organizations. And untold families around the world, like the Bangladeshi families recently struck by Cyclone Sidr, are helped by hunger relief efforts.
Such efforts show that Alabama Baptists take seriously the words of Jesus. In Matthew 25:40, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” In fact, Jesus went so far as to teach that eternal judgment is related to how one responds to the less fortunate — to the hungry, the sick, the naked and the prisoner. Those who cared for the less fortunate were invited into the eternal kingdom of God. Those who ignored the less fortunate were cast into “the eternal fire” (v. 41).
While the verses are not a complete explanation of the plan of salvation, they do affirm that those who know God through faith in Jesus Christ will love others as God has loved them and that this love will be demonstrated through actions as well as words.
Thanksgiving meals, Christmas baskets and hunger offerings are certainly expressions of this kind of love, but the problem of hunger is larger than will ever be addressed through individual actions. To help feed the hungry will take actions at the highest levels of public policy in the United States and around the world.
On Nov. 14, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its annual report on household food security in the United States. The report showed an increase in food insecurity of 400,000 in one year, 2005–2006. Food insecurity is defined as lack of funds causing individuals to do without food or to cut back their food intake during the year.
In numerical terms, the number living with food insecurity increased from 35.1 million people to 35.5 million people nationally. Of that number, 12.6 million were children. In terms of households, 10.9 percent of U.S. households were judged to live with food insecurity.
In Alabama, the situation is worse. According to statistics covering a three-year period, 2004–2006, food insecure families accounted for 12.1 percent of the state’s 1,831,000 households. That is more than 220,000 households that did not have enough food to eat.
The Department of Agriculture report said that “[j]ust over half of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest [federal] food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior” to the annual study. Those programs are the Food Stamp Program, National School Lunch Program and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children program).
In our state, 574,070 children ate school lunches either free or at a reduced price and more than 187,000 children participated in the School Breakfast Program in 2006. Alabama participants in the Food Stamp Program in 2006 numbered 546,684, which is about half those eligible, according to the Food Research and Action Center.
Another report, this one released Nov. 15, showed the number of clients receiving food from church-affiliated agencies increased by 2.7 million between 2002 and 2006. Most agencies said they “struggled to provide food for their clients.”
All the reports document that hunger is a growing problem in the United States and in Alabama. Recent news stories have highlighted the increased cost of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, and that increased cost translates into more and more people going without food during the holidays and for other periods of the year.
Hunger is a problem that should concern the church and every Christian. The kind of passion Christians have displayed in fighting for a culture of life in this nation should also be evidenced in fighting for national policies that help care for the hungry, the sick, the naked and the prisoner.
The farm bill, now stuck in the U.S. Senate, is one example. As reported earlier in The Alabama Baptist, the bill would increase funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which, in part, provides assistance to food banks. It would increase support for school lunch programs and other programs designed to help the hungry. Churches should be just as concerned about this bill as they are about stem cell research, gambling or alcohol.
Personally I serve as a member of the board of directors for Bread for the World, a national faith-based organization working to influence national policy in behalf of the poor and hungry of the nation. I fully support the organization’s effort to make it a national goal to end hunger and food insecurity by 2015. I commend Bread for the World to other Alabama Baptists who take seriously the words of our Lord: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Sharing food baskets is good. Giving to the World Hunger Offering is good. Helping shape national policy to help the hungry is good, too.
For more information about Bread for the World, visit www.bread.org.
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