2005 Churchwide Assembly Hunger Memorial

World Hunger Memorial

To receive with gratitude the memorials of the Northwest Washington Synod; Southwestern Washington Synod; Northeastern Minnesota Synod; Saint Paul Area Synod; Central States Synod; Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod; Southwestern Texas Synod; Metropolitan Chicago Synod; Northwest Synod of Wisconsin; La Crosse Area Synod; Indiana-Kentucky Synod; Southern Ohio Synod; New England Synod; Metropolitan New York Synod; Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod; Delaware-Maryland Synod; and West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod calling for an end to world hunger;

To acknowledge that:

1. 800,000,000 people worldwide are chronically undernourished and 1,200,000,000 people live on less than $1.00 per day;
2. 30,000,000 people in the United States, including 13,000,000 children, cannot afford an adequate and balanced diet;
3. 189 countries, including the United States, have committed to cutting in half extreme hunger by the year 2015 by establishing the Millennium Development Goals;
4. advocacy organizations, like Bread for the World and the Institute for Food and Development Policy (FoodFirst) have established that there is sufficient food supply to feed the earth’s population;
5. leading economists now argue that ending chronic hunger is an attainable goal for the first time in human history;
6. the Holy Scriptures are very clear in numerous passages that God has compassion on the poor (e.g. Jeremiah 22:15-16 and Luke 6:20-21) and that it is God’s will that the hungry be fed (e.g. Psalm 146:5-7 and Matthew 25:34-35).
7. the Church of Jesus Christ is equipped uniquely by its identity and mission to be the leaven that stirs the peoples and nations of the world to end chronic hunger; and
8. by establishing the World Hunger Program, the ELCA made a core theological and ethical commitment to bringing the scandal of hunger to an end.

To confront the scandal of hunger in this world as a core dimension of living out the Christian faith;

To recommit this church to the goals of the ELCA World Hunger Appeal and Program through increased resolve and renewed engagement:

1. To provide relief and development assistance for those who suffer from hunger and injustices related to hunger in this and other countries; and to maintain a disaster fund for response to international and domestic emergencies;
2. To foster the education of the members of this church to understand and confront the reality and underlying causes of hunger;
3. To advocate policies and actions for social and economic justice relating to hunger—with governments, business institutions, and structures of this church and its related agencies;
4. To encourage members of this church to practice responsible stewardship of their lives and their financial resources toward the prevention and alleviation of hunger; and
5. To facilitate listening to and working together with those who have special awareness of the realities of food and hunger, including poor and hungry people in local and global communities and those who produce, process, and distribute food;

To consider the following as examples of support, commitment, and engagement by each expression of this church:

Congregations

1. engaging in local efforts to pray for and with those in need, feed the hungry ensuring adequate nutrition, and promote community economic development;
2. initiating with other congregations, especially with full-communion partner congregations, advocacy of laws and policies to end hunger in the local community;
3. supporting advocacy of laws and policies to end hunger on the state, national, and global levels; and
4. contributing generously to the World Hunger Appeal of the ELCA;

Synods

1. equipping congregations in their efforts to feed the hungry ensuring adequate nutrition, to advocate for just laws and policies aimed at ending hunger, and to promote community economic development on the local level;
2. initiating with the leaders of other judicatories, especially with full-communion partners, advocacy of laws and policies to end hunger on the state, national, and global levels; and
3. encouraging congregations to contribute generously to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal;

Churchwide organization

1. equipping congregations in their efforts to feed the hungry ensuring adequate nutrition, to advocate for just laws and policies aimed at ending hunger, and to promote community economic development on the local level;
2. supporting synods in their efforts to end hunger on the state, national, and global levels;
3. initiating with the leaders of other church bodies, especially with full-communion partners, advocacy of laws and policies to end hunger on the national and global levels;
4. continuing to undertake relief efforts and implement sustainable development in partnership with Lutheran World Relief, the Lutheran World Federation, and in cooperation with other people of faith in situations of extreme hunger;
5. opposing, with all means at our disposal, oppressive regimes whose policies, including war, and religious and ethnic discrimination, result in chronic hunger among their people; and

To request the Churchwide Assembly to direct relevant units to raise with the Lutheran World Federation this church’s interest in finding ways, within the context of the Lutheran World Federation’s Eleventh Assembly, to address hunger eradication as an urgent matter confronting people of faith.

Notes: Assembly Action CA05.03.08, VOTE: Yes-927; No-27