World Hunger: The Necessity of Advocacy

John L. Halvorson

Article Type: Face to Face

Publication Date: 4/1/1989

Paired Article (Face to Face): World Hunger: The Danger of Advocacy

Issue: Ministry and Mental Health (Vol. 9, No 2, Spring, 1989)

The World Hunger Program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is both simple and complex in its ministry. Internationally and in the U.S., the Hunger Program works to assist hungry people. It’s as simple as that. But offering assistance involves a complex mixture of emergency relief and short- and long-term development among poor people (84% of Hunger Appeal funds). It also involves education, advocacy, and stewardship efforts among us non-poor Americans (16% of funds). All agree that relief is not enough. Necessary though it is, it’s a band-aid response. Long- term solutions must include development, education, advocacy, and stewardship. Only to do relief is to consign poor people to permanent poverty. Hunger is not only a food problem. It’s a problem of sin, of injustice, of greed.

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