Dr. Winston Persaud introduced her Excellency Marie Jilo Barnett to the Wartburg community at a dinner given in her honor this Spring.  Appointed in 2008, she is Sierra Leone’s first female ambassador to Liberia, as well as to Core d’Ivoire. Marie studied at Wartburg from 1990 to 1994, when she received her M.Div. degree.

Reverend Barnett was passionate and invoked hope with each word that she spoke about teaching men and women to co-exist in the Image of God. “It is possible,” she said.

Ambassador Barnett is zealous about negotiating peace and promoting women. She was the first Lutheran woman to be ordained in Western Africa. Her position as Ambassador is about building bridges between Liberia and Sierra Leone; this, she said, is the essence of her appointment.

She encourages women to take action. “Do what you can. Avoid Chaos. Pray with one another, do not pray alone. Get everyone of all races and religions involved. Say ‘NO’ to injustice.”

Ambassador Barnett is called to serve. She did not campaign, nor did she join a political party. She is doing what she believes is hers to do. She depends on her faith and is strong in prayer. “Seek the kingdom and all will be given to you.” Her faith gives her the strength to sit on parliament and represent women and their rights.  She believes strength comes when women come together and support one another. She said, “We do not do it on our own.”  She is involved with a network of women: women lawyers, women doctors, and women from the market. “Together we make a difference. In the nothingness that we have, we share, and we have much.”

Marie has seen a lot of hardship and constantly worked in ministries of reconciliation.  She sees the need to build bridges of peace.  In her role now as Ambassador and also through Lutheran World Federation she has had many opportunities to serve.  “God has been with me everywhere I have been all over the world.”

Ambassador Barnett had worked with Laymeh Gbowoee, well-known Lutheran laywoman who led the peace-movement in Liberia. She said to Gbowe, “Don’t sit alone.” Barnett and other women supported the women from Liberia in the peace talks. Ambassador Barnett now works with Liberian President Serlief. Gbowe and Serlief both became Nobel Peace Prize recipients.

When asked what is most important for her theologically, Ambassador Barnett said, “Justification by grace through faith.  If we have faith, the Holy Spirit will guide us.” She told of times when she needed to speak publicly in crucial diplomatic situations.  “The Holy Spirit would guide my words.  Be strong in prayer.”

Marie’s husband, Tom, also received his M.Div from Wartburg in 1994 and now serves as the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierre Leone.  Dr. Dan Olson, WTS professor emeritus, preached at their ordination in Sierre Leone.  In a church of lay leadership, the Barnetts were the first to be ordained.   Marie served as pastor of Faith Community Lutheran Church, Freetown.

While at Wartburg Marie said that she and Tom were welcomed and supported as international students.  She said, “The international students saw some American students for whom ends did not meet.”  Together with others started the food pantry for students , which continues to this day.

When asked about the demands of her busy life, Marie responded, “When I’m helping people, I’m revived.”  She  concluded with Christ’s mandate: “Go and baptize all nations. Do not be afraid. I will be with you to the end of the age.”

From 1996 – 2002 Marie was a member of Parliament in Sierre Leonne, serving on various Committees asfollows:

1. Foreign Affairs and International

Cooperation Founded the Network of Women Ministers and Parliamentarians and served as Vice President.

2. Health and Environment Pioneered the settingup of the National AIDS Secretariate.

3. Education – Participated in the oversight that saw the University of Sierra Leone

locate campuses in the different Geographical Regions.

4. Defence – The only female member of the drafting committee of the much celebrated

“Lome Peace Accord” that brought lasting peace to Sierra Leone in 2002.

5. Works and Infrastructure – Pioneered the setting up of the Social Action for Poverty

Alleviation under the National Commission for Re-integration, Repatriation and Resettlement.

6. Social Welfare, Gender and Children

Set up the network of women Ministers

Sunitha Mortha, Director of Mission Formation in the Global Mission Unit of the ELCA, visited Wartburg this Spring and talked about our calling as followers of Christ and learning what it means to accompany others in a diverse world.

If you’ve attended a “Glocal Gathering” you might have heard Sunitha’s humorous, direct, and compassionate words. She highlighted the importance of going “back to the basics” and relating “God’s story, my story, and your story.” First of all, how do we understand God’s story? Based on this understanding, how do we place ourselves in this story? How do we view the “other” in relation to our understanding of the story? Sunitha said, “Now, try doing all this reflecting without putting yourself in God’s place.”

She went on to ask, “Where are the other Lutherans in the world?” Countries with more than five million include the usual answers: Germany, the United States and Sweden. But one also needs to include in that number, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Indonesia!

Sunitha asked the audience, “How does your church understand its place in God’s story? Are churches looking only inward? Do they think about what’s happening on synodical levels? Community levels? National levels? International levels? People, congregations, seminaries, synods are not separate: they work together. How does your congregation/seminary partner with other people and organizations? In other words…how does this relate to ‘mission’?”

One way people view mission is through their culture’s, community’s, or congregation’s narrative about origin and destination. This narrative informs how mission is understood and the purpose of mission. For an example, Sunitha explained that if the dominant destination narrative of a community is heaven/hell, there is a certain way one understands oneself and the “other” and where they belong. When there is a separating line between “us” and “them,” it is not difficult to see which place we’ll designate for “them”.

Those we categorize as “them” or “other” could be for any number of reasons, but the number one reason is that, somehow, they are “different” from us.

Diversity sometimes causes fight or flight because we are socialized to learn that the way we do things is the good/right/normal/true way. If “we” do things the “normal” way, what “the other” does is considered “abnormal.” Unfortunately, the history of missions has included the transfer of cultural and national values, which has been very damaging to the “receiving” culture. Those in the dominant culture see others as needing to “evolve” in order to “catch up.”

Hopefully, our communities and congregations can understand that the defining question in mission is not, “How does one categorize/define/change the other to be like us?”  but rather, “How does one engage the other?” First, we have to take out the barriers between “my” story and “your” story. There is much that informs a person’s being that is deeper than meets the eye.

Sunitha offered a very relevant caution: a danger in the ELCA, and in many facets of life, is to surround ourselves only with like-minded people, ideologies, theologies, and thereby focus only on ourselves, rather than resting in justification. While we cannot hold all our differences, uniqueness, cultures, sub-cultures, and everything in one’s being in tension with another’s, God can.

She asked, “What if your community doesn’t look diverse, or what if it has no ‘others’? There is plenty of diversity, whether it be invisible to the eye or visible; there are others, outsiders, and many people who need to hear the liberating proclamation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If one’s congregation is not visibly diverse, one can think cross-generationally. “Start with what diversity is present,” she said. Accompaniment happens every day! Mission isn’t always about going “over there.”It’s about engagement, wherever one is.

If you want more information, visit the ELCA’s website on Glocal Gatherings near you.

http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Global-Mission/Engage-in-Global-Mission/Global-Events/Glocal-Mission-Gatherings.aspx

We were called forth to connect people with people in service of something greater than ourselves. Our goal, to transform what currently exist! We were called to embody a culture that cares vs. a culture of consumerism.

How will we go about creating an alternative culture for the future? We begin by having conversations with one another, by forming meaningful relationships! Sustainable, abundant community conversations shift the context from retribution to restoration; from problems to possibility; from fear and fault to gifts, generosity and abundance; from law and oversight to choice and accountability; from corporation and systems to relational life!

We begin by having a shift in our consciousness and acting on a vision of what the world might become. We change the narrative of not having enough to living in a world of plenty. We cannot process ambiguity alone, we need each other. We need our brothers and sisters to live us into freedom. We need to leave the scarcity story and enter the narrative of abundance. We need to enter the story of cooperation vs. living in the story of competition.

THE FUTURE IS PRESENT TODAY! – Change your thinking and you change your life! All transformation happens through linguistics.

Building community is about returning to the common good; Earth, Water, Air. We need to create space to become alive, with song, poetry and art. We need to change our mind thought MINDSET? from a business perspective of efficiency, speed, ease and cost to a communal perspective; returning to neighborliness, walking with each other, restoring peace, intimacy, relationships and uniqueness.

WHAT IF WE SAID AND BELIEVED THAT WHAT WE HAVE IS ENOUGH? How would that change our world, our perspective? What would happen if we focused our attention on who we are vs. what we do? What if we focused our attention on walking with one another, vs. trying to fix one another? What would happen if we created a space for light and breath to enter a room?

The central power of forming communities is connecting the gifts of each other. What are our communities built on? What gifts do we have to offer each other? The truth is if we focus on our gifts vs. our deficiencies we have enough! The answer is caring for one another, freely giving from the heart from one person to another. Care cannot be managed or produced; care can only be given freely.

We build community by embracing our God-given gifts. Most days would be filled with joy if we could use the gifts that God has given us 90% of the time. Imagine if we could use our gifts, skills and passion and form community! The least used gift is the one most needed in our world today. What is your gift, passion or skill? Using those, what could you teach? When our gifts come together our gifts become powerful; our collective gifts empower each other. We are walking in darkness until we can express our gifts and passions.

God has given us our unique gifts and talents. How will we use them? Remember that ‘Nothing is Impossible for God.’  It is possible for ‘ordinary’ people like ourselves, to step outside the business perspective and make a life within the communal perspective. It begins with us, one person at a time. “What is the promise you are willing to make that constitutes a risk or major shift in your life. What is the change you want to see in the world?” Will you be willing to step out and share your gifts with one another? Change begins with relationships, listening, caring and encouraging our neighbors. Can we shift our consciousness and act on a vision of what the world might become? I believe we can, because there are no impossibilities with God. If God is for us, who can be against us?

By the time we visited the cemetery in Herrnhut, we had already visited the White Rose memorial museum in Munich, and had spent a long morning the day before at the Flossenburg concentration camp, where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed 9 April 1945.

When “new” prisoners were brought through the gates into Flossenburg concentration camp, if they asked when they would get out of this place, they were told frankly, “in about six weeks” … “You’ll be sent to the quarry to work, and in six weeks, you’ll be dead!”

At intake, the prisoners were herded into a large shower room, stripped of their clothing and any other personal possessions they had managed to retain until that time. They were stripped of their identity. They could no longer use their names. They were given numbers. At daily roll call, they had to answer immediately with that number. If they faltered, they had to start all over again. They were forced to stand at attention in all weather conditions. They were assigned ranks and a patch placed on their blue and white striped uniforms to identify them based on a hierarchical “caste system” classification, determined by who was considered most despicable or most to be degraded. There is now a sign at the shower room that says in essence, “You have stolen not only their clothes, but their souls.”

Professor em. Dan Olson writes about dehumanization: “The function of propaganda and spreading prejudice against groups of people is to dehumanize the ‘enemy,’ whoever that may be. Only when we look upon ‘the other’ as sub-human (as authorized by government propaganda or religious authorities), can ‘good’ people commit or tolerate such cruelties against the “inferior them” that we could not bring ourselves to do to other ‘human beings.’” (Dan Olson in “Evolution & Christian Understanding of Human Nature. 2002-2009 ) The groups of people who were dehumanized by the Nazis included not only prisoners of war (foreigners) but also Jews, the handicapped, homosexuals, “gypsies,’ and those of the “inner circle” who betrayed the Third Reich (“enemies of the State.”)

Children in U.S. schools during World War II were taught prejudice through government-authorized propaganda. We were taught that Germans and Japanese were evil – of the Devil. Posters caricaturized the enemy – particularly the “Japs” and Hitler. We were taught that Hitler was the most evil of men; but the “Japs” were far more dangerous. They were so “inhuman” that they glorified suicide and therefore were not afraid to go into combat to kill our men because they weren’t afraid to die in the process. They had no human feelings, or emotions, so they could tear us apart without giving it a second glance. We tend to overlook our inhumane treatment of the American Nisei in the containment camps in our Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the United States.
In Neuendettelsau at the end of our trip, Sister Ruth spoke to us about the Deaconesses and teachers having been pressured by government (Third Reich) authorities into allowing their students to be loaded onto busses the government sent to take them away for “special education” or for “medical treatments” “for their good.” Martin Luther’s teaching that obeying the authority of government is a part of following the commandment to “Honor thy father and thy mother,” has been cited as a factor in their submission to government authority in this situation. Amidst tears of protest, children were torn away from those they trusted. One woman from town grabbed a child off the bus and kept him. I think they escaped or survived somehow, but I wondered what eventually became of them. The Sisters and teachers were deeply grieved later to learn that they had been betrayed, and that their wards had been tortured and executed in Holocaust.

Luther’s opinions on the Jews didn’t help. We Lutherans, collectively, still bear the guilt of believing what Luther wrote about the Jews. I came into the Lutheran Church as a young adult. I recall saying, “I’m not a genuine Lutheran, because I don’t agree with everything Luther wrote,” specifically, about the Jews. The ELCA recently issued an apology for Luther’s anti-Jewish remarks. Those apologies are words. How can simple words, much too late, salve or heal the wounds we (or our forebears) have inflicted on our neighbors for centuries?
German Resistance movements
Some of the German people did not sit passively by and accept Nazi Socialism and its atrocities. There was a resistance movement in Germany. This was the period of the emergence of the “Confessing Church.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was prominent among these. Wartburg Seminary Professor Paul Leo belonged to the Confessing Church from the beginning. He was among those fortunate enough to escape the concentration camps and to have left Germany.

The young people, students in Germany did hear; did know what was happening. University students like White Rose martyrs in the German resistance movement risked their lives to spread the truth to the people who were being taken in by the Nazi propaganda. A young woman, Sophie Scholl, and her brother Hans Scholl gave their lives to the cause one Sunday afternoon by distributing leaflets to tell German citizens what was really happening. They were seized at the scene, “tried” on the spot, convicted, and executed within about two hours’ time, without even notification to their parents.

We worshipped at St. George Church in Eisenach on January 20 this year. An International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated annually on January 27, not only in Germany and neighboring countries of Eastern Europe, but world-wide. January 27,1945, was the day that the Dachau camp was liberated. Both President Obama and Pope Benedict published remarks on this occasion in 2013. Some groups mark April 6-7 as a day of Remembrance for Holocaust victims.

What makes sexual abuse so vile? Its power to isolate and to silence.

Fifty-eight candles were lit in the chapel to represent how sexual abuse statistics would look in a community of Wartburg’s size. These candles were accompanied by prayers for victims–survivors and those who did not survive, supporters, advocates and perpetrators. With sighs too deep for words to express these candles were a visual prayer for all the people whose voices were silenced by abuse.

“Holy One, you do not distance yourself from the pain of your people, but in Jesus you bear that pain with all who suffer at other’s hands. With your cleansing love bring healing and strength to victims of sexual assault and by your justice, lift them up, that in body, mind, spirit they may again rejoice. In Jesus name, Amen.” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 84)

Photo credit: Mary Wiggins

I am an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.  I cherish this title and am proud of what that represents.  I am also a homosexual. Same thing goes. But most of all, I am a child of God, and that alone makes me special. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have decided to uphold a policy which suggests that, because I publicly identify as gay, I am unfit to be a leader in this organization.

In recent months this has gained much media attention from both sides of the issue, both for and against homosexuals in scouting. One particular group, which seems to be growing ever-larger, is the group of Eagle Scouts who have turned in their badges to the BSA in protest of their stance. I definitely support these individuals in their personal decisions and am encouraged by their public statements in protest. But I will NOT be turning in my badge, and I hope they can respect that as well.

I do not want anyone to think this is because I believe the BSA’s current stance is correct, nor that I disagree with those who have made the decision to protest by turning in their badges.  Above all, I certainly hope no one thinks this stance is because I am not passionate about the Boy Scouts or do not care about the issue—quite the opposite.

My decision is both to recognize that I, a child of God who happens to be gay, have rightfully earned the rank of Eagle. It honors all those who have been denied this honor because of their orientation. Even more, I hold on to my medal because I wish also to honor all those who earned this rank before and after me. Turning in my badge would, for me personally, disregard all those who worked so hard to earn this rank. I wish rather to honor those individuals, who include, among others, my brother, cousin, friends and role-models.

I anticipate a day when I may once again proudly don that scouting uniform, hold my right hand up proudly in the scout sign and join my voice with all the others in saying “A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent,” and “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” Until then, I will stand not only with those who protest the exclusion of homosexuals, but also with all those who still believe in and are proud of this organization and its scouts.

Reviewed by Alan Berndt-Dreyer, M.Div. Senior

It has been a long journey for me from the rural, yet diverse community of Western Nebraska to the streets of the Harambee neighborhood in Milwaukee and back to seminary. Along the way I have had the opportunity to encounter races other than my own and more importantly, my own aversion to defining race that has led to colorblindness. This colorblindness has not been helpful for me or for others.  Through the course of living a year in a predominately African American neighborhood I have seen the effects of my and the nation’s colorblindness in helping to create and maintain, as the author rightly calls it, a racial caste system.

Through her book, Michelle Alexander lays out argument after argument, fact after fact, to support her thesis: “We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” Alexander points to the very same constitutional amendment that abolished slavery as the one that allows the one who is a criminal to be a slave to the state. As we know; one must pay their debt to society.  Just 110 years after the emancipation proclamation and a decade after a successful civil rights movement, the start of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration moved in to redefine racial minorities, particularly African Americans, in terms of being a criminal. Being labeled a criminal puts every obstacle in the way  of reintegration into society. Who wants to argue on behalf of one labeled a criminal?

Michelle Alexander successfully argues that this “New Jim Crow” has been created through the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs was started by President Ronald Reagan on the verge of seeing penal prisons on their way out.  The War on Drugs systemically has given police in our country the legal right to racially profile along with the financial incentives to do so. Moreover, prosecutors have incentive to pick all-white juries, as well as try to bring as many charges as possible against people of color. Though drug use and sales are equal across the races in America, blacks and browns are targeted unfairly, but legally, through many cases judged by the Supreme Court to be constitutional. Furthermore, drugs that are common to those who are white carry a much lighter sentence than those more common to those who are black. These are just a few of the hundreds of cases and examples that she brings forward to support her case.

Though Alexander’s book is devastating in example after example of racial discrimination and the effects of that discrimination, she remains hopeful and determined that this new racial caste system should and will fall. The core of the book comes not in the first five chapters where she builds the case that a new racial caste has been created, but in the final chapter where she addresses colorblindness. Colorblindness to an issue doesn’t mean that the issue isn’t there. As we are made aware of the issues of race that still pervade our society and will continue to as sinful human institutions it becomes clear that colorblindness to racial disparities equals endorsement. It becomes increasingly important to focus on race, not because we want to endorse racism, but because race is a factor in how a person is treated. It is a responsibility that a person act on behalf of brothers and sisters who are put most at odds with society. By naming the evil in our society, even if that means giving up our illusion of a colorblind society that has moved past racism, we are able to continuously be concerned with those who are often positioned as the least. By becoming aware of our false colorblindness we are able to discuss frankly the welfare of not only our neighbors, but ourselves as well. We are all affected when one is affected. This is the crux of the book and the hope that this new Jim Crow will be the last.

In my world, I usually don’t receive a second glance when I’m out shopping, in a restaurant, or just walking around. I can go around as if I am invisible, only attracting attention and initiating conversations when I want to. But in Jamaica, I was the opposite of invisible.

In the span of six weeks, from the time I left the airport upon my arrival to the time I hopped in the taxi to return to the airport for my departure, I saw about five other white people. When I walked from shop to shop in the middle of Montego Bay, everyone looked at me because I wasn’t supposed to be there. When I stood still long enough, the store security guard usually came to stand next to me. When I paid for our purchases, the cashiers looked to my husband before looking at me, as if waiting for him, a Jamaican, to say that it was ok to interact with me. I was a female, white, American, and everyone knew that someone like me didn’t shop there.

No one was rude to me, but no one talked to me. People would stare at me, but nobody really made eye contact. This was the way it was not just in the inner city, but also in the bush where we lived. The house was not located on a major road that would lead from one tourist area to another, so there was no reason for a white person to pass by, even in a vehicle.

Children wanted to touch me and hug me, but adults would not speak to me unless I was introduced. I walked the same road a few times each week, and every time I would have to wave and say hello before anyone would acknowledge me. I was a sight to behold, I gathered by the response of people walking by to reach the river. If I was outside, heads would turn to look at me in the yard. If I was hollering to the kids I really drew the attention of a passersby, and even more so if I was outside hanging up laundry. I was doing the things a woman there would do, but I wasn’t a woman from there.

Jamaicans speak Patois, and they speak fast. Not knowing all of what the words mean, I could pick up on some of the conversation because it is mixed with a lot of English words. People having conversations with my husband would sometimes be particularly kind to me and speak English so I could be included.  But more often, as if I wasn’t there, they would speak in a way that I could not understand. I don’t think they meant to be rude; however, it made for some very lonely times when I would be standing in full view of the person speaking to my husband and not be able to participate in the conversation.

I thought long and I thought often of those who say things like, “If you are going to come to America, you have to learn the language.” I was in a country where, for the most part, I could speak the language, yet could not understand what was being said. The same can be said for those who speak English as a second language. In America we use words that do not carry the original meaning or have multiple meanings, and we have made up words by melding some words together. Speaking English doesn’t necessarily mean that you will understand me just because we are both in America.

Language wasn’t the only thing that caused me to feel invisible while in full view of all of Jamaica. My white privilege definitely caused me to stick out while also causing some distance between me and others. When I arrived, we had to buy a shower curtain for the outdoor bathing room so that the neighbors couldn’t see me out there. When the water stopped running in the drought conditions, I was not expected to go bathe in the river because I wasn’t used to being naked in front of strangers. Plates were purchased shortly after I arrived, but I was the only one served on a plate. These are just a few examples of ways that I was set apart from others because of who I am.

I would like to tell you that I would happily agree to give up all my modern conveniences and move to Jamaica to be with my husband and kids, but I don’t think I could. It was ok when I knew it was temporary, but the idea of living that way all the time is frightening. There would have to be some changes in their lives before I could move there, changes that would bring them out of their way of life and start to move them into mine. Like into a place with indoor plumbing, which would mean moving out of their home. They would do that for me, and in fact have agreed to move to the U.S. when they can, which means giving up everything they know and love. Could I do the same?

No matter if I give up everything I know or not, when I am there I could give up all but one thing: I cannot stop being a female, white, American. Even if I changed my citizenship, people would hear me speak and know where I’m from. They would see my skin and there would be expectations: they would think I expected certain actions and behaviors from them, and they would expect certain actions and behaviors from me in return. No matter how long I were to live there, no matter if everyone in the bush got to know me, no matter if I learned all the Patois and could keep up with and be a part of all conversations, I would still be the opposite of invisible. But maybe that’s just the way I would feel because when I’m there I am always going to be different.

Our tour guide told us candidly that there was a time when his fellow citizens were so beaten down and shamed, with very little opportunity for self-realization, taking pride in one’s work, or developing any dignity or healthy self-respect, that they could not want to admit to their national identity as Germans.  He reminded us that only in the last quarter of the past century  have the East German people been able to say, not only, “I am Proud to be German,” but furthermore “I am Proud to be East German.”  Our guide, Christian Eggert is owner-operator of Christian Tours Europe and of College Wittenberg which was home for ten nights of our Wartburg Seminary J-term trip to Germany, “Germany:  Luther, Pietists, andBonhoeffer.”

Germany 1914-1932

To understand the significance of German people’s resilience and newfound pride in their present achievements, one must take into account the history of these people since 1914.  For 75 of those years, East Germany was under oppression of war or foreign domination.  As strongly as U. S. President Wilson was opposed to U.S. involvement in World War I., when it did eventually happen, Wilson was just as adamant that Germany should be punished for this war.  The Versailles Treaty demanded that all Germans take responsibility for that war. It made them pay heavy reparations to other nations for war damages, leading to excessive, impossible inflation for individuals and families.  This period of degradation, designed to suppress and humiliate the German people, gave birth to and facilitated the growth and domination of the National Socialist party, led by Adolph Hitler, who took office as Fuhrer in 1933.

1933-1945

Many times and in many places throughout our trip, we encountered signs or banners reading “1933-1945.”  The most impressive of these to me was a “broken” marker in the Herrnhut Cemetery, a stone carved in two pieces with a “crack” running diagonally through these numbers.

Of course, the ubiquitous display of 1933-1945 was meant to denote the rise and power of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Regime (Third Reich) in Germany.

1933-1945 also marks the emergence of the Confessing Church, and the German Resistance movement.  These years mark the span of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s significant ministry – from his speaking out on the radio against the Hitler Regime in February 1933, to his execution in April 1945.

Running concurrently with all these things, across the ocean, the years 1933-1945 define the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) administration in the USA.

For me, every time I saw “1933-1945,” I felt a strong personal twinge.  These were the first 12 years of my life!   Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only President I had ever known.   He was elected in 1932 and inaugurated in 1933 before I was born.  I was almost 12 when he died on 12 April 1945– a day I clearly remember.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged just three days prior to FDR’s death.

More of Jean Peterson’s reflections will follow in future blog posts.

There are many widely believed myths about hunger, yet the reality is that hunger is caused by poverty.  People are food insufficient when they lack the resources necessary to purchase or grow food for themselves or their families. While overpopulation and climate change may exacerbate global hunger, they are not primary causes.  People with financial means have access to food, regardless of their family size or the severity of weather in their local community.  Reducing poverty is fundamental to the fight against hunger.  Therefore, ELCA World Hunger’s anti-poverty ministries, such as increased access to education, job training, and micro-loan programs, are core components of our anti-hunger initiatives.

Holly Poole-Kavana of the Institute for Food and Development Policy debunks the top three hunger myths, demonstrating poverty to be the predominate cause of the global hunger epidemic.

Myth1: Not Enough Food to Go Around

Reality: Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods – ­vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish.   The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food.  Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now.  Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.

Myth2: Nature is to Blame for Famine

Reality: While human-made forces are making people increasingly vulnerable to nature’s vagaries, food is always available for those who can afford it.  Starvation during hard times hits only the poorest. Natural events rarely explain deaths; they are simply the final push over the brink. Human institutions and policies determine who eats and who starves during hard times. Likewise, in America many homeless die from the cold every winter, yet ultimate responsibility doesn’t lie with the weather. The real culprits are an economy that fails to offer everyone opportunities, and a society that places economic efficiency over compassion.

Myth 3: Too Many People

Reality: Birth rates are falling rapidly worldwide as remaining regions of the Third World begin the demographic transition – ­when birth rates drop in response to an earlier decline in death rates. Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Or we find a country like the Netherlands, where very little land per person has not prevented it from eliminating hunger and becoming a net exporter of food. Rapid population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security.  (www.foodfirst.org/node/1480; April 9, 2006)

Christa, besides being a student at Wartburg, is currently employed as the ELCA World Hunger Intern for the ELCA South Central Synod of Wisconsin and this article was written as part of her work for the synod.

To learn more about the myths and root causes of hunger checkout World Hunger: Twelve Myths, 2^nd Edition by Francis Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset (New York: Grove Press, 1998).

More information on ELCA World Hunger’s anti-poverty ministries can be found at http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-World-Hunger/Stories.aspx