c. 2007 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Leaders and members from a broad array of faith traditions gathered at Washington National Cathedral this week for a colorful convocation dedicated to reducing hunger and poverty throughout the world.
Nearly 1,000 worshippers from 45 states sang and prayed under the cathedral’s soaring arches as Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and Muslim leaders took to the pulpit and urged an abiding commitment to bring “bread to those who are hungry, and hunger for justice to those who have bread.”
Drawing deeply on the Gospel of Luke, the Rev. William J. Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, challenged: “Who will bring the poor in this nation and around the world to the attention of … the people of plenty?”
Organized by Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger lobby, the interfaith service Monday (June 11) was part of a four-day gathering devoted to harvesting grass-roots activism in the nation’s capital. On Tuesday, nearly 700 Bread for the World organizers fanned out across Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers not to slight the poor in the pending Farm Bill and other legislation, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Coulter Stapleton.
The gathering is part of a broader anti-poverty movement gaining momentum in the U.S. On Monday, U2 frontman Bono and former Senate leaders Tom Daschle, a Democrat, and Bill Frist, a Republican, kicked off “One Vote ’08,” an effort to make global poverty reduction a 2008 presidential campaign theme.
Earlier this month, Sojourners/Call to Renewal, an nationwide network of liberal evangelicals, hosted a conference and a Democratic presidential forum dedicated in part to discussing poverty reduction.
As a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables graced the cathedral’s altar Monday, Bread for the World president the Rev. David Beckmann said the evening’s service was “about the action of God on us.” Thereafter “it’s about our action, about moving forward from here to build a movement to get our government to do what needs to be done to overcome hunger and poverty.”
Washington Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane credited Bread for the World’s 2005 interfaith gathering with spurring his denomination last summer to devote a portion of its budget to the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, which seek to eradicate extreme poverty and halt the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.
Imam Mohamed Magid, executive director of the All Dulles (Va.) Area Muslim Society, recalled a visit to a refugee camp in his native Sudan during the 1980s. He came with a shipment of supplies. But a young woman told him, “You are too late, the babies have died.”
“Still the voice of the woman rings in my head,” Magid said. “Let us vow together to never be late again.”
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Photos of the service are available via https://religionnews.com.