An Unloving God or Unloving People?

Starving Child

“I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” Tony Campolo

In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called “absolute poverty”

• Every year 15 million children die of hunger

• For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years

• Throughout the 1990’s more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!

• The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you’ve entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.

• One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture

• The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world’s hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy

• Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion – a majority of humanity – live on less than $1 per day, while the world’s 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world’s people. UNICEF

• 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.

• In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.

• In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.

• The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.

• One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.

• Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.

• In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.

• Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide – a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death

• About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age

• To satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.

• The assets of the world’s three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.

• Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger

• It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.

Taken from: http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm

While I cannot endorse everything Tony Campolo teaches, he does issue a rather pointed challenge for the Church to step up and BE the Church–to be the hands, the feet, the heart, the mouth of Christ to a hurting world!  Secondly, for all of the self-righteous, unbelieving  hypocrites who may read this post…how dare you complain about an unloving God who is: omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omnipresent existing as such in the midst of a suffering world if YOU are the guilty party.

If all of these statistics are true, what are we doing as a Church? Here is what we are doing:  We are spending the bulk of our time and energy trying to flatter people in their hypocrisy and entertaining half-hearted commitment.  We are spending our money, serving Krispy Kreme donuts so we can have another butt in the pew so we can what?  Get another butt in our pew so we can what?  Get another butt in our pew?  This way, we can flatter ourselves in hypocrisy and half-hearted commitment and every other “insignificant ministry or small Church can feel inferior in our presence.”

Why do people who need help have to go to the government?  Why are there never enough funds or volunteers in the Church to deal with real issues?  Why or how can we remain so detached from the hurt of those around us?    Is this not at least one point in Orthodoxy, that it results in Orthopraxy?

From James 2:14-20

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good [1] is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

Words of Jesus: Matthew 25:35-40

35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, [1] you did it to me.’