[a letter to friends, originally via email]

Like you, I normally cringe when someone sends me an email asking me to get on board with the latest cause or boycott. Then I hit delete and curse the day I gave out my email address in the first place. Rest assured, I promise not to become a mass forwarder of worthless emails, but I wanted to warn you up front that this particular message concerns a cause (though hopefully not a worthless one), and if your conscience prohibits you from reading further, I understand.

With that said, I have limited the recipients to those I feel would at least consider acting upon what follows. Those who know me (congrats, you qualify!) know I am particularly passionate about certain things I consider to be important, and one of those things is extreme poverty. I know it is probably annoying most of the time, and I certainly don’t enjoy being an annoyance, but I can say with a rare confidence that I’m with God on this one, and that should count for something. The Bible has more to say about how the rich treat the poor than it does about heaven and hell (though matters of both economy and eternal destiny are sometimes mentioned in the same passage), which leads us to believe that while our eternal destiny matters very much, poverty and justice are very important in the scheme of things here and now. And in a world where all too many of us are dying of obesity or drug addictions while vast numbers are at the same time dying for lack of food or water or access to basic life-saving drugs, common sense should force us to pay attention (even if, to be blunt, we have grown numb to certain passages in the Bible).

Doing something about extreme poverty is less about charity than it is about doing what is right and just. Good people disagree on what should be done, but we must all consider on a very personal, practical level what God requires of us: “To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

And while the goings on all around us every day remind us that we certainly can’t and shouldn’t count on the government to fix everything in the world, it seems to me that as dual citizens, both of the Kingdom of God (which lasts forever) and of the most powerful nation on earth (which lasts for a moment), we ought to speak up for those God is particularly concerned with – those considered “the least of these.”

It may strike you as way too early to be concerned about the next presidential election since it is still a year away, but as the candidates develop their platforms and tell us why we should vote for them, are they aware that in order to get our vote they’re going to have to let us know they are committed to using their position to fight for justice and to do what’s right? As a member of the ONE Campaign, I just sent a message urging the 2008 presidential candidates to go on the record and tell us exactly where they stand on extreme poverty and global disease, because to me, this issue is neither optional nor peripheral. If you deem it worthwhile, you can do likewise at the ONE: On The Record site.

Thanks for your consideration and your action.

A co-conspirator in the justice-doing, kindness-loving, humble God-follower movement,

Tim