Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.” “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? - Micah 6:1-8 (NRSV)
Global debt is a moral issue Christians must more seriously confront. Over the last few years it has been exciting to watch so many diverse religious communities take up this cause. But not enough Christians are involved with these issues. Now Jubilee USA Network is taking the cause on tour.
Jubilee USA Network is excited to announce the Fall 2005 Global Connections Tour: Drop the Debt, Invest in People kicking off in October.
The tour will focus on Jubilee USA’s call for economic justice and debt cancellation for impoverished countries. The tour will stop in five areas: San Diego, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Western Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; and Columbus, Ohio. Each city is planning three to four days of education and advocacy including teach-ins, forums, film screenings, discussions, dinners, and activist strategy sessions as well as meetings with the press and local congressional offices.
The tour will educate and raise awareness of the need for full debt cancellation for impoverished nations as a critical step towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
The tour will also link the crisis of debt faced by impoverished nations with issues such as development assistance, health, trade, environment and human rights.
Three leading debt and development campaigners from Latin America, Asia, and Africa will travel with the tour to educate the public, make connections between debt and other global justice issues, and provide action opportunities for people around the United States to engage in activism and advocacy.
Click here to read more and see tour dates and locations.
Many of the planet’s so called “third-world” nations owe huge debts to Western countries. Those debts require that governments pay interest on money borrowed instead of investing in health care, schools, and basic infrastructure. Much of the money loaned by Western nations was handed over to dictators and oppressive governments which the West backed politically for various reasons. Few of those governments are still in place but the people living in those nations are forced to pay so much in interest that their countries cannot afford basic human services.
There has been some positive movement this year on debt relief – but not enough.
The United States and other western nations can easily afford to absorb the loss. Most of the loans have already been repaid several times over. The interest payments are literally keeping food and health care out of reach for millions and the issue has taken on new urgency for tsunami ravaged nations that are being forced to pay interests payments while at the same time trying to pay for relief efforts. Jubilee is a Biblical practice in which debts are forgiven so that poverty does not trap one generation after the next. The concept is explained this way by the Jubilee USA group:
Early Israel prevented the accumulation of wealth in that everything was shared and ultimately "owned" by God. However, between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE (BC), another economic model was introduced, whereby distribution was not equal, and God's ownership not respected. Some Israelites were forced into debt in order to keep from starving, and, because of high interest rates, slavery resulted. This situation can be paralleled to the astronomical rises in interest rates on international loans in the early 1980s. Countries today have been forced to use state industries and national forests to pay off their loans, distribution of resources is not equal and God's ownership again is not respected. International debt has become a contemporary form of slavery.
The issue of international debt illustrates for us in a very real way how Micah’s teachings – and really the teaching of the entire Bible – come alive for us in relevant and meaningful ways. Can you imagine how different the world would be if our economic, social, and political institutions were based on these Biblical teachings?
For more information visit Jubilee USA Network.