Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ethIcAl consIdeRAtIons RegARdIng food choIces
It was Jesus who said that people “do not live by bread alone,” but there is no denying
that people do live by bread. And, bread is an issue of justice in the religious com-
munity if one is to understand the moral and ethical dimensions of food choice. It is
the believer's responsibility to share food with the hungry. The ethic is summed up in
the admonition of a young hiker a few years ago who walked from North Carolina to
Washington, D.C., to call attention to world hunger. “If you have received a blessing
(food), it is your responsibility to
be
a blessing (and share what you have with others).”
He was working with CROP (Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty), the
hunger prevention arm of an ecumenical agency known as Church World Service.
However, true justice requires more: the sharing of knowledge, scientific discov-
ery, and technology that will increase food abundance and lessen the dependence of
the “have nots” on the power of the “haves.”
People of faith respond in several ways. One is to work in concert with others who
share the blessing of daily bread to provide direct food assistance locally and globally,
but also to provide tools, wells, cisterns, seeds, labor, and know-how to enable neigh-
bors everywhere to successfully increase their own food choices. Theologian Walter
Brueggemann (1996) once preached on this Hebrew text in Proverbs: “Better is a
dinner with herbs where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred with it.” He concluded:
The choices of ox and herbs, of greens and beef, of love or strife, are not little family
choices made in private when you go into the kitchen. They are big, far-ranging public
choices concerning foreign policy and budget and land reform and dreams. We do not
pick our food just before dinner. We pick our food by how we value life, and how we
build policy and how we shape law, and how we arrange money, and how we permit
poverty and hunger in a land of abundance.
Through the social pronouncements of church agencies and governing bodies,
their constituents are learning the value of family farms and sustainable agriculture,
of local farmers' produce versus what Wendell Berry (1995) called “bechemicaled
factory fields,” and of paying a bit more for fair trade coffee over so-called gourmet
brands. David Beckmann, head of the interreligious agency Bread for the World,
stated that 850 million people in the world are undernourished, and the prices of
basic staples like rice, corn, and wheat are rising to a point that another 100 million
people are being driven into hunger. His organization acts as both an advocate for the
hungry ones outside the garden gate and as a lobbyist to politicians who help shape
food policy.
Many people of faith join their voices in the prayer of Jesus, saying, “Give us this
day our daily bread.” They trust that bread will come and with it a sense of gratitude
and responsibility, commitment to justice, and renewed compassion for local and
global neighbors.
conclusIons
The life of the spirit is lived in the context of the table, and those who gather round
it make many choices throughout the day regarding how that table will be set. The
