Tag Archives: Aid

Economic Justice

Trump Spoils Food Worth $500 Million Instead of Giving it to the Poor

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Food that was supposed to be distributed to millions of hungry people, worth half a billion dollars, is currently being spoiled after Donald Trump stopped all American aid around the world – and the person who revealed this was immediately fired by the Trump regime!

Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk have shut down USAID, which was the world’s largest donor and accounted for 40 percent of all humanitarian aid in the world. They claim they are doing this to “reduce waste” and “increase efficiency” – but how is it efficient to let food worth 500 million dollars go to waste instead of feeding starving people? Isn’t that the very essense of wastefulness?

What Trump and Musk is doing to USAID is not only immoral but also illegal, yet Trump and Musk completely disregard what is legal right now by halting aid that Congress has approved in a very authoritarian way. Here are more examples of life-saving measures that have been stopped by Trump and Musk:

  • Ivory Coast: A US-sponsored program to collect sensitive intelligence information about Al Qaeda-related incidents has been discontinued.
  • Sudan: Most soup kitchens feeding 816,000 people in Khartoum have been closed down.
  • Uganda: Aid workers say that around 40 newborns were infected with HIV per day when the USA stopped funding antiretroviral drugs.
  • Ukraine & Syria: Organizations providing maternal care, vaccinations, and firewood have been forced to cease their operations.
  • Thailand: Patients were told to leave a US-funded refugee hospital on the border of Myanmar.

Additionally, hundreds of Christian organizations around the world have been forced to halt initiatives to provide food and healthcare to millions of poor people. Several evangelical organizations and churches have now appealed to Trump to restore aid to Christian organizations – something he refuses to do.

At the same time, there are other evangelical Christians who completely rejoice over the closure of USAID because it is seen as “anti-woke” and because they believe in the propaganda that it combats corruption. How does that combat corruption by stopping care for children with HIV and letting food rot, you wonder?

Of course it does not. Instead, Trump and Musk ensure that they benefit themselves and their companies while pocketing billions from aid meant for the poorest. The love for money is truly a root of all evil, as the Bible says (1 Tim 6:10).

Both Trump and Musk have repeatedly lied about USAID supposedly spending 50 million dollars on “condoms for Hamas.” In reality, they spent the 50 million on an AIDS program in the Gaza province of Mozambique, not in the Gaza Strip.

Musk was confronted about this by a journalist at the White House, and he admitted he was wrong (without saying that the aid should be reinstated) but claimed that it is still unreasonable to spend 50 million on condoms somewhere because there are too many condoms—despite the fact that the majority of the project is not about purchasing condoms at all, but rather about combating AIDS in other ways!

It is completely incomprehensible how an incredible amount of competence and experience in helping the poor is thrown in the trash when USAID is shut down, while the incompetent, criminal billionaires Trump and Musk have been given more power than anyone else on earth.

And the sad part is that many Christians cheer for them while at the same time cutting back on the massive amount of aid work carried out by Christian organizations. May God bring repentance, sanity and hope to the United States.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Economic Justice

Evangelicals Urge Trump to Restore Aid to Christian Charities After He and Musk Slash Billions

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The mega-billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk have now shut down all aid to poor countries, effectively sentencing many Christian aid organizations to collapse. Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest person, wrote on Twitter that USAID “must die”, and he called out a Lutheran relief organization as “illegal.” Recently, he stated that Trump “agrees” that the entire agency should be dismantled—the only aid allowed to continue is military support.

Just a few years ago, xenophobic politicians had to argue that they still wanted to help the poor and vulnerable in order to justify their restrictions on refugee reception. They falsely claimed they would compensate for reduced refugee immigration with increased aid “in the local region.”

That never happened. And today’s xenophobic politicians don’t even bother with such lies—they are openly hostile to helping poor people, refusing to accept them as refugees or support them through aid.

Trump is shutting down nearly all foreign aid, hundreds of billions of dollars, while completely closing the country’s refugee intake—redirecting hundreds of billions toward mass deportations, sending people back to persecution and poverty and leaving millions of children orphaned in the US.

The entire USAID website has been shut down, along with several other government websites. Trump has ordered the removal of all websites mentioning climate change and a whole database containing evidence of the January 6th attack on the Capitol has been deleted. This is the largest case of state censorship in U.S. history, orchestrated by two criminal billionaires who ironically claim to champion “free speech.”

A majority of evangelical Christians in the U.S. voted for Trump, but now evangelical organizations and churches such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention are pleading with the Trump administration to restore funding for aid organizations like World Relief. Their pleas, however, are likely falling on deaf ears. Trump’s dismantling of public support for organizations helping refugees and the poor is not an accident—it is precisely what “America First” was always about.

Now, organizations are warning that HIV-positive individuals worldwide are losing access to life-saving medication, humanitarian operations are being abruptly halted, and millions of poor people are suffering even more than before.

Meanwhile, Trump has granted his billionaire friend Elon Musk access to large portions of the U.S. treasury, even though Congress—the very institution attacked by Trump supporters four years ago—is supposed to have the power of the purse. According to multiple experts, this is a clear sign of an authoritarian takeover designed to ensure Trump never loses power—something he himself has been shockingly open about.

It is encouraging, albeit somewhat late, that U.S. evangelicals are beginning to regret their support for Trump. Now, Christians in Europe must increase their efforts in missions and aid to compensate for the billions that Trump and Musk have cut from the poor. And we must pray—for the poor who are suffering and for the conversion of Trump’s and Musk’s hearts. Many lives are at stake!

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

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Economic Justice

6,000 Children Die of Hunger Caused by Corona – Every Day

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About 6,000 children will die today due to food shortages caused by the pandemic.

They do not die from the virus. They die of starvation and malnutrition.

Just as many will die tomorrow. And as many the day after that.

The UN warned this spring that corona would cause a famine of biblical proportions. Now it’s here.

The number of people affected by food insecurity has risen by 120 million due to the pandemic and its economic effects.

That is why I am so happy that the World Food Programme (WFP) receives the Nobel Peace Prize this year. While the streak of Pentecostal Nobel peace prize winners is over, I couldn’t be happier of the choice of the Nobel committee. 

The media does not seem to think it is as exciting and controversial as if Donald “Fire and Fury” Trump had received it. But WFP is needed more than ever.

They do an incredibly good job of identifying hunger crises before they break out and fighting for as many as possible to survive.
The problem is that, like most UN programs, they are underfunded.

Feel free to give a gift to WFP here! you can also download the Share the meal app and get reminded every day as you eat your lunch that a child somewhere else can enjoy the same for less than a dollar.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish pastor, author and editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Creation Care

Heidi Baker Calls for Help as Mozambique is Devastated by Cyclones

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Mozambique needs our help. Iris Global, the ministry led by missionaries Heidi and Rolland Baker, is calling for support as the country has been hit by two devastating cyclones. Rolland wrote earlier this month after Cyclone Idai had put millions of lives at risk:

We heard stories. One old blind man lived in a shabby hut with his wife who fed and took care of him. But the storm destroyed their house, and his wife was killed by flying debris. Afterward neighbors came by and built him a simple lean-to shelter with scattered pieces of wood so he could sit out of the rain. But now his wife is no more and he is truly alone.

What is his future? Untold others died in the storm, probably thousands. Bodies are floating in the floodwaters. Crops are washed away. An entire harvest is gone. Roads are impassable. Clean water cannot be found.

Large areas are twenty and even thirty feet under water. The devastation stretches for hundreds of kilometers across three provinces and also Zimbabwe and Malawi.

This is the worst weather-related disaster ever to hit the southern hemisphere. The United Nations has never had to coordinate such a massive relief effort before. 1.8 million people were already facing critical food shortage before the cyclone. Now their meager supplies and possessions are wiped out.

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This weekend, Cyclone Kenneth arrived and made the situation even worse. Heidi reports on Facebook:

Please keep praying! Reports from the north show Cyclone Kenneth wiped out entire coastal villages and now the continuous heavy rains are causing flash flooding, landslides, and homes to collapse. Rescue operations are slow-going because roads are either underwater or washed out. Through it all, we keep our eyes on Jesus!

Please donate to Iris Relief here.

Economic Justice, Reviews

Is Pentecostalism Doing More for Africa’s Poor than International NGOs?

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Review originally published at the LSE Africa Blog. Reposted with permission.

Gregory Deacon of Oxford University says that the book Pentecostalism and Development: Churches, NGOs and Social Change in Africa (edited by Dena Freeman) provides some compelling answers regarding Pentecostalism and development.

With its noisy churches and high profile media presence, Pentecostalism is religion writ large and exciting. Dramatic claims are made – for example that it is ‘redrawing the religious map of the world’.[1] Dena Freeman’s edited volume tackles head on whether this is good or bad for development. This is done in the context of 30 years of neoliberalism and an explosion in numbers of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as well as Pentecostal churches. The role of both in alleviating poverty and improving living conditions for Africans is considered.

Over the past three decades, Pentecostal Christianity has exploded across Africa. At the same time many secular development agencies, including the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), have been struggling to incorporate religion and faith based organisations into their policies and processes. As a research fellow at the University of Oxford looking at religion and development, I have similarly found Pentecostalism impossible to ignore. Continue reading Is Pentecostalism Doing More for Africa’s Poor than International NGOs? →