Acknowledging the Apocalypse

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Acknowledging the Apocalypse Getting Up in the
Morning
A.K.A. Are we doomed? Now is your chance to
leave 2013 PEC Conference Presbyterian Hunger
Program
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A sketch of Gods food system

• Food for all
• Produced with dignity, entire food chain
• Equitably shared
• Responsive in times of shortages
• Produced ecologically so that future
  generations can feed themselves
• Healthy and life-giving nutrition
• Eaten in gratitude and with joy

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Sugar Slavery

• Sugar Cane Economies
• gt 50 slaves in Americas in sugar fields sugar
  processing factories
• Racism needed to rationalize slave labor

• Sweet Charity
• Sugary addiction Poverty Obesity
• Racism used to rationalize impoverishment food
  apartheid

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Current Food System

• World Population 7 billion
• Hungry People nearly 1 billion
• Close to 2 billion people overfed
• 50 million hungry or food insecure (U.S.)
• Exploitation throughout food chain
• Run on fossil fuels unsustainable

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The APOCALYPSE!

• Apocalyptic
• Lifting of the veil
• Disclosure of something hidden
• Coming to clarity

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What are you afraid to acknowledge about the
world?
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Acknowledging What Is

• Intrinsic goodness of people
• Resilience of people Gods creation
• Human weakness sin, greed, fear and avoidance

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Wishful thinking?

• Christians will do right thing if they know the
  truth.
• If survival, status or position or material
  comfort at risk
• Some will accept injustice without comment or
  complaint

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What injustice (small or large) do you accept?
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What else is?

• Multiple crises at planetary scale
• Modern capitalism unable to ameliorate
• Growth model worsening problems
• Denial by politicians, business religious
  leaders and many of us
• Technological fundamentalism unintended
  consequences of growth tech. can be remedied by
  more technology

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James Baldwin to the rescue

• We must remember that life is the only
  touchstone and that life is dangerous, and for
  those without the joyful acceptance of this
  danger, there can never be any safety for anyone,
  ever, anywhere.
• 55 passages in the Bible about Fear not!

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James Baldwin
Not everything that is faced can be changed but
nothing can be changed until it is faced.
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Wisdom of the Ages

• When you destroy the earth, you destroy yourself
• You/we/it are inextricably linked
• Beyond interconnection
• Interbeing

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Dont abandon hope affirm life!

• Turning over the tables
• Many tables to be upended, but way is not often
  clear
• While persisting in efforts to reform, fear not,
  and offer radical Christian analysis

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Love Grief
What do you love about the world?
And how would you feel if this was lost or
destroyed?
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Dont abandon hope affirm life!

• Be the change you want to see In the world
• Lifestyle integrity radical hospitality
  sharing

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Way you live, hospitality, sharing

• What change do you hope/intend to make?
• Future How did you transcend whatever was
  holding you back?

andrew.kangbartlett_at_pcusa.org
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Dont abandon hope affirm life!

• Building relationships to restore wholeness
• Education community organizing
• Strengthen the base for the radical changes we
  need (institutions, networks, alliances)
• Learn from support movement building!

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Food Sovereignty Democratizing the food system
Peoples right to healthy and culturally
appropriate food produced through ecologically
sound and sustainable methods, and their right to
define their own food and agriculture systems.
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PHP and Food Justice around the world

• Tending the Garden of God
• Joining Hands Campaigns on Food Land,
  Extractives Water, and Trade Reform
• Mobilize people of faith and others to tackle
  systemic causes of hunger in US and abroad 
• Support partners in 30 countries in their efforts
  to fight hunger and its causes through
  international grants

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• Meta-study compared data from nearly 100 studies
  of conventional and sustainable/organic
  agriculture, concluded
• worldwide switch to organics could increase
  global food production by as much as 50
• -- enough to feed a population of 9 billion
  people
• without any additional land

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PHP and Food Justice in the U.S.

• Tending the Garden of God
• Assist people in developing analysis about
  systemic causes of hunger and poverty
• Avenues for action resisting structures that
  perpetuate building alternatives
• Programs Campaigns (food sovereignty,
  corporate and public policy advocacy)
• OGHS support for partner organizations
  resisting and building alternatives

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PHP and Food Justice in the U.S.

• Tending the Garden of God
• Support for congregations doing food justice work
  (Food Justice Learning Calls, materials)
• Connecting people of faith with others doing food
  justice work (PEC, anyone, everyone)
• Food Justice Fellows Anti-Hunger Americorps
  VISTAs

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2013 PHP VISTAs

• Gina (national focus), Todd, Amber Emily
  (Louisville)
• Elise, Ilana Whitney in Indianapolis
• Casey in Cincinnati

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Veggies as a VehicleDelight and Joy
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morphogenic fields making the impossible
possible
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Food Sovereignty Democratizing the food system
Peoples right to healthy and culturally
appropriate food produced through ecologically
sound and sustainable methods, and their right to
define their own food and agriculture systems.