Lack of food is not a peculiarly modern problem; it was a fearsome prospect even in ancient times. There were acute and extended food shortages in the Old Testament era, including the patriarchal age, the epoch of the great King David, and the time of the prophets (Elisha and Elijah among them). Famine in the Bible is not simply a perturbing phenomenon of the past, however; Jesus speaks as well of great famines as a sign of the end time (Matt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11).
One distinguishing factor of present-day famine is its colossal dimensions. At the very least, this year one million a month (some estimates run up to 25 million) will die of starvation.
There is an even greater difference than the burden of numbers, however, between famine in the past and in the present. While the Bible records such contributing causes as natural disasters, enemy invasions, and the ravages of war, never does it view famine as a mere happenstance. The Bible as a whole sets famine within the context of God’s creation and rule of all nature; famine is in the service of providential or judgmental divine purpose.
The psalmist knew that food is God’s gift: “Thou preparest a table before me.…” This by no means signifies that suffering is always an evidence of personal culpability or affluence a mark of righteousness. Scripture states, however, that in sending famine God may judgmentally warn against moral rebellion and spiritual decline, expressing anger over prolonged indifference (2 Kings 8:1, 2) and calling for renewed obedience. But that is not all. Through famine, God has often providentially shaped the larger fortunes of his followers: it pushed Abraham and Isaac into Egypt, lifted Joseph to prominence there, and eventually brought all the Israelites to the land of Goshen.
We must do everything possible to relieve famine. According to United Nations estimates, between 400 and 800 million people, 14 million of them refugees, are severely malnourished. Meanwhile, global population will soar by another 90 million this year. Some statisticians estimate that by the year 2000 the present four billion world population will be seven billion.
Last year the Nobel prize-winner George Wald electrified eminent scientists meeting in Tokyo with his verdict: “I do not see how we scientists can bring the human race much past the year 2000.” The 1980s are already being seen as “the decade of famine.” The book What Do You Say to a Hungry World (Word, 1975) by World Vision president W. Stanley Mooneyham comes at a desperate moment of global need when countless millions are asking, “Can I make it through another night?”
The United States controls 40 per cent of international food and non-food resources and 30 per cent of the world’s energy; these vast resources are at the disposal of 6 per cent of the global population. The food that feeds 210 million Americans would nourish 1.5 billion Africans or Asians.
The United States has in fact given more than $5 billion in free food to more that 100 nations. But although many lives have been spared, there is little evidence of improved health and lessened malnutrition in these lands. Not every well-meaning proposal stands the test of time, and some statistics tell less than the whole story. What began as a program to dispose of excess farm commodities became a humanitarian program to aid friendly nations; critics now belabor the United States because its aid commitment is not entirely apolitical. Some church leaders say that an equitable division of all available food grown on the earth would make enough for all. But experts insist that the United States alone cannot cope with world malnutrition; social responsibility is a world responsibility that falls on Russians, Kuwaitians, and Israelis as well—on everyone who has famished neighbors.
Many discussions avoid the problem of productivity. America’s food needs are met by some 5 per cent of the population; production knowhow as well as climate is important. On the other hand, countries that have practiced redistribution and collectivization are not known for surplus production; while politicians can raise statistics on a bag of wind, farmers everywhere need an incentive to produce crops. For all that, food production has increased 70 per cent in the last two decades in both developed and less developed nations, while in the latter population growth has virtually offset the gain, narrowing it to about 0.5 per capita.
Gluttony is evil, and it would be virtuous for Americans, for example to cut back on food and energy consumption simply to conserve resources. But this would hardly help the hungry in lands where the birth rate multiplies as fast as the rate of food production. India preposterously deployed capital funds for nuclear bombs and ignores the rodents that ravage food supplies. If American farmers plowed with horses, how could that help the Sahel, where farmers plow by beast and farm by hand? And whose problem would it be if Americans too were reduced to 1,000 calories a day and threatened by malnutrition?
Compassion is nonetheless a Christian virtue, and it would be a sad day for America were the generosity of its citizens in responding to world need to dry up. Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, often said: “If you can’t do everything, do something.” Methodists are providing subsidized fertilizer on a repayable basis to India. World Vision is at work in Bangladesh, written off by many as a hopeless area, and in about thirty other countries. Even as little as one missed meal or a dollar a week by each of us could add up to rescuing thousands of the hungry. In any event, many of the more affluent will need to simplify life styles, while impoverished masses must moderate expectations of plenty long associated with American full enterprise.
Yet the empty look on human faces today is due only in part to physical and material need; far more universal is mankind’s emptiness and nakedness of spirit. As the plentiful harvest depends upon rain, so spiritual growth depends on an outpouring of God’s nourishing Word. Amos spoke of famine in a figurative sense, warning that “there would be a famine … of the hearing of the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11).
Jesus reminded his listeners that hearing is a divine gift that carries a responsibility: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Among his most solemn reminders is that “man does not live by bread alone … but by every word proceeding out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4). We are to respond to the physically hungry in Christ’s name—as an expression of his love proffered in this age of grace to “whosoever will.” But Christians distort this ministry unless they also underscore that life is far more than food and drink (Matt. 6:25, 32). Our abiding meat, as Jesus exemplified, is to do the will of the Father (John 4:34).
