In the Language of Faith

You shall have a trumpet sounded throughout the land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you.

- Leviticus 25:9-10

The international debt disaster continues to spiral downward, dragging developing nations into a miasma of financial liability. It has nearly destroyed social service systems and centered more and more political and economic power in fewer and fewer First World financial institutions and governments. UNICEF estimates that half a million children die each year to help pay the interest on the Third World debt: Hunger, or whatever other preventable causes that kill the children, is ignored because the money needed to alleviate those problems has been used by the developing nations to pay back World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans.

According to the London-based Catholic Institute for International Relations, "by 1990 the developing world owed... $1.34 billion to foreign creditors....This sum is close to half the total national income of the South or about...$327 for every man, woman, and child. It is also about 60 percent higher than in August 1982 when Mexico, the South's second largest debtor, signalled the depth of the debt crisis by announcing a temporary halt in debt repayments."

Christians who strive for a more just world order understand that the debt issue is not merely about economics; biblical structures of justice are called to mind. So in March 1995, a letter was sent to a broad spectrum of religious communities and national ecumenical organizations around the country, inviting participation in a newly formed coalition to address the international debt issue.

"We have come together as religious groups to articulate this call for reform in the language of faith," stated the letter, signed by Marie Dennis of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Justice and Peace Office in the name of several religious activists, including Louise Akers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Mark Harrison of the United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society, Mennonite Central Committee's Byron Peachey, and Joan Elbert of Kairos-USA.

The initial members of what has become known as the Religious Working Group (RWG) on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund first came together last year as members of the Fifty Years is Enough Campaign, a secular organization based in Washington, D.C. The campaign calls for reforming the Bretton Woods systems, those financial organizations (including the World Bank and IMF) that were created after World War II to help stabilize the global economy.

Richard Barnet writes in Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order
that the "World Bank and International Monetary Fund were the critical pillars set up under the Bretton Woods system. The Bank was established to finance the reconstruction and development of war-torn Europe. The Fund had the task of providing short-term loans to ease liquidity problems. European recovery was so successful that these institutions were soon able to turn their attention to the developing world." Huge projects such as dams and highways were financed, with the idea that more advanced ventures, as opposed to more "primitive" programs like agricultural development, would generate more money and fatten developing countries' gaunt treasuries.

However, political scenarios were many times volatile, trade routes overlapped and canceled out one another, and money that was poured into paving roads did not feed anyone. "Faced with the world recession of the early 1980s in the wake of the 'oil shocks' and the resulting trillion dollars of Third World debt, the Bank...became a stern economic taskmaster," writes Barnet.

"WE HAD THE FEELING that there should be a religious voice in the [Fifty Years is Enough] Campaign" to address the moral questions of the international debt, said Erich Mathias of the Joint Ministry in Africa, Disciples of Christ/United Churches of Christ. "As people of faith, we have in common the belief from Leviticus," the concept of jubilee, the forgiveness of debt, Mathias explained.

The March 1995 invitation letter explained that the group would use education and public witness to focus on the need for debt relief and would use the biblical theme of jubilee in calling for global economic justice.

One instrument of both education and public witness was the four-page packet designed by RWG members titled "A Call to Jubilee," which included talking points on World Bank and IMF issues, suggestions and prayers for group activities on debt relief, and biblical references that support the backbone of a just society, including the freeing of slaves (Leviticus 25:10, 54-55; Luke 4:16-21), the forgiveness of debt (Nehemiah 5:5-7a, 9-11; Matthew 18:21-35), and the return of the land (Leviticus 25:23-24).

The packet included the RWG's call to the directors of the World Bank and the IMF to "a candid assessment of sin in the global economy, an honest judgment of the suffering imposed by world monetary and economic policy on those who have the least, and the pursuit of God's vision of a new heaven and a new earth grounded in compassion, equity, and justice-jubilee, the forgiveness of debt."

Packet recipients were asked to write to Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, the U.S. representative to the World Bank and IMF. Letters were to include the insistence that these economic organizations "reorient the priorities of the international financial institutions to ensure the development of sustainable communities, respect for the integrity of creation, and the provision of basic human needs for all,...lift the burden of debt carried by the human communities and environment of impoverished nations, using World Bank and the IMF reserves to cancel the multilateral debt of severely indebted low and lower-middle income countries,...[and] radically alter or end structural adjustment programs that have exacerbated the suffering of the poor."

One significant order of business for the group was an ecumenical prayer service held Monday, October 9, the eve of the World Bank and IMF's annual meetings in Washington, D.C. The prayer service was held at the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, only blocks away from the White House. Primary attendees included Leonor Briones from the Philippines, Charles Abugre from Ghana, and Detroit's Bishop Tom Gumbleton. Bishop Samuel Ruiz of Chiapas, Mexico-currently under close scrutiny and criticism from both the Mexican government and the Vatican for his conspicuous support of the rebels of that region-addressed the prayer service's audience via videotape.

After the prayer service, audience members processed to the World Bank's headquarters several blocks away for a candlelight vigil, where speakers included Jim Wallis and Kathleen Pruitt (vice president, Pax Christi International). For the next three days, RWG participants and supporters held daily noontime prayer services at the Sheraton Washington Hotel, the site of the World Bank and IMF meetings.

"In terms of the future," Mathias said, "a lot of us are working on alternatives" to the World Bank and IMF. Activists who are concerned about the crippling debt are "sharing experiences, the things they are doing." The October 9 prayer service and the daily vigils during the annual meetings may be over, but Mathias hopes the group will continue to meet regularly to maintain a persistent religious voice for morals in the world economy. "This is a global question. These institutions are not going to go away."

JUDY COODE is administrative assistant at the Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office. A former Sojourners intern, she is a free-lance writer living in Washington, D.C.