Christian Perspectives

Firstly, Christians believe and teach that hunger is caused by the fact that although there is more than enough food to feed the earth’s people, it is not distributed in a way that would achieve this. The simple truth is that with the resources available every person on the planet could receive their required 3000 calories daily, instead of 1700 calories which millions are forced to live on. With at least 750,000,000 having to do without food each and every night and the population of America, which makes up just 6%, consuming 35% of the world’s resources, the problem Christians see being faced with is unfair allocation of food. Because of the abundance of food in parts Europe and North America, the population of the countries start to take the necessity, but to some people luxury of food, to granted. This leads to huge amounts being wasted, for example Britain throws away 20 million tonnes (£20,000,000,000 worth) of food each year, which is enough to meet half of Africa’s food import needs.

The second cause that Christians blame for world hunger is the infertility of land in the areas that are affected by famine. As it is noticeable, Africa holds much starvation; Christians believe that part of the reason for this is that the harsh conditions of deserts and mountains that make it extremely difficult for people to farm foods and cannot afford the equipment and technology that would be needed to fertilise the soil and make it suitable to grow produce on that could lead to food, business, jobs, money and ultimately self-sustainability.

Another view Christians have on the cause of hunger, is the unfair treatment of more developed countries and their business. In the north, there is just 25% of the population but of which owns 80% of the wealth, leaving the south with 75% of the worlds population but just 20% of the wealth to care for them. This creates many problems, most of which, obviously, are inflicted on the south, where there economies cannot be developed and their population suffers from hunger and disease. Firstly, Christians believe that some business’, such as ones that sell coffee, take advantage of the desperate situations of the farmers who grow these raw materials by paying them very small amounts for the products. The farmers, who are in desperate need of money, have no choice but to except or to lose their business to another farm, leaving them with nothing. This unfair treatment leads to poverty and hunger as families can’t make enough money and cannot afford food. An example of this taking place is in Kenya when women are reported to have used every square metre of land that they owned to grow tobacco, leaving no room for growing the family’s vegetables. Despite this, with no food, they still did not raise enough money to support the family’s food needs.

The wealth of a country does have a major impact on the health of its population. More developed countries (MEDCs) will have more money to put into health services, giving its people protection and treatment of illness’ and injury, therefore making them healthier. The money will also fund medical research into cures and treatments, which less developed countries (LEDCs) would not have the funds to back, making business and development hard. These factors contribute to the following statistics of a typical MEDC (UK) and a typical LEDC (Angola). The UK’s mortality rate (the average number of people, out of 1000, that die in a year) is 10.09, whereas Angola’s is more than double that on 24.81. Angola’s infant mortality rate (the average number of babies that do not survive to the age of 5) is 230.8, while the UK’s is merely 6.0. As well as this, the life expectancy in Angola is 37.63 which compared to the UK’s of 78.7, is very small.

Another theory Christians have, is that disease can be caused by third world debts. The debts are got when poorer countries in need of money, that has often been spent on arms for war, borrows more from richer countries in order to survive. But interest causes the debts to grow and make them almost impossible for the country to pay back. As a cause of this, the IMF then inflicts Structural Adjustment Programmes, which force the country in debt to reduce their spending by cutting down on the funding for education and health care, so the country is able to repay their debts.  But, the money taken from the health service can have serious consequences as medical practices, vital to remote communities, are shut down due to lack of funding. This means people cannot get treatment for illnesses, and they therefore are transmitted between people more quickly and death is much more likely. As well as this, they take out other loans which lead to a similar outcome and the country ends up spiralling in a vicious circle. Africa’s interest on it’s debts cost Africa four times the amount it spends on health care, and in Zambia between 1990 and 1993 the money it spent on repaying debts was 34 times that which it spent on primary school education. This imbalance caused education spending to fall by more than 80%.

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The first biblical reference used by Christians to back up their beliefs is one of the 10 commandments, ‘love thy neighbour, as yourself’. This is an instruction to Christians from god to love everyone. This is a vital teaching in Christianity along with agape love which both show that no matter who it is or what they have done, they deserve you’re love, and if they deserve your love they also deserve your help. The fact that the Commandment features, ‘as yourself’, show that it is important not to be selfish and that Christians should share their assets rather ...

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