“The time is now to speak”

By Josiah Neufeld | January 29, 2010

OTTAWA, ON—Evangelical Christians in Canada have the government's ear, says Robyn Bright. And with Canada poised to host the Olympic Games and two world summits, this year is an opportunity like none other to speak up about global poverty.

Bright was hired last fall as the full-time coordinator for the Canadian branch of Micah Challenge, an international network of churches and Christian organizations committed to the alleviation of global poverty and action towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

As world leaders prepare to meet in Canada this summer for the G8 and G20 summits, Micah Challenge Canada is putting pressure on government to follow through on its own G8 promises and to make the kind of aggressive commitments that will be necessary if the world is going to come close to meeting the MDGs by the 2015 deadline.

The MDGs are eight goals for combating extreme poverty, hunger, disease and gender inequality set by the G8 countries.

Government tuned to evangelicals

"We have a unique voice right now with our current government that's quite interested in what evangelicals are saying," says Bright, who spent the last seven years working on Parliament Hill for different MPs. "The time is now to speak to government, to speak to our neighbours, to say that for Christians, poverty alleviation is part of working out the Kingdom in our day-to-day lives."

The Harper government has recently shown increased interest in the evangelical voice, says Bright, perhaps because a number of MPs in the House—including Joy Smith, Stockwell Day and Rod Bruinooge—come from evangelical backgrounds.

In the lead-up to summits, Bright has been meeting with politicians and Christian leaders and speaking in churches urging Canadian Christians to come together with a common voice.

"There's been a slow but growing change in the way the evangelical and Christian community in Canada is thinking about poverty," she says.

When ChristianWeek talked to the part-time coordinator for Micah Challenge Canada in 2008, the campaign seemed to be in the doldrums.

"I think for the longest time there was this fear that really embracing a social justice agenda meant embracing a kind of liberal theology that people were uncomfortable with," says Bright. "But there's been a shift back to seeing poverty as a fundamental call of the gospel and fundamental part of Jesus' teaching and the Bible and God's mission in the world."

Priority: healthy mothers

Micah Challenge and other like-minded anti-poverty groups want to see Canada commit significant resources toward the MDG that's lagging the furthest behind: maternal health.
Save the Mothers, an international organization that trains professionals in Uganda and other countries around the world to improve the health of mothers, reports that one in 16 mothers in sub-Saharan Africa dies in childbirth. Many bleed to death, a complication often preventable by a dose of medication that costs less then 99 cents.

"The interventions required for maternal health are quite simple and cost effective," says Bright. She wants to see Canada make maternal health its legacy project at the G8 summit.

But instead of committing more resources to the MDGs as the countdown continues, most governments are cutting back on foreign aid to shore up struggling economies.

"Especially because of the economic crisis we need to commit overseas development assistance money for HIV/AIDS, adaptation to climate change and to maternal and child health," says Bright.

"If we are able to convey to government…that we want to see movement on social justice, I think they'll be responsive to it."

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