Activists in Action: Carrying the weight of vocation

2 MIN READ
Rev. Carlos Malavé is a constituent of one of the most powerful decision makers in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.).

By Bread Staff

“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:17-18)

Rev. Carlos Malavé is a constituent of one of the most powerful decision makers in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.).

Malavé, a Presbyterian pastor in Kentucky, the executive director of Christian Churches Together, and a Bread for the World board of directors member, says when it comes to cutting lifesaving foreign aid programs, his faith compels him to speak out against such proposed funding cuts. He wants McConnell to reject those cuts too and recently wrote him a letter to that effect. He hand-delivered his letter to McConnell’s office and archived his action in the public record on Twitter. Malave’s tweet, which included a photo of himself in front of McConnell’s office, read: “We can’t afford to cut foreign aid assistance.”

The faith voice is one of the ways Bread for the World members stand out with their members of Congress. Pastors, in particular, can bring a moral framework to policy discussions and carry the weight of their vocation when they advocate. For Malavé, when considering our foreign aid programs, 1 John 3:17-18 provides that framework.

President Trump released a budget proposal for the fiscal year 2018 that includes deep cuts to programs that help end hunger and poverty abroad. Turning our back on the world at a time when we face the biggest humanitarian crisis since 1945 is unconscionable, un-Christian, and un-American.

“If our elected officials in Congress yield to the current trajectory of sacrificing the well-being of poor people in our country and around the world,” Malavé wrote in his letter to McConnell, “we would be abandoning the essence of who we are as Americans.”

God’s love and call to care for those experiencing hunger and poverty has no borders. Each letter we write to Congress, each advocacy action we take, is spreading God’s love — not just in word and talk, but in deed and in truth.

Related Resources