c. 2005 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ With street demonstrations, urgent admonitions and determined prayer, representatives of several faith traditions pressured world leaders to commit to the U.N. Millennium Development goals of 2000, which aim to halve global poverty by 2015.

By Friday (Sept. 16), the last day of their three-day rally timed to coincide with the U.N. world summit, religious activists were cautiously optimistic. Many cited President Bush’s speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday as reason to be hopeful.

“We are committed to the Millennium Development goals,” the president said, which was more than many expected from an administration that previously steered clear of such a strong pledge.

Nonetheless, advocates stressed there is still much work to be done.

“It’s important now that the president carry the message to Congress,” said John Brennan of Bread for the World, a Washington-based Christian coalition fighting hunger. Brennan noted that Congress approved only a fraction of the aid needed to keep promises made at the G8 summit this summer.

Episcopal Bishop Catherine Roskam of New York City called Bush’s new commitment “a direct result of the advocacy of the religious community. Particularly the evangelicals,” she said. “That really is his constituency in a lot of ways and it really has paid off.”

Roskam was dissatisfied, however, with the little attention paid to women’s issues, especially reproductive rights, which she sees as crucial to ending world poverty.

Evangelicals played a key role in organizing the rally, held on an outdoor stage at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, two blocks from U.N. headquarters in Manhattan.

“Ending extreme poverty would be relatively easy and relatively cheap,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis, evangelical leader and editor of Sojourners magazine. “What we lack is the moral and the political will. I think that it is a good job for people of faith.”

Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims joined evangelicals, mainline Protestants and Catholics in demanding commitment to the eight U.N.-sponsored goals, which include reducing maternal and infant mortality, providing universal primary education, protecting the environment and combating HIV/AIDS and malaria.

“May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,” the crowd of about 200 prayed in unison Wednesday, “so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.”

Participants hoped to influence the more than 150 heads of state gathered at the U.N. on its 60th anniversary. The U.N. agenda was global poverty, international security and U.N. reform.

Struggling to be heard over other demonstrations packed onto the plaza, religious organizers opened their three-day vigil of prayer, preaching and fasting with a lively gospel performance and a memorial service for the victims of extreme global poverty.

Wallis mourned lives lost to Hurricane Katrina, and called the ravaging storm “an altar call for our time.”

Accountability quickly became a theme of the rally. “As Christians,” said Janelle Vandergrint, 21, flanked by denim- and flip-flop-clad fellow students from Calvin College in Michigan, “we don’t want to be silent anymore.”

She was fasting _ no food, only water _ in solidarity with the poor and hungry.

Newly appointed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton angered religious leaders in recent weeks when he tried to strike almost all references to the Millennium Development goals from summit documents. Bolton said he did not agree with timetables and quantifiers the U.N. attached to the goals, such as asking wealthy nations to commit 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product to foreign aid.

Just before the summit began, Bolton agreed to include the Millennium Development goals in the summit documents. In his Wednesday speech, Bush said he supported the Millennium Development goals and he urged all developed nations to commit to the 0.7 percent standard.

Despite Bolton’s apparent change of heart, some rally activists said his pre-summit actions had hindered efforts at the U.N., where leaders of poor countries pleaded for aid from industrialized nations.

“It was a complete frontal assault on the attempt of the leaders of the world to finally step up to the plate and end poverty,” said Archdeacon Michael Kendall of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

But with a large group of conservative evangelicals present at the rally, not all participants were eager to criticize Bolton or Bush.

The Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals urged governments to safeguard the environment against global warming, while acknowledging the Bush administration’s track record on these issues could be better. Cizik said he believes the administration sincerely wants to help the poor and protect the planet.

“Are they in principle committed to increasing aid?” he said. “Absolutely.”

Cizik predicted Bush would respond favorably to evangelicals’ demands on poverty and the environment. “As evangelicals go, so goes the nation,” he said. “This president needs us now more than ever. We’re part of his base.”

Desmond Tutu, former archbishop of South Africa, was scheduled to speak at the rally Wednesday but canceled at the last minute due to traffic and scheduling problems.

MO/PH END RNS

Editors: Search the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com for a photo of Wallis in New York this week. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.