Finding Light Through the Darkness

I recently had a thoughtful conversation with Minerva Delgado on Voices to End Hunger, a podcast hosted by the Alliance to End Hunger. We discussed the deep cuts to anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs, as well as the broader attacks on civil rights and immigrants driven by the Trump administration. But we also talked about my reasons for hope.

As I said in our conversation, “The MAGA movement is not going to go away for a long time. I hope we can restrain it, defeat it at the polls, and over time moderate the views of the millions of Americans who support it.”

It is indeed a dark time for both politics and poverty, which is precisely why advocacy and collective action continue to matter—and why we need a committed group of poverty abolitionists to take up this cause. Engagement, rather than discouragement, remains the path back to the dramatic progress against poverty we have seen in recent decades.

Many of the themes we touched on—the continuing importance of legislative advocacy, the importance of active and generous participation in elections, and needed reforms in American religion—are explored more fully in my forthcoming book, Poverty Abolitionists: Faith, Activism, and Hope in Difficult Times, which will hit bookstores in May of 2026. The book is now available for pre-order through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bloomsbury.

Listen my conversation with Minerva on YouTube, Voices to End Hunger, or your favorite podcast feed.

Direct Anger at Poverty, Not the Poor

Screenshot from Senator Raphael Warnock’s speech delivered on November 18, 2025, at the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice, livestreamed on YouTube.

In a November speech delivered at the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice, Senator Raphael Warnock said, “...we are living in a moment where too many Christians are angry with poor people rather than being angry at poverty.”

He is right. God’s vision for humanity is rooted in compassion and forgiveness. Poverty—a human-made injustice—distorts that vision. When we direct anger toward those who struggle instead of toward the systems that keep people down, we stray from the gospel’s call to love our neighbors.

I deeply admire Sen. Warnock and am grateful that ending po

verty is one of his core issues. I support his work financially because building up leaders who align with our values is one way to strengthen our democracy and revive progress against poverty. The midterms are less than a year away, and all of us will have opportunities to participate—through voting, volunteering, and giving financially—to help shape a government that prioritizes the common good.

Watch the full speech on the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice YouTube channel — it’s well worth your time.

World Food Prize Laureates and José Andrés Urge Doubling of Aid to End Hunger

Photo courtesy of the World Food Prize Foundation

The World Food Prize laureates, along with Chef José Andrés, who leads World Central Kitchen, have issued a joint statement calling for a doubling of investments in emergency food assistance and sustainable agriculture.

Since the World Food Prize began in 1987, the proportion of the world’s people who are hungry has been declining. Progress slowed in recent years because of COVID, climate change, and an increase in violent conflicts. Famine and near-famine conditions have surged in countries like Gaza, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The drastic cut-back in international aid this year (especially U.S. aid) has almost surely increased the proportion of hungry people in the world and without doubt increased misery and death in the most desperate places in the world.  

The World Food Prize Laureates live and work in many countries. They can see how the aid cut-backs are playing out in their situations.  As we gathered in Des Moines this week for the annual Borlaug Forum, we all agreed on how dire the situation is.   

The deputy director of the World Food Program reported to the forum on her recent visit to Sudan. About 24 million people, half the population of Sudan, is coping with famine or near-famine conditions.  The World Food Program is providing emergency assistance to four million of these people. A decline in contributions from the United States and some other governments has forced the World Food Program to reduce the number of people it helps.  Triage operations are also underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, and other countries. 

The Laureates’ statement urges a doubling of emergency food aid and a doubling of investment in agriculture, so that struggling families can feed themselves.

The statement has already received strong press coverage, including a good story in Reuters. I encourage you to read it, along with the laureates’ letter.  I especially appreciate the letter’s call on all people to “promote a culture of shared responsibility and action.”