Prayer and the Elections

I love thee, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, 

My God, my rock; in whom I take refuge,

My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

and I am saved from my enemies.  (Psalm 18:1-3)

Nearly everyone prays before major surgery. People may doubt that God will directly intervene to protect them, but they reach out to God for help anyway. 

Our upcoming election is a bit like major surgery. The election seems likely to make our body politic healthier, but the election and the certification process might instead do great harm. 

So this post is a call to prayer. 

We should include the election and certification process in our personal prayers. I’m praying that God will bless and guide our nation. I’m also praying for an honest and peaceful conclusion to this election.

God uses prayer to align our desires and actions to God’s purposes and to give us peace of mind. And God sometimes seems to intervene miraculously to do what we ask.  

Pastors and churches should lead their people in public prayer, certainly next Sunday before Election Day and maybe every Sunday until January 3, when the newly elected members of Congress are supposed to be sworn in. Ask your pastor to remember the elections in next Sunday’s prayers. I did, and he thanked me for reminding him.

We should make it a habit to ask God to guide our politics. President Trump will still be in power in 2027. He, as well as the Democrats and Republicans in Congress, will be deciding what to do in a changed political environment. Our advocacy with our own members of Congress may have more impact in the new environment. 

Meanwhile, the politics of other countries are changing. Elections in Brazil, Serbia, and Israel this week, together with big protests led by young people in India and Europe, invite us to pray that God will be present in what’s happening all around the world.  

Marcus Borg’s last book, titled Jesus, gave me a deeper appreciation of the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is almost certainly something that the historical Jesus himself taught, and it reflects his main message about God’s kingdom coming into the world (Luke 4:18-19).

My choice of words based on authoritative translations makes this clear. 

On the Radio with Rick Steves: Stories of Progress and Possibility

Rick Steves and David Beckmann in the Tigray region of Ethiopia in 2016, scouting locations for Rick’s television special, Hunger and Hope: Lessons from Ethiopia and Guatemala.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with my friend Rick Steves to talk about ending poverty on his radio show, “Travel with Rick Steves.” It was a thoughtful and hopeful conversation, and I hope you’ll listen. Rick's radio show is broadcast across the U.S. and provided an incredible opportunity to reach a new audience with the messages in Poverty Abolitionists—Rick wrote the forward to the book. We discussed the power of effective foreign assistance and touched on policies that have helped drive progress against hunger and poverty. Our conversation includes stories from a trip we took together in 2016 to Ethiopia and Guatemala, where we saw first-hand the impact aid programs can have on individuals, families and communities. Rick later returned and filmed his 2020 special titled Hunger and Hope: Lessons from Ethiopia and Guatemala.

Sadly,  progress against hunger and poverty around the world is now grinding to a halt. Cuts to U.S. foreign assistance and other policies of the second Trump administration are a major cause.  But we know that progress is possible, and concerned people can help get things moving again. That’s what Poverty Abolitionists is about. You can listen to our full conversation below.

G20 Interfaith Forum and the Borlaug Dialogue

Photo: World Food Prize Foundation

By coincidence, two influential international forums related to hunger and poverty were back-to-back this year. The G20 Interfaith Forum was in Salt Lake City (October 15-17) and the World Food Prize Foundation’s Borlaug Dialogue was held  in Des Moines (October 19-22). My presentations in both forums stressed the negative impact of current U.S. government policies on people in need worldwide and the importance of our upcoming elections.

The G20 Interfaith Forum addressed  the issues that the U.S. government has put on the agenda for this year’s Group of 20 meeting, notably artificial intelligence. The Interfaith Forum also discussed poverty, hunger, and other aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals. These issues have long been on the agendas of the annual Group of 20 meetings.  But the United States government is hosting the G20 Summit this year (at Mar-a-Lago) and nothing related to hunger and poverty are on the agenda that our government has put on the agenda for this year. 

The world made some progress on the Sustainable Development Goals since they were adopted by the nations of the world in 2015. But progress against hunger and poverty has slowed dramatically. We don’t have data for 2026 yet, but it will almost certainly document increasing poverty in the world.

In my view, the main cause of the current slowdown is that a number of governments, most importantly the U.S. government, don’t consider what happens to poor people a priority. The Trump administration slashed international aid and domestic programs. Mass deportation program has made many families poorer. It disrupted global efforts on climate change. It also disrupted global trade, with tariffs increasing prices and slowing economic growth. The shifting policies of our government have stalled any progress toward peace for Ukraine. Finally, the United States and Israel attacked Iran, leading to war and misery in the Middle East and yet higher prices in our country and around the world.

I shared this perspective at both forums, focusing on hunger at the World Food Prize 

Foundation’s Borlaug Dialogue.  I also urged the Americans at these two forums and people we reached through news media to consider the needs of hungry and poor people at the voting booth. 

Both these forums were held in traditionally conservative states. But this year the Iowa races for governor and senator, as well as four of five House races are competitive. A Democrat is likely to win the House election in Salt Lake City. I am also encouraged by increasingly progressive attitudes in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Pictured below: I am pictured with Heather Taylor, interim president of Bread for the World, at the World Food Prize Foundation’s Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa. During the event, I also signed copies of my new book, Poverty Abolitionists, including one for actor and longtime social justice advocate Martin Sheen, who delivered the keynote address.

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