StoryCorps: Poverty, Faith, and Stick-to-ativity

Sandra Joireman, an eminent political scientist and a former board chair of Bread for the World, interviewed me for StoryCorps.  The interview sums up my life story and insights from my forthcoming book on strategies to push back against MAGA and get progress against poverty back on track.

I very much hope you will listen to the entire interview. It’s 24 minutes.

If you don’t have time for that, I think you’ll enjoy the brief exchange that followed a question about what I’m most proud of.

Here’s the clip:

Lessons from South Africa

Highlights from David Beckmann’s address at the 2025 G20 Interfaith Forum, Cape Town (August 10–14).

I was invited to speak last month at the G20 Interfaith Forum in Cape Town, South Africa. Faith leaders from around the world and diverse faiths gathered to discuss issues that will be on the agenda—or that we think should be on agenda—of this year’s G20 Summit. The G20 includes 19 powerful nations, the European Union, and the African Union. 

My brief remarks focused on the Trump administration’s destruction of our government’s international aid program and its disruption of the international trading system. The U.S. government isn’t participating in this year’s G20 process. 

The Interfaith Forum is recommending continued G20 support for the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, which was launched at last year’s G20 Interfaith Forum in Brasilia. We are also urging multilateral efforts to reduce the crippling financial burden that many developing countries, especially low-income countries, are now carrying.

I stayed in Cape Town for four days after the conference to learn a bit more about South Africa today. What I learned was discouraging. Although apartheid ended in 1994, de facto racial segregation continues. Nearly all Black Africans in Cape Town live in crowded slum “townships.” Corruption among the current generation of African politicians has been scandalous. As a result, the incomes of South African people have been declining for the last ten years. Economic inequality and the homicide rate are higher than in any other country in the world.

On the other hand, I met with inspiring Christian and interfaith leaders. Theo Mayekiso, a grassroots interfaith leader, guided my son Andrew and me through several of the townships. We met with Christian leaders and others who are working at the grassroots to inspire hope and lead community development efforts. The next day, Theo and his wife took me to meet with Renier Koegelenberg, a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church and a senior advisor to the National Council of Churches. He gave us a macro perspective on how South Africa’s churches are working at the grassroots and as advocates at the national level.

We live at a disappointing time in both the United States and South Africa. But my hope for the future was reinforced by the faith and activism of the leaders I met at the Interfaith Forum and in the townships of Cape Town.

Another Tug-of-War Over Poor People’s Needs

To keep the government open, Congress needs to approve an appropriations bill before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Congressional Republicans are likely to move forward with a continuing resolution that ignores Democratic priorities. But they need 60 votes in the Senate, and Senate Democrats will this time insist on concessions from Republicans.

To complicate matters further, President Trump has sent over a package of rescissions that would cut an additional $5 billion from international aid. Congress needs to vote that down by the end of the fiscal year to keep the cuts from going into effect—adding to the hundreds of billions of dollars of legally appropriated funding that Trump has held up, mostly on his own say-so.

It seems likely that we will suffer a government shutdown or two before the current confrontation is resolved.

The Circle of Protection released a letter to Congress Monday. Grounded in biblical teaching about the priority of people we need, we urged Congress to protect and perhaps increase funding for poor and low-income people. We also urged them to push back against Trump’s determination to override appropriations decisions that have been negotiated in Congress and passed into law. You will find the Circle of Protection's letter here.

The Circle coalition of church leaders chose to address the current confrontation at the level of basic principles, leaving it to our political leaders to negotiate the many specific aspects of this complicated confrontation.

But speaking for myself, I’m encouraged that the Democratic leaders of Congress (Schumer and Jeffries) announced this week that they will focus on a fix for a looming health-care provision of the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Without this fix, millions of low-wage and part-time workers will face drastically higher health care premiums in January. Four million more Americans are likely to end up without health insurance. Schumer and Jeffries are saying that they won’t deliver the Democratic votes that Republicans need to keep the government open without a fix for this problem. 

There’s likely to be a short-term continuing resolution at the end of this month, and I’m hoping that the Democrats will push for and win a short-term extension of Trump’s pending rescissions package. That would keep Trump’s disrespect for appropriations law and his attack on foreign aid on the table as Congress negotiates an agreement on a longer-term continuing resolution.