Religious Reforms to Help Revive Progress Against Poverty

Artwork: RG Stephenson

During the decades I served as president of Bread for the World, I helped organize Christians to urge Congress to contribute to the dramatic progress against world hunger that was underway.  Poverty is now increasing here in the U.S  and around the world. This reversal is largely due to the Trump administration—deep cuts in programs that help poor people at home and abroad, mass deportation, and policies on civil rights, voting rights, taxes, tariffs, and war. 

To restore progress against poverty, we need to take action now—activism in this fall’s elections, demonstrations and legal work to protect democracy, and legislative advocacy. But we also need to cultivate long-term changes in American culture and religion. MAGA’s political success is partly rooted in American religion. More than 50 percent of white Christians voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Even among progressive Americans, poverty is not the most popular political issue.

Since I retired from Bread for the World, I’ve been thinking broadly about God and the politics of poverty. I’ve found sociological studies and survey data on religion and politics especially helpful. I’ve come to three somewhat surprising data-informed recommendations for reforms in American religion and spirituality that would make us a more generous nation.

Nobody decides what they believe about God or what religious practices to pursue on the basis of survey data alone. But evidence about practices and beliefs associated with commitment to economic justice is instructive, especially if you believe that help and opportunity for people in poverty is important to God or simply the right thing to do. My most important sources have been the Pew Research Center, Ryan Burge (Washington University in St. Louis), and Paul Froese (Baylor University).  

Recommendations to shape a more generous nation

(1) Participate in a loving, justice-oriented religious community.

A study by the Pew Research Center in 2019 demonstrated that people who participate in a religious community tend to be happier, more charitable, and civically engaged. Recent data suggests that the decline of religious affiliation of recent decades has plateaued.  

But there are risks as well as benefits in going to church. Many churches and churchgoers favor charity, but oppose government policies that are crucial to progress against poverty. Some churches and churchgoers have come to support MAGA’s white nationalist brand of Christianity. So it’s important to select a loving, justice-oriented religious community.

(2)  Educated faith tends to be more progressive

Paul Froese and his colleagues at the Baylor Center for Studies of Religion spent years gathering and studying data on the connection between how Americans experience God and where people stand on public policy. They started with hundreds of one-on-one interviews, which led them to categorize Americans based on two variables: the extent to which we believe that God is engaged or remote from the world, and the extent to which we imagine God as stern or forgiving. Froese and Christopher Bader reported on this work in a book entitled America's Four Gods. 

Data from a series of Baylor surveys showed that people who feel that God is actively intervening in their lives and the world are less inclined to support economic justice policies than people who think that God respects the laws of nature. This second group trusts science, and their faith often includes an element of doubt. Thus, they are more inclined to work for social change rather than waiting for God’s kingdom to come without much help from us. Notably, atheists are more supportive of both science and economic justice than any other category of people in American religious life.   

These findings suggest two lines of action related to the politics of poverty. First, we should cultivate educated faith and education in general. Churches need to teach about both the Bible and the Big Bang, and we need to protect public schools and universities from political attack.  Second, it makes sense for progressive religious people to work together with religiously unaffiliated people to shape a better world. Christians won’t be able to build the political will we need to revive progress against poverty by ourselves.

(3) Cultivate faith in God’s forgiving love.

Among Americans who believe in God or believe there might be a God, half think that God is like a stern father who strictly enforces his rules. Those of us who experience God as more forgiving or permissive than judgmental are more inclined to support progressive policies such as funding for food stamps and foreign aid. 

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, argued that the political polarization of our country is based, in part, on two types of morality. One is grounded in traditional authority and rules. The other responds to people’s needs. For example, rules-based morality defends the traditional roles of men and women. People-focused morality responds to what we’ve learned about the variety in sexual orientations.

The Bible says a lot about God’s forgiveness. In the Hebrew scriptures, sin has consequences, but the Lord forgives Israel and Judah over and over again. In the New Testament, the apostles preach Jesus’ resurrection as an opportunity for people to be forgiven for their sins and live in the Spirit. St. Paul’s epistles stress salvation by God’s grace and freedom from religious law.

In contemporary America, Evangelicals are especially likely to experience God as judgmental and uphold traditional morality. But many people in other religious traditions report similar ideas.

If more people come to believe in God’s forgiving love, our government’s policies would likely become more generous. 

Religious change is long-term work, but foundational for us both as individuals and as a nation.

Speaking Events Between Now and the Elections

Photo Bread for the World

With the midterm elections approaching, the topics in Poverty Abolitionists are especially urgent now. I’m scheduled to speak at a series of events around the country, and I’m stressing what we can do to influence elections and protect democracy.  

I’m speaking on Thursday, September 17, at the Episcopal cathedral in Portland, Maine.  Several local leaders will be on the program with me. Two of Maine’s races for Congress are competitive —one of Maine’s seats in the Senate and one in the House. The program is free and open to the public. It starts at 6:30 pm.

On September 28, I’ll be speaking to the annual meeting of the National Head Start Association. More than 600 Head Start parents, teachers, and staff are coming to Washington to learn and lobby Congress. I’ll celebrate their legislative advocacy and urge them to be active in the upcoming elections too. I’ll also discuss President Trump’s ongoing interference in this election, what he and his allies might do after the voting is over, and ways we can prepare to defend our democracy.

On September 30, I’ll join a Zoom call with a book study group at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska—organized by a high school friend.

I’ll fly to Orlando, Florida, in the first days of October. I’ve been invited to speak to 500 pastors from across the country at the annual meeting of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NALEC). Evangelical Latinos include both conservative and progressive people. I’ll talk about current policy setbacks for people in poverty, including brutal immigration policies and deep cuts in health and food assistance. This conference will also be a good opportunity for me to brush up on my Spanish.

This year’s G20 Interfaith Forum meets October 15-16. Faith leaders from around the world and different religions gather each fall to discuss the issues that heads of state will consider—or should consider—at that year’s Group of 20 summit. I’ve spoken at the last two meetings of the G20 Interfaith Forum in Brasilia and Cape Town. This year President Trump is chairing the G20 Summit (at Mar a Lago). The Interfaith Forum will gather in Salt Lake City, and I’ve been asked to speak again. These forums inform faith-based advocacy around the world and sometimes what happens at the G20 Summit

Latter-day Saints have played a leadership role in these forums for many years, and I expect a crowd of Latter-day Saints (including lots of students) at this year’s Forum. Their church is now playing a stronger role in humanitarian assistance, and there seems to be growing interest among their leadership in advocacy for people in need. Our Forum will be in the news in Utah two weeks before the midterm elections. 

I’ll fly from Salt Lake City to Des Moines for the World Food Prize Foundation’s annual Borlaug Forum. It also brings people from around the world together, mainly people involved in agriculture and food security issues. After decades of celebrating reductions in world hunger, the theme of this year’s Borlaug Forum is “Before Hunger Wins.”

I’ve been invited to be a main stage speaker at the Borlaug Forum, too. I intend to help make the case that world hunger is probably on the increase in 2026, and that people who care about food security and agriculture —in Iowa and all around the world —need to double down on efforts to restore political will on hunger issues. Iowa is a swing state in this year’s elections, with competitive races for governor, senator, and three of their four representatives in the House.

I expect President Trump, his administration, and his allies to interfere in this year’s elections, at some polling places and in the certification process. If so, November and December will still be intense. Organizations that are designed to protect democracy will be calling on the courts to act and convening demonstrations to curtail abuse.

I’ll be a speaker at the annual meeting of the Alliance to End Hunger on November 5. It will be an opportunity to gather information and develop strategies to defend the choices that voters will have made. Church leaders in the Circle of Protection from the church bodies and organizations will meet on November 9.

New Data on Food Security and Nutrition Worldwide

(graphic: R Stephenson)

Every year the United Nations, led by the Food and Agriculture Organization, puts together a fact-packed report titled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI). I am focused on all the things that the current U.S. administration is doing to make life harder for hungry people, so I came to this year’s U.N. report looking to see if the harm it is doing is showing up in the data yet.  

The latest numbers in the report are for 2025, and they still show a bit of progress against undernourishment. FAO has been tracking the prevalence of undernourishment for more than 50 years. An estimated 7.8 percent of the world’s people (645 million people) were undernourished in 2025, higher than the estimated 7.5 percent for 2019 before the pandemic, but slightly lower than 8.1 percent in 2024. 

We aren’t seeing the negative effects of Trump’s policies in this data, partly because some of the policies he announced in 2025 will go into effect over a period of years. Also, while the United States has global impact, changes in U.S. policy may have relatively little effect on the livelihoods of people in countries or regions with relatively weak connections to the United States. 

Undernourishment is probably increasing in 2026. The U.N. report stresses “enormous uncertainty” in the current year. It highlights three threats to global food security, all of them due in part to the current administration: conflict in the Middle East, increasing weather extremes, and reductions in international humanitarian and development assistance. 

This year’s SOFI calls particular attention to parts of the world where hunger is prevalent and severe: Africa and a cluster of countries suffering from widespread acute hunger.

• The percentage of Africa’s people who are undernourished is now much higher than in any other region. As of 2025, 20 percent of Africans are undernourished, compared to 6 percent in Asia and 4.8 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

• The most distressing aspect of this report is what it says about the increasing prevalence of acute food insecurity in the world. The United Nations has developed a new methodology and a separate annual report on acute food insecurity titled The Global Report on Food Crises. The traditional indicator of hunger, undernourishment, measures chronic food insecurity—people who don’t get enough calories to be healthy and productive. The indicator of acute food insecurity measures severe hunger that threatens lives or livelihoods. It was designed to guide international humanitarian action, and it divides countries into five phases of increasing urgency. 

As of 2025, 266 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, sharply up from a decade ago. Of these 266 million people, 39 million were in Phase 4 (Emergency) and 1.4 million in Phase 5 (Catastrophe). The five countries with the largest numbers of people facing high levels of acute food security were, in descending order, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. The countries and territories with the largest share of the population facing high levels of acute food insecurity were Gaza, South Sudan, Yemen, Sudan, and Haiti.

The United Nations has declared famine in parts of  Gaza and Sudan. Official declarations of famine are exceedingly rare, and the situation in Gaza is exceedingly grim. Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the famine that has followed have been way out of proportion to Hamas’ terrorist attack in 2023. A delegation from Trump’s Board of Peace has just returned from Israel. But a peace agreement seems unlikely until our government insists that Israel’s government show more compassion in their dealings with Gaza.