Does Your Theology Talk about Hunger?

Yesterday as we started to think about poverty, hunger, and grief, we paused a moment to consider the social location where we start on this journey. Depending on our culture, our class, and our theological background, we look at texts like “Bless are those who are hungry” (Luke 6:21). Today we hear from one of the most prominent American theologians in the past 100 years as he points out some of the ways the dominant form to theology has approached these issues.

Because white theologians are well fed and speak for a people who control the means of production, the problem of hunger is not a theological issue for them. That is why they spend more time debating the relation between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith than probing the depths of Jesus’ command to feed the poor. Because white theologians were not enslaved and lynched and are not ghettoized because of color, they do not think that color is an important point of departure for theological discourse.

- James Cone, God of the Oppressed

So what do you think - is the problem of hunger something you think about with God, pray about, and work to alleviate? Why or why not?

As Jesus speaks dramatic, direct, and challenging words to us this week, ask for the grace to listen and to respond.