Be A Better World Neighbour

Ahead of the New Zealand General Election on 20 September, War Cry is publishing material from a Christchurch-based group of Christians suggesting a ‘Gospel Manifesto’. Experts will focus Christian voters on the teaching of Jesus and the local and global situation in which we live.

Priority 5: Be a Better World Neighbour

The story Jesus told of the Good Samaritan is one of the most widely recognised in the gospels. Helping a stranger in need is now happening across the planet in an effort to counteract a long history of poverty and exploitation, and to respond to the increasing frequency of natural disasters.

Another challenge from Jesus’ ministry is the sharing of bread and fish, which signals the gospel imperative to make sure that everyone has enough to eat. Less often remembered is the story of Jesus defending the woman caught in adultery, which is about Jesus advocating for justice.

Taking these stories to a global level, they become a paradigm for living together on planet earth: sharing with those in need, caring for and redistributing resources, and speaking out for tolerance and justice. The obligation to help our neighbours who experience earthquakes, typhoons and cyclones is a given. Providing food, water, shelter, medical care and education to people caught up in conflicts like Syria is urgent. Funding good development programmes that help people out of poverty and situations of violence is an imperative.

But New Zealand has done better in this area. The Official Development Assistance (ODA) or aid budget has dropped to 0.26% of Gross National Income from a recent 0.3% high in 2008. Funding that was used to eliminate poverty has been channelled to business interests under the guise of ‘sustainable economic development’. The most vulnerable people are missing out and are likely to lose the small livelihoods they eke out from home gardens, in-shore fishing or in-day labouring to large scale mechanised industry. Moving closer to the promised UN Millennium Project target of 0.7% for ODA could make a major difference if it was invested in people—842 million of whom go hungry each day.

Instead of foreign policy that is about outcomes for real people, the New Zealand Government is focused on trade policy. Keeping market access for New Zealand farm products is the priority—not a market in which all can participate. The New Zealand Government is vying for a seat on the United Nations Security Council saying it is fair-minded and focused on the future, but from a gospel perspective this is not true. To focus on a future where everybody has what they need to live, requires a different focus. In a world where inequalities are climbing, the damage and exploitation of the resources of the planet has reached life-threatening proportions, and where tensions within and between nations, religions and ethnic groups are rising, it is time to refocus our foreign policy.

The Scriptures speak repeatedly of an ethic where care for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, and often the prisoner, are the measure of justice. New Zealand needs to pick up the challenge of the post-2015 United Nations Agenda to make sure that no one is left behind.

By Pauline McKay

Pauline McKay is Director of Christian World Service.