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The financial crises and natural disasters that have afflicted the world in recent years might be expected to sour the dreams of anyone trying to raise the living standards of the world’s most needy people. But not the Revd Joel Edwards.
The International Director of Micah Challenge sees the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education – as achievable by their target date of 2015.
And even if some fail to meet the deadline, Mr Edwards says they will have helped change the world’s understanding, language and resolve about the gaps and awakened a consciousness that “we’re all in this together”.
Mr Edwards was in Australia recently to speak at three sessions at Bayside Church in Cheltenham and Frankston and to catch up with colleagues from Micah Challenge, including Mr Steve Bradbury, who chairs the international board of the global advocacy campaign mobilising Christians against poverty.
He acknowledged that the crises have had a negative impact on political will but at the same time, they have underscored the need for people to work together.
“I think to have set ourselves achievable targets which aim to assist the world’s poorest people was noble and right,” he said.
“I think it has also set a moral compass for us.
“I was in New York in September last year for a global summit on the MDGs and the overwhelming attitude and response was that it’s within our capabilities to achieve the MDGs”.
Mr Edwards said it would cost $220 billion annually to meet the goals.
“That is not an inconceivable sum. There is a lot of optimism about our ability to stay the course.”
Mr Edwards recalled talking to then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2009 on the day the Government announced its response to the Global Financial Crisis and being in a Zambian outpost, talking to health workers at a World Vision project. In both instances, he said, “the language of the MDGs was natural language to use”.
“I think in relation to the MDGs, the thing we have to keep remembering about the UN is that the performance of the MDGs is not the UN’s responsibility. It’s the world’s responsibility. The UN provides a very helpful forum in which accountability is measured and in which we are reminded of our commitment.”
Mr Edwards was born in Kingston, Jamaica, but left when he was eight and has lived in London ever since.
Married with two adult children, he worked as a probation officer and a Pentecostal pastor before being named General Director of the Evangelical Alliance UK – the first black person and the first Pentecostal to occupy the post in the alliance’s 150-year history.
“That was quite a statement for diversity,” he said.
Although he remains a member of the Assemblies of God, the Bishop of London appointed him an honorary canon of St Paul’s Cathedral about 10 years ago, along with other Christians from beyond the Church of England fold.
Mr Edwards has taken his faith and social commitment into the public square, as a member of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Prison Service Race Steering Group, the Faith and Government Liaison Steering Group of the Home Office, Britain’s National Policing Forum and as Home Office Independent Adviser to the Metropolitan Police.
He has been a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and was appointed Chair of the Churches Media Council in 2006.
Mr Edwards is also an advisory member of Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation. Asked about the former British Prime Minister, he admits being puzzled by the man of faith and political conviction he has seen and Mr Blair’s public image.
“For many people, the problem with Blair is a problem of Iraq, more than anything else,” he said.
“There is a puzzle there in Mr Blair’s response to Iraq which I can never fathom. I have never heard him or understood him to say that God told him to do it.”
In a blog from Indonesia just before he arrived in Australia, Mr Edwards made it clear that his social commitment sprang from, and was wholly consistent with, evangelical faith.
“People who think that evangelicals are nothing more than irrelevant fire and brimstone merchants who hate gays and women who have abortions should apply for fly-on-the-wall status at a World Evangelical Alliance leadership meeting,” he wrote. “… Sure enough, we started with the Bible and prayer… But there was nothing other-worldly about the discussions: they ranged from training people for missions to social transformation, trafficking, human rights, religious liberty, nuclear weapons, peace and reconciliation, extreme poverty and human flourishing.
“These were reflections on what evangelicals are doing across 190 nations through hard nose diplomacy and involvement in Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, the South Pacific and Europe… It has a lot to do with the 600 million evangelicals who make up this movement. Some of them are from the wealthy West but most face down poverty, and oppression on a daily basis.
“But most all of this is happening because the people I sat with today actually believe that God really does love people. And they also know that ‘evangelical’ means ‘good news’.”