I greet you on behalf of the Christian people in the world today who are called �Methodists.� There are over 70 million persons who are under the care, guidance and ministry of Methodist and Wesleyan Churches around the world today whose spiritual roots can be traced back to John Wesley in England in the 18th century. Methodism was born from a movement which focused on prayer, the study of the Holy Bible, acts of mercy and service, and from a desire to live a life of holiness.

I would like to thank the Community of St. Egidio for the invitation to participate in this event and to make this presentation today. Nobody can organize an event like the Community of St Egidio can!

�Ridding the World of Violence�

When I was a young boy my history classes taught me that there were times in the history of the world when one part of the world had trouble protecting itself from another part of the world. So it was that at certain times in history one part of the world had to defend itself from being attacked by another part of the world.

Today it seems that the whole world can�t protect itself from the parts. We live in a world that is much smaller than it used to be, and is intricately more connected than it used to be, so much so that when something goes terribly wrong in one part of the world, the tremors and after-shocks are felt all around the world. All you have to do is look at what has happened after the events of September 11, 2001 to see this. You also see this in all that took place after the tsunami that had such a devastating impact in Indonesia and other areas of the world, in the effects of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, in the effects of earthquakes in Peru, and other places, and in the domino effect that takes place when stock markets are adversely affected by scandals, by greed, or by poor decisions on the part of businesses somewhere in the world.

In the wars that were fought on the earth which history refers to as �World Wars� there were nations that targeted other nations. Today it seems that the whole world is often on the verge of World War III, and if we don�t do something to control the production and dispersal of weapons designed to destroy masses of people, the whole planet may end up on an ash heap and be silenced by death.

If we do not begin to care for the earth and take seriously the impact that our lifestyles have on the environment, we will all end up being poisoned by the industrial pollutants we create each and every day, and we can only blame ourselves. We treat the environment like we do when we live in a hotel�we leave the mess for someone else to clean up!

And when there are gross economic and social inequalities such as exist today, when we do not all have an equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there will be unrest and upheaval.

If you want peace you must work for justice. Peace and justice are inseparably linked.

When will we ever learn from history?

Poverty:

One aspect of violence in today�s world that is controllable has to do with the detestable and unacceptable level of poverty that exists. I saw a sign posted on a wall in the London subway recently that said �POVERTY IS POLITICAL�. As I reflected on that sign I began to understand the truth in that slogan. Much of the poverty in the world today is a result of policies by governments which treat human beings unjustly and inequitably.

When we are serious about overcoming poverty in the world we will have achieved a giant step toward overcoming violence.

Nobody should ever have to resort to stealing in order to have food by which to live.

Nobody should ever have to resort to any illegal or immoral activity in order to have enough food to eat and safe water to drink.

Nobody should ever be taken advantage of or exploited in any way simply because they are poor.

We do not have a food shortage problem in the world in which we live, we have a food distribution problem.

My friends who work in hunger related ministries tell me that in my country, the United States, there is enough food wasted each and every day which could feed people who are going hungry.

Why is it that in some parts of God�s world we are encouraged to develop programs to tackle the problem of obesity, and in other parts of the same

world we bury men, women and children each and every day who die

simply because they don�t have enough to eat? What�s wrong with this picture?

Hungry people can become desperate people, and desperate people, as long as they have strength, are often driven to desperate measures simply to stay alive.

The 16th President of the United States was Abraham Lincoln. He was President during the Civil War in the United States, often referred to as the �War Between the States.� Abraham Lincoln said that a nation cannot long endure where it is half slave and half free. It is illogical then, to think that the world can endure where some are prosperous and most are miserable.

The fact that there is so much excess in many parts of the world, and so much poverty in many other parts of the world, ought to be an embarrassment and a concern to every religion and to every government.

Global Poverty can be eradicated if we have the mindset, the desire and the will to end it. The billions of dollars already spent on the war in Iraq, not to mention the dollars which are yet to be spent, could be better put to use to feed people who may not know where there next meal will come from, or who may not know even if they will have a next meal. One of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations is to eliminate extreme poverty in ten years, and eliminate global poverty in twenty years.

We have experienced apartheid, ethnic cleansing, caste systems, the false and arrogant assumption that one race is superior to another race, the ugliness of racism and the hatred and dislike among different groups within the same religion. Racism exists and too often raises its ugly head in places all around the world. Prejudice leads to discrimination and knows no national or geographical boundaries. We go to extreme measures to show ourselves different from or better than someone else, in order to justify our prejudices and our dislike for those who are not like us.

Whenever we de-humanize or demonize other persons it is as if we are giving ourselves permission to do violence to them. Violence and terror are equal opportunity visitors, for they visit all of our traditions and all of our religions.

As long as we emphasize our differences we will not see ourselves as being of one race, the human race. We tend to justify being brutal to another human being when we think of that other person as less than human. The shameful discovery of what took place to detainees in the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq was an embarrassment to the United States, and us shows what can happen when people are treated as something other than human beings.

And yet every religion recognizes some form of what Christians refer to as �The Golden Rule,� from the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: �Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.� What kind of world would we have if lived by this rule, if we treated each other this way? If we truly adopted �The Golden Rule� and honestly lived by it, all manner of evils would disappear, including violence.

Why is it that this teaching is not more prominent, more of a main teaching, more central, more pronounced in all of our faiths? If it is applied, it is done so selectively. It seems that we are more eager to strike someone on the other cheek than we are to treat someone else in the same manner in which we would like to be treated by them.

Another source of so much violence in the world today is what we see on television and in the movies. In my country we are quick to assess the blame on �Hollywood.� The movie producers in �Hollywood� are responsible for the violence on television and in the movies, we are quick to say. And �Hollywood� in reply says that they are only giving us what we want to see.

There is no doubt in my mind that violence begets violence. It is like what we say about our computers: �Garbage in, Garbage out!� When people are exposed to violence day after day after day, is it any wonder that when people find themselves under stress, they often react in violent ways because they are conditioned by what they see to respond in this way.

When I was in High School and College, the Vietnam War was at its peak. Every evening on the news television reporter named Walter Cronkite would tell us how many American soldiers were killed that day in Vietnam. He would then close the news and everyone would go off to do whatever they were doing and we became de-sensitized to the tragedy that was taking place.

In the same way we become de-sensitized to violence in our society because we see it, we watch it, we take it in, and then we accept it.

The Bible puts it this way: �Do not be deceived. A man reaps what he sows.� (Galatians 6:7)

Whatever you fill your mind with determines your character and your conduct.

It is shocking to hear the statistics that reveal the extent of the global pornography industry.

It is shocking to realize that children today are exposed to so much at such an early. It is difficult to speak about the �loss of innocence� in today�s children, for how can you loose something which you never had?

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Christian believers in the Church in Philippi, said this: �Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable � if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard form me, or seen in me � put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.� (Philippians 4:8)