Almost all the major church agencies that have been providing aid to the millions left without shelter are now working with the Gujarat state government to provide “total rehabilitation” to villages.

Although government officials say 30,000 died in the disaster, independent studies and social activists say the figure of 100,000 is a much more accurate estimate of the toll in the earthquake, which measured 8.1 on the Richter scale. The disaster struck Gujarat, home state of Mahatma Gandhi, on January 26, India’s Republic Day.

Edwin Ramathal, director of the Indian branch of Lutheran World Service (LWS), said LWS India, along with Action by Churches Together (ACT), was “busy building 2,000 temporary shelters in nine villages.”

“We are planning to adopt four [of the nine] villages and build [a total of] 700 houses [in them],” Ramathal said. LWS India would then meet the villagers’ essential needs, from housing and basic infrastructure to health centers and schools, he said.

The village adoptions come on the heels of emergency relief efforts in which LWS India provided 21,000 families in 49 villages with equipment to set up temporary shelters—plastic sheeting, tarpaulin, tents, lanterns, bedsheets and blankets.

Likewise, after distributing food and relief materials worth 60 million rupees (US$1.3 million) to 40,000 families over two months, Caritas India, a Catholic agency, is building 9,000 temporary shelters for homeless villagers in Gujarat. The temporary shelters cost about US$1.7 million.

Caritas India plans to adopt 10 villages and build 3000 permanent houses for the inhabitants.

Christian denominations across India have urged their members to help the people of Gujarat. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, based in the state of Kerala in southern India, has already collected almost 10 million rupees (US$200,000) from church members for the church’s relief work in Gujarat.

“We hope to double the collection in the coming months and adopt a village for total rehabilitation,” said Bishop Geevarghese mar Coorilos of the Bombay diocese, who has been coordinating the church’s relief work.

In a circular sent to its 29 member churches and partner agencies on April 5, the National Council of Churches in India explained that some of its churches had raised funds for relief efforts but “intend to pursue rehabilitation work on their own because they want more visibility of the church’s presence in the rehabilitation area.”

Church charities such as the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI) have launched intensive training programs to prepare church and Christian aid workers “to be listeners to people in need.” Vijay Aruldas, CMAI’s general secretary, said almost 300 volunteers had joined the initial medical relief effort, which included 20 hospitals and CMAI member institutions.

With medical relief “no longer an emergency,” the CMAI was now carrying out a series of programs to teach church workers techniques for carrying out “psycho-social intervention” among quake victims, Aruldas said.

But Gujarat’s inhabitants are in desperate need of more help.

“Whatever we are doing is not enough,” said Bishop Vinod Malaviya of the Church of North India diocese of Gujarat. “The people are still struggling as the government relief has not been satisfactory.”

A forum of homeless people in Kutch, the worst-affected area of Gujarat, has expressed anger over the “rehabilitation package” announced by the Gujarat state government last week. Some members of the forum have decided “to shed blood” to express their anger at the government’s rehabilitation package.

“Members and supporters of a forum called ‘Group 2001’ have decided to send 2001 letters written in blood to the President of India, telling him of the injustice done to them in the rehabilitation package announced last week,” The Hindustan Times, an English-language daily newspaper, reported.

The protesters would also undertake a “long march” to the national capital where they would hold a demonstration before the President’s office.

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Related Elsewhere

The Economic Times also reports on the struggle for funds in earthquake relief.

The Times of India examines the withdraw of 100 non-governmental organizations out of 347 villages hit by the quake despite commitments to rehabilitation.

Time.com’s photo essay “India Shaken to the Core” depicts the January earthquake..

The Christian Medical Association of India’s Web site includes a page on CMAI’s response to the Gujarat quake.

The Church World Service site has established an India Earthquake Response Index.

Yahoo! India has continuing news and resources about the Gujarat quake.

Recent Christianity Today articles on the India earthquake include:

Christians Help Overlooked Villages | Many Christian agencies are still doing earthquake relief among India’s poorest victims. (April 5, 2001)

India Relief Abuses Rampant | Radical Hindus hijack supplies in quake intervention. (Mar. 20, 2001)

India’s Christians Face Continued Threats | We must preach what we believe in spite of Hindu pressure, says Operation Mobilization India leader. (Feb. 15, 2001)

India’s Quake Survivors Need Counseling | Earthquake survivors are desperate for more than material aid, Indian bishop warns. (Feb. 9, 2001)

Quake Rocks Hindu Hotbed | Agencies appeal for funds to aid victims. (Feb. 8, 2001)

Politician Who Saw God’s Hand in Gujarat Quake Forced to Resign | Civil aviation minister had told Christians that quake was God’s judgment against persecution of Christians. (Feb. 5, 2001)

Father Mathai Nooranal’s electoral campaign annoyed some Christians because he had the support of the state’s Communist-led ruling coalition in the election held on May 10. The coalition lost the election.

The priest stood as an “independent” candidate in the constituency of Sultan Bathery in north Kerala, supported by the Communist-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).

Nooranal, who is well known in the region for his social service, gained 45,000 votes, compared to 68,000 votes for N. D. Appachan, a Catholic layman and Congress party leader.

Appachan had been nominated by the opposition United Democratic Front, led by the Congress party. The UDF won 100 seats in Kerala’s legislative assembly, while the Communist coalition won only 40, the worst result in Kerala’s history. It had 80 seats in the outgoing assembly. Commentators attributed the poor showing to a strong reaction against the incumbent state government.

With a population of 32 million people, almost 20 percent of them Christian, Kerala is divided into 140 constituencies. Christians, 10,000 of them Orthodox, account for more than a third of the 150,000 eligible voters in the Bathery constituency.

“I accept the verdict. People have given their mandate,” Nooranal said at his residence at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Bathery where he has been vicar since 1951.

A senior Catholic priest in Bathery, who asked not to be named, said Nooranal’s defeat showed that “the people do not want priests to enter politics.” He added that the “atheist” support for Nooranal had been “strongly disapproved by the people. It seems even Orthodox Christians have not voted for him.”

Nooranal is one of three trustees of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, which has up to two million members in India. His church supported his election bid. But soon after the Communist leaders announced their support for Nooranal late March, a lay group within his church, the Malankara Orthodox Almaya Association, organized a press conference to condemn his election bid.

However, Nooranal said the association “had no influence” in Bathery or in his defeat.

A spokesperson for the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, declined to comment on Nooranal’s defeat.

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Related Elsewhere

The Times of India followed up post-election with a run-down of results.

Christianity Today first covered Nooranal’s candidacy in April.

Recent Christianity Today articles on India include:

Churches Adopt Entire Villages in Devastated Gujarat to Help the Homeless | Charities aim to meet basic needs after January’s western India earthquake (June 7, 2001)

Militants Blamed for Death of Three Missionaries in India | 5,000 attend funeral, Catholic schools close in mourning (June 7, 2001)

Despite Tensions, Indian Churches Agree to Talks With Hindu Groups | Mainline churches will join talks, but other Christians say “partisan” meeting is dangerous. (Apr. 11, 2001)

Christians Help Overlooked Villages | Many Christian agencies are still doing earthquake relief among India’s poorest victims. (Apr. 5, 2001)

In Southern India, Orthodox Priest Has Communist Support in State Election | Popular priest says he’s independent despite strange bedfellows, but many Christians are wary. (Apr. 4, 2001)

Christians Call for India’s Prime Minister and Government to Resign in Wake of Scandal | Web site releases tapes of party president taking bribes from men posing as arms dealers. (Mar. 22, 2001)

India Relief Abuses Rampant | Radical Hindus hijack supplies in quake intervention. (Mar. 20, 2001)

In Orissa, You Must Ask the Government If You Want to Change Religion | Christian church leaders say they’re trying to ignore the controversial law, but police aren’t doing the same. (Mar. 12, 2001)

New Delhi Conference Condemns ‘Immense Suffering’ in Caste System | National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights plans to appeal to United Nations. (Mar. 9, 2001)

Weblog: Take Up Arms Against Missionaries, Says Hindu Leader | Clouds darkening over India (Mar. 6, 2001)

Churches Angry that Indian Census Ignores 14 Million Christian Dalits | Only Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist members of “untouchable” caste being counted. (Mar. 2, 2001)

Churches Have Not Worked to End Dowry Practice | India’s women are seen as less valuable than men in a society that supports bride burnings and “suicide.” (Feb. 20, 2001)

India’s Christians Face Continued Threats | We must preach what we believe in spite of Hindu pressure, says Operation Mobilization India leader. (Feb. 15, 2001)

India’s Quake Survivors Need Counseling | Earthquake survivors are desperate for more than material aid, Indian bishop warns. (Feb. 9, 2001)

Quake Rocks Hindu Hotbed | Agencies appeal for funds to aid victims. (Feb. 8, 2001)

Politician Who Saw God’s Hand in Gujarat Quake Forced to Resign | Civil aviation minister had told Christians that quake was God’s judgment against persecution of Christians. (Feb. 5, 2001)

Militant Hindus Assault Christians | Persecution of religious minorities stirs Christian outrage against government inaction. (Jan. 31, 2001)

Due to a poor harvest in late 2000, North Korea was facing a 1.8 million ton food shortfall—its worst since 1997, said Erich Weingartner, former liaison officer of the United Nations World Food Program in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Weingartner said that while conditions might not yet be as grave as they were in the 1990s, when as many as a million people died, North Korea is now facing an aid crisis comparable to that in Bangladesh, where chronic food shortages were seen as an intractable problem.

“To the rest of the world, a humanitarian crisis like this does not seem to have a resolution,” Weingartner said after a May 15 forum at New York’s Interchurch Center.

On May 16, The Washington Post reported that North Koreans faced a “bleak spring” and were “once again eating leaves and roots to survive.”

David Morton, the United Nations coordinator in Pyongyang, told the newspaper that authorities were urging citizens to begin producing “alternative foods” such as ground corn and cabbage stalks, roots, acorns, edible grasses and leaves.

“The food situation is still very critical,” said Weingartner, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and a former official of the World Council of Churches. More recently Weingartner has served as an intermediary between the Canadian and North Korean governments as they improve official relations.

Weingartner said the problem facing North Korea was not merely the food shortage, which worsened in the 1990s as a series of droughts and floods led to crop failures. The nation was also plagued by poor medical conditions and antiquated infrastructure.

“Dying from starvation is often indistinguishable from dying of disease,” Weingartner said. Long-term aid would have to include a range of services, including medical assistance, fertilizers and technology to help improve the nation’s water supply.

Weingartner lauded the widening of relations between North Korea and its Asian neighbors and others, especially in light of North Korea’s increasing dependence on other countries for food. He praised churches from Canada, the United States and Europe for helping to “open doors” between North Korea and the outside world.

“Churches have been way ahead of others” on this issue, he said. “But we [in the churches] need to give the ball a bit more of a push.”

International attention has focused on North Korea’s steadily improving relations with the rest of the world, particularly with South Korea, its neighbor and adversary since the Korean War of the early 1950s. Attentions has also been directed at its shaky relations with the United States, which has condemned North Korea for—among other things—the manufacture and sale of missiles to Middle East countries.

The Bush administration, which has been reviewing its foreign policy towards North Korea, has indicated it will provide the nation with 100,000 ton of food at the request of the World Food Program.

Weingartner said there were some reformed-minded officials in North Korea, a nation of 22 million with a government often described as the last Stalinist regime on the planet.

“They know they need trade, investment and inputs, and that conditions won’t change if things remain the same,” he said. But, he added, there was still great reluctance to openly embrace assistance for fear that they may have to give up some control.

Re-focusing international attention on a long-standing emergency like North Korea’s shortages was not easy, Weingartner said. One persistent difficulty was obtaining reliable numbers of those who had died from famine and related problems since the mid-1990s. The North Koreans put the figure at 250,000, while UN and relief organizations said the figure was between 500,000 and 1 million.

Weingartner predicted the numbers would rise again with Korea’s latest food shortages. “We just don’t know by how much,” he said.

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Related Elsewhere

The Washington Post May 16 article on the country’s food crisis reported that International donors feed at least one-third of North Korea’s 22 million people. Later that month, The Washington Post reported on the country’s increasing persecution of Christians.

For more articles and resources, see Yahoo’s full coverage area on the North Korea.

Previous Christianity Today articles on North Korea include:

South Koreans Help Neighbors (Aug. 9, 1999)

Famine Toll Exceeds 1 Million (Oct. 5, 1998)

Editorial: North Korea’s Hidden Famine | The poor and the weak should not have to starve due to the policies of their government. (May 19, 1997)

Evangelicals Plead for Korean Aid (April 7, 1997)

Published as political parties draw up their policies for next year’s general elections, the letter called on politicians to do more to ease the debt of developing nations to enable them to fund basic social services such as education and health care.

Although commending the Dutch government administration for its “active policy with regard to easing the debt burden of the poorest countries,” the inter-church body argued that “more is possible.”

The council is the nation’s biggest ecumenical organization, with a membership of 17 churches, including Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

The letter, signed earlier this month by the council’s general secretary, Ineke Bakker, addressed a range of other social concerns, including a new law on foreigners. The council called for access to basic social services for asylum-seekers.

The council also asked political parties to address issues such as homelessness, global economics and ecology, saying that the “unfettered self-enrichment” in some parts of society was undermining the country’s social cohesion.

“It cannot be that, in the opposition between economic and ecological interests, the latter continually loses out,” the letter stated. “Values such as justice, solidarity and protection of the weakest are, according to Christian tradition, of great importance for the quality of society.”

The council’s letter coincides with a national debate about the churches’ role in politics. In a newspaper interview in early March, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in The Netherlands, Cardinal Adrian Simonis of Utrecht, claimed that the Dutch government regarded the church as a “non-entity.”

The cardinal complained that “belief and the church no longer have any public significance for the government. The government merely sees citizens as individuals, no matter whether they believe or not.”

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Related Elsewhere

Earlier Christianity Today articles on debt relief include:

How to Spell Debt Relief | The Jubilee movement convinced the world to write down the debt of impoverished nations, but the strings attached provoke fresh debate on economic justice. (May 23, 2001)

Private Debt: The Final Frontier | Broadening relief to include middle-income countries with private bank debt would be tricky (May 23, 2001)

Ecumenical Leader Condemns Injustice of International Credit System | General secretary of the World Council of Churches complains that creditor nations get to dictate how to manage debt crisis. (Mar. 20, 2001)

Jubilee 2000 Will Disband as Planned, But Its Work Will Continue | “The world will never be the same again.” (Dec. 11, 2000)

Grassroots Activism Delivers Debt Relief | The Jubilee 2000 success is evidence that everyday people can make a difference. (Nov. 28, 2000)

Crushing Debt | Third World debt is as vicious as the slave trade. (June 8, 2000)

Debt Cancellation a Question of ‘Justice’, Kenya’s Anglican Archbishop Tells Japan | Tokyo skeptical toward Jubilee 2000 message (April 19, 2000)

Poor Nations Get Debt Relief | After Congress passes Jubilee 2000 legislation, campaign rolls onward. (Jan. 4, 2000)

Churches Seek Debt Cancellation | (Oct. 5, 1998)

Previous Christianity Today articles on the Netherlands include:

Churches Divided Over Amsterdam’s Same-Sex Weddings | Council of Churches in The Netherlands claims no official position on the marriages. (April 10, 2001)

After Much Debate, Dutch Churches Welcome Royal Engagement | Crown prince will wed daughter of leading official in Argentina’s military junta. (Apr. 10, 2001)

Foot-and-Mouth Reveals ‘Helplessness’ of Humans, Say Dutch Churches | Uniting Protestant Churches back vaccination, but at least one Dutch Reformed clergyman sees God’s judgment in outbreak. (Apr. 4, 2001)

Dutch Cardinal Says the Church Is Being Sidelined by the Government | Head of Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands says prime minister refuses to meet with him.(March 21, 2001)

Dutch Churches in Last-Ditch Effort to Stop Euthanasia Law | More than 50 religious and social organizations send petition to The Hague, hoping to defeat final vote. (Mar. 21, 2001)

At one of the first planning meetings for Books & Culture, in 1994, someone cited as a model of intellectual engagement the fierce exchanges of letters that are sometimes to be found in the pages of the New York Review of Books. Another participant in the meeting strongly disagreed, suggesting that such exchanges serve largely to draw attention to the inflated egos of the writers.

No doubt that is often the case, but nevertheless we badly need more sustained debate. The notion that there is something fundamentally unedifying about such give-and-take is unsupportable. Of course disagreement can easily degenerate into personal attacks and petty quarrels, but without genuine engagement we have no solid basis for choosing between conflicting claims.

—John Wilson, editor, Books & Culture

* * *

George Grant’s response to my piece in CT, available on his Web site, is embarrassing for the reader if not for the writer. In it he makes several basic errors, suggesting (for instance) that the now massive skin trade in the Philippines which grew alongside the U.S. military presence in that country has no historical connection to the occupation of the Philippines by the U.S. military in the early twentieth century.

The way that Mr. Grant’s political biases dictate how he writes history is also evident in his comments on William Jennings Bryan, purveyor of a “fantastic witch’s brew of political socialism, cultural radicalism, and dispensational fundamentalism.” It is Mr. Grant’s prerogative to dislike Bryan but it is odd that he should so glibly—and inaccurately—attack a historical figure who, everyone agrees, was a committed Christian, even if of a variety unpalatable to Mr. Grant.

Instead, Mr. Grant apparently wants us to believe that Theodore Roosevelt was a devout orthodox Christian. In my Anglo-Catholic church we pray each week for people whose faith is known to God alone, so I am not in a position finally to say whether Roosevelt was a believer or not. As far as the public record goes, however, Roosevelt provided little evidence that he was a committed orthodox Christian.

Roosevelt grew up a Unitarian; he was a hardcore social Darwinist until the last years of his life (thus his lust for the U.S. acquiring unquestioned power in the western hemisphere and a balance of power in Asia); and, as was common at the time, he was given to exploiting the Bible to nationalistic ends. Mr. Grant’s own book proves the latter point: as evidence for Roosevelt’s supposed devotion to the Good Book, Mr. Grant depicts Roosevelt ransacking the Bible for support of manifest destiny. (I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on late nineteenth-century Canadian nationalists’ use of the Bible and I know that this sort of thing was common among English-speaking politicians and imperialists.)

As Grant suggests, there’s no doubt that Roosevelt knew the Bible well. But given the historical context in which Roosevelt lived, that doesn’t mean very much. The Bible was a common source of allusions and figures of speech. Scratch the rhetoric and what you’ll usually find is Scripture being employed to further manifestly political ends. (I invite readers to see my exceedingly dull article, “The Bible and Protestant British North American Identity in the Early 1860s” in the American Review of Canadian Studies [winter 1999].)

Yes, Roosevelt paid the usual presidential respects to Christianity, but I don’t recall that he showed much explicit personal devotion to it. Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, seemed to possess a personal devotion to Christian faith and to the Scriptures but, predictably, that Democrat is panned (albeit briefly) in Mr. Grant’s book.

I hasten to say that I happen to be a fan of Teddy Roosevelt’s. He is an extraordinary figure. But his actions, like everyone’s, had consequences—some good, some bad. I think that charity requires that the whole man be taken into account; and, in any event, hagiography informed by ignorance is pernicious.

Let me also say that I am willing to be corrected in this matter. But I certainly hope to see more than a list of Roosevelt’s theologically empty biblical allusions and references to his cordial and thoroughly mundane nods in the direction of the West’s Christian heritage.

Preston Jones is contributing editor for Books & Culture.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Last week’s Books & Culture Corner outlining the battle between Jones’s “How to Serve Time” and Grant’s “Evangelically-Correct History” is available online, as are Jones’s and Grant’s articles.

Grant’s Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Theodore Roosevelt is available from ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

Christianity Today recently published an article about Christian recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize and unsung Christian peacemakers. Roosevelt was not listed among those “explicitly influenced by Christian principles.”

“I speak as one proud of his Holland, Huguenot, and Covenanting ancestors, and proud that the blood of that stark Puritan divine Jonathan Edwards flows in the veins of his children,” Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography.

Both the Web sites of Christianity Today and Books & Culture have areas on history and historiography. (And then of course, there’s our sister publication Christian History.)

Other articles by Preston Jones for Christianity Today and our sister publication Books & Culture include:

The Last Frontier? | “‘If you see a moose, make sure you don’t get between it and its calf.’ This postprandial advice was offered to me by my mother-in-law, who knows something about moose … ” (B&C, Jul/Aug 2000)

Aliens, A-Bombs, and Mastodons | Travels in Nevada and Colorado (B&C, Jan/Feb 2000)

California Haze | A review of Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future, An Empire Wilderness: Travels Into America’s Future, and Eyewitness To the American West (B&C, Sept/Oct 1999)

Lord of the Pets (B&C, Sept/Oct 1998)

My Farrakhan Obsession (B&C, Mar/Apr. 1998)

A Canadian with an Attitude | A profile of Canadian evangelicals that contrasts them with their counterparts in the American South. (CT, Apr. 7, 1997)

Books & Culture Corner appears Mondays at ChristianityToday.com. Earlier Books & Culture Corners include:

History Bully | Christian scholars speak not-so-softly over a big sticking point: Theodore Roosevelt’s faith. (June 4, 2001)

‘Taken Up in Glory’ | The Ascension has been forgotten in many Protestant churches, jettisoning an essential part of the Christian story. (May 21, 2001)

Who Won? Who Cares? | Skip the latest ballot reviews and read Italo Calvino’s brilliant election novella “The Watcher.” (May 14, 2001)

Infamy Indeed | John Gregory Dunne suggests imperialistic Americans got what they deserved at Pearl Harbor. (May 7, 2001)

Rantings of a Not-So-Primly Dressed Person With Too Much Time | The Chronicle of Higher Education infuses some not-so-subtle bigotry into its fetal-tissue research coverage. (Apr. 30, 2001)

Big Numbers, Big Problems | Christianity is in the midst of a massive global shift. But how much of a difference is it making in its new homelands? (Apr. 16, 2001)

DiIulio Keeps Explaining, But Is Anyone Listening? | At a media luncheon in Washington about Bush’s faith-based initiatives, answered questions get asked one more time. (Apr. 9, 2001)

Public-izing Faith | Recent articles in Touchstone, Commonweal, and The New York Times serve as reminders that faith is not merely “a private thing.” (Apr. 2, 2001)

How Can I Keep From Singing? | Arne Bergstrom has looked suffering square in the eye all over the world. Now he sings about hope. (Mar. 26, 2001)

To Poland, for an Evening | Once in a great while, a film like Kieslowski’s The Decalogue discovers how to transport an audience. (Mar. 19, 2001)

Examining Peacocke’s Plumage | The winner of the 2001 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion rejects everything resembling Christian orthodoxy, but that doesn’t stop him from co-opting the language. (Mar. 12, 2001)

Are Scientists Taking Orders from Pat Robertson? | A Salon.com essay accuses the Intelligent Design movement of being primarily an arm of “conservative Republicans” and the “religious right.” (Mar. 5, 2001)