Want to eradicate poverty? Here's one place to start

Christians must choose to live more simply and take personal responsibility for change if we are to eradicate poverty, a new Tearfund campaign says.

'Ordinary Heroes' encourages Christians to make simple lifestyle choices to better the position of the most vulnerable. At the campaign launch last night, the Bishop of London Richard Chartres said that there are important questions we must ask about the way in which we are pursuing development at the expense of the world's poor.

"This is in many ways a golden age in which huge numbers of people have been lifted out of extreme poverty," Bishop Chartres said. The Restorative Economy discussion paper, published by Tearfund yesterday, claims that inequality between different counties is falling, life expectancy is rising and millions of children's have better opportunities than their parents did at the same age. However, it also warned that these improvements could be at "greater risk today than [they have] been for many years."

"There is a paradox that the more we succeed in economic development long the current path the more there are questions about environmental sustainability and the greater the risk of irreversible environmental degradation of the kind that has an immediate impact on those communities with the fewest resources," the bishop explained.

He said that while social Darwinism says that different groups of people will always struggle between one another, "the Christian vision of the Kingdom offers a different story which challenges the widespread assumption that there are no alternatives to the way we live now."

Christians are called to live in such a way that they are engaged in restoring creation rather than destroying it, he continued, "using opportunities to be producers rather than passive consumers".

"The invitation to Christians and sympathetic friends is clear. Words must become flesh in changed lifestyles and ideas must inform a movement," Chartres said.

"A community of people persuasive and powerful beyond their numbers because they have already made a start on the transformation of relationships fundamental to restoring rhythm to life and living the restorative community."

Advocacy director for Tearfund, Paul Cook, said that millions of people are at risk of being pushed back into poverty if developed nations do not "fundamentally change the ways we produce wealth and create prosperity".

"Ordinary heroes are people who do simple but bold things to change their own economy," he explained.

"Some people will fly less or consume only fairly traded products, others choose to use renewable energy in their homes or invest their savings in ways that avoid exploiting others.

"Using our power as voters, campaigners and consumers is extremely important, and part of our calling to pray and work for the Kingdom of God on earth - a world of peace, justice and hope."