Hundreds of Anglican bishops, faith leaders and Christian charity representatives have marched passed Parliament and Downing Street in a call to world leaders to do everything they can to cut extreme global poverty by 2015.
Nearly all of the 670 bishops attending the once-in-a-decade Lambeth Conference took part in the walk of witness, donning purple cassocks and carrying placards saying ‘Keep the Promise’.
Joining the bishops were the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, and the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, among other faith leaders.
Later at Lambeth Palace, Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed the march “the greatest public demonstration of faith” ever to take place in Britain.
“There are millions of people whom you may never meet who owe you a debt of gratitude for the work that you do in upholding the cause of the poor,” he went on to tell the bishops.
“You have sent a simple and a very clear message with rising force, that poverty can be eradicated, that poverty must be eradicated and if we can all work together for change poverty will be eradicated.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, handed the Prime Minister a letter calling for world leaders to agree a timetable to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to strengthen their partnership with the worldwide church in eradicating poverty. The letter also urged governments to do more to tackle climate change, warning that it is already hitting the world’s poorest the hardest.
The walk of witness was held in partnership with the Christian anti-poverty movement Micah Challenge. The movement, an inter-denominational initiative of the World Evangelical Alliance, is inspired by Micah 6.8 which exhorts Christians to ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God’.
