MCLEAN, Va. - Some 100,000 church leaders across the globe were inspired to greater action against poverty by an interview between influential pastor Bill Hybels and British Oscar-nominated screenwriter Richard Curtis over the weekend.
The interview with Curtis, a comedy writer and a leading figure in campaigning to fight global poverty, featured as a pre-recorded interview at the highly prominent Willow Creek Leadership Summit with live videocast in cities around the world beaming from South Barrington, Illinois, near Chicago."This was a very disturbing interview for me to do," said Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, to tens of thousands of pastors, "because I'm interviewing a guy who doesn't even have his faith figured out and he's doing 100 times more work than I am to alleviate the suffering in this world."
Part of Curtis' inspiration to fight poverty came from the Sermon on the Mount, one of the best known teachings of Jesus, Curtis told Hybels in the interview. But he did not indicate that faith was the driving force behind his passion to care for the poor.
"All I know is that a guy over there should not be dying when I have so much," he said.
Curtis may be best known for writing "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill", "The Girl in the Cafe", and the "Mr Bean" television series, but he has used his comedy writing to rally millions of dollars to alleviate the poor.
"I can only really do one thing well. I can write comedy," he said in the interview. "But I'll ruthlessly do the thing that I do to try to rectify this general injustice."
Curtis is co-founder of the Make Poverty History campaign and Red Nose Day, a comic relief campaign which last year raised $130m in one day and has become a national day of giving for the poor.
His latest effort was "Idol Gives Back" on the popular TV programme "American Idol" in the United States. The US public contributed some $73m during that campaign.
While Curtis has helped make strides in halving global poverty, he made it clear that if all the churches in the world took a central stance on the issue and on their "God-given duty", the goal could really be achieved within the next decade.
"You can't just pray for people," said Curtis. "You've got to do something now."
