Jubilee 2000-Alaska 

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The year of jubilee is the name given to the fiftieth year, a year which proclaimed liberty from oppression and release from debts.  Slaves were set free.  All debts of the poor were canceled.  Land and belongings were returned to their rightful owners.  The land was left fallow.  The jubilee was a call to a new beginning of restoration and hope.  The biblical vision of Jubilee inspires us in its vision of anew beginning.  The call for debt cancellation from the Bible has a special resonance today.  The jubilee call is a reminder to us all that God is a God of justice and that our God does not forget the poor and oppressed.  The year of Jubilee is a reminder that God intervenes to demand that things be set right again.  The call for debt cancellation in the Bible is a call to abolish poverty.  The poor must be periodically released from their debt obligations in order to make a fresh start.

As people of faith we are called to stand in solidarity with the most impoverished nations and people who are trapped in a debt abyss from which they can never escape.  as people of faith we must ask whether the poor must continue to sacrifice their children's health and education in order to continue to make debt payments.  The call to Jubilee is a call to conversion, a turning away from existing economic patterns which demand sacrifices from the poor and the earth to continue paying an unjust debt.  It is a call to compassion, a compassion borne not only out of gratitude for God's bounty but out of an understanding of the need to make amends.

Religious organizations around the world are calling for debt cancellation as the most important moral imperative of our time.  The Call for Jubilee is part of a global effort to convince the leaders of the lending nations that they must take immediate action on this front.  By singing the Call to Jubilee petition you will be adding your name along with millions of others throughout the world to the call for freedom from debt slavery.