Who Will Speak for the Children?

Opinion

Perspectives

Church and Society | Aug. 12, 2026

“Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray.”  (Matthew 19:13)While billions of dollars are being solicited and directed to competing candidates for upcoming elections in the United States, millions of children around the world are at risk of malnutrition, forced displacement and disease.

I often wonder if we are overwhelmed by the magnitude of suffering in the world and forget that every human being was once a vulnerable child in need of adults to provide for their needs and safety.

The Children are Hungry

Hunger has become a persistent, concentrated humanitarian crisis with wars and armed conflicts as one of the main drivers.

The 2026 Global Report on Food Crises by United Nations agencies, the European Union and partners found 266 million people across 47 countries facing acute hunger and food insecurity.

The same report found that in 2025, 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished, including nearly 10 million suffering from severe wasting.

Forced displacement and food insecurity are part of a vicious cycle, with women and children often suffering the most—not enough food, water or healthy mothers to nurse their own newborn children.

Two-thirds of global hunger is concentrated in 10 conflict-affected countries, with millions of children displaced in countries including Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The crisis does not end with hunger. Globally, 93 million school-aged children are out of school, with no access to regular education due to overlapping crises of war, conflict, and displacement.

Abandoned to Power and Greed

For those of us living in the United States, a child being “severely wasted” is something we may never witness firsthand. This distance reflects choices made in our name—the conflicts, public policy choices, and failed leadership that have driven millions into humanitarian crisis abroad while failing workers and families domestically.

We tout the world’s greatest military and the most lethal weapons, allocating more than $1 trillion for 2026, and seem surprised that a full-time worker making minimum wage cannot afford housing in any of the 50 states.

Total advertising for midterm elections is projected to reach a record $11.6 billion between Democrats and Republicans. One individual, Elon Musk, has promised to spend up to $120 million.

Yet last year, the U.S. Congress approved a White House budget that took away $142 million previously approved by Congress that would have supported the work of UNICEF.

The U.S. also abruptly ended food support and humanitarian aid to war-devastated Gaza and Ukraine, worsening the picture of world hunger and leaving God’s children to suffer and die without anyone to speak for them.

Budgets are moral documents and announce how much we are committed to addressing humanitarian problems.

Every single minute of every day, we push a child into severe malnutrition by choosing greed over grace while enabling millionaires to become billionaires.

We choose weapons of warfare over the higher call of a sacred story, taking children and vulnerable neighbors from their appointed place of significance and safety to be sacrificed as casualties of power, property, and greed.

Our Responsibility

As United Methodists, we affirm that human beings are made for God and one another. Our Social Principles invite us to engage in acts of mercy while striving toward the “attainment of justice and peace as hallmarks of God’s coming reign.” (2025-2028 Social Principles, ¶162, Preface)

Author bell hooks reminds us that there is no love without justice, and that to love children is to acknowledge “by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights.”

It is our responsibility to feed children and declare preventable suffering unacceptable.

The Church Must Speak for the Children

I was invited to pray for the children at a United Methodist Church in Sierra Leone. More than thirty children kneeled at the altar with their heads bowed.

I prayed what I thought to be an appropriate prayer of thanksgiving and affirmation for the children of the church.

After I said Amen, I noticed the children did not move from the altar rail. With heads bowed, they did not move.

I soon realized something was missing.

The pastor leaned over to me and said: “You need to bless each child by touching their heads.”

Jesus said to the disciples, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” (Matthew 19:14-15)

And Jesus laid hands on them.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble serves as general secretary of The General Board of Church & Society, the social justice arm of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished from his blog “Justice Takes Courage.”