A newly formed group of evan­gel­i­cals led by some well-known fig­ures called for the can­cel­la­tion of Haiti’s for­eign debt on Friday.

Headed by the Rev. Richard Cizik, for­mer vice pres­i­dent for gov­ern­men­tal affairs at the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Evan­gel­i­cals, the New Evan­gel­i­cal Part­ner­ship for the Com­mon Good says Chris­tians are called to have a “spirit of com­pas­sion for the griev­ing, the injured and the dis­placed, and to take action to alle­vi­ate their suffering.”

“We believe that Jesus calls us to work together to set free those who are held cap­tive by debt. This call is espe­cially acute in times of cri­sis,” the group has expressed in statement.

“In light of the cat­a­strophic earth­quake and the destruc­tion of Haiti’s already frag­ile infra­struc­ture, we, the under­signed, call upon all nations and insti­tu­tions that have made loans to the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to quickly and com­pletely for­give these debts,” it added.

The state­ment was signed by more than 60 Chris­t­ian lead­ers includ­ing Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pas­tor of North­land – A Church Dis­trib­uted in Florida and a mem­ber of Pres­i­dent Obama’s Advi­sory Coun­cil on Faith-Based and Neigh­bor­hood Part­ner­ship; David Gushee, dis­tin­guished uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sor of Chris­t­ian Ethics at Mer­cer Uni­ver­sity in Geor­gia and founder of Evan­gel­i­cals for Human Rights; the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, pres­i­dent of the National His­panic Chris­t­ian Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence; Jim Wal­lis, pres­i­dent and CEO of Sojourn­ers; and Richard J. Mouw, pres­i­dent of Fuller The­o­log­i­cal Seminary.

It marks the first ini­tia­tive by the newly formed group as well as Cizik’s full re-entrance into pub­lic life since he resigned from the NAE in late 2008 due to his sug­gested sup­port for gay civil unions.

“We have founded this orga­ni­za­tion to bear wit­ness to the love of God in Jesus Christ,” said Dr. David Gushee, chair of the New Evan­gel­i­cal Part­ner­ship. “We have yearned to offer a bet­ter model for how Chris­tians address pub­lic issues; to be known for always stand­ing up for those whom God loves but the world or the church often mis­treat or neglect.”

Gushee noted that the group did not plan to launch this early but the lead­ers felt the Haiti quake was “pre­cisely the right time to get started” and the right issue to begin with.

The New Evan­gel­i­cal Partnership’s state­ment was released a day after the World Bank announced it would waive pay­ment on Haiti’s $38 mil­lion debt for the next five years. The Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund on the same day said a pro­posed $100 mil­lion loan for Haiti would be inter­est free until late 2011 to help the coun­try rebuild.

Last year, the IMF and the World Bank can­celed $1.2 bil­lion of Haiti’s debt. IMF spokes­woman Car­o­line Atkin­son said given Haiti’s sit­u­a­tion after the dev­as­tat­ing quake, donors may be will­ing to con­sider can­cel­ing the country’s debt again.

To date, Haiti’s gov­ern­ment has reported the deaths of more than 111,000 peo­ple from last week’s 7.0-magnitude quake, which struck the cap­i­tal Port-au-Prince. The quake has the second-highest death toll in more than 30 years, sec­ond to the Asia tsunami in 2004, accord­ing to the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Survey.

More than 600,000 peo­ple liv­ing in or near Port-au-Prince, mean­while, have been left home­less by the quake, accord­ing to the U.N. Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­ian Affairs.