Over the past five years, I’ve watched Evangelicalism tear itself apart. There’s a split happening, each side growing in diametric opposition to the other side’s perspective on a few political hot topics.
One of these is domestic poverty.
Side “A” claims that it’s everyone’s responsibility to alleviate poverty in our country, side “B” blames the poor for their plight. Every time the pro-poor side makes a call to action, the other side talks about the many ways that poor people simply need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Helping them will only hurt them, and that’s not justice.
To this group of God-followers, poverty is a consequence of irresponsibility. If poor people would simply get up in the morning, go to work with a good attitude, earn a paycheck and watch their spending – like the rest of us – the problem would solve itself. Everyone in America has, with little exception, the same opportunities; those who don’t take them are irresponsible. Stepping in to save irresponsible people from the consequence of their irresponsibility is, well, irresponsible.
Side “B” believes that poverty in America is a systemic thing, that poor people have not bootstraps to pull. For many, it’s much more complicated than hard work and responsibility.
Go figure that these two very different perspectives are demarcated along political lines:
My entire life, I’ve watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn’t the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They’re morons. ~ Donald Trump
What’s interesting about poverty in the US is that it seems to trend up and down based on which political ideology is in charge. According to the following data from statista.org, poverty trends one way under a conservative administration, vice versa when liberals are running the show:
Based on this, I have two issues with side A’s “poor people just need to be more responsible” approach. First, should I assume that people are less responsible under conservative administrations than liberal ones?
You could argue that poverty shrinks when liberals are in control because all they do is throw money at the poor. But if that’s true, economic indicators such as GDP growth would reflect something similar to the above graph.
They don’t.
Second, if poverty in the US is so reactive to mainstream politics, you’ll understand why I believe that poverty is, for the most part, a systemic problem, one that requires a change to the system:
“Without structural changes, it may be very difficult if not impossible to eliminate disparities and poverty.” ~ Shervin Assari, Research Investigator of Psychiatry, Public Health, and Poverty Solutions, University of Michigan
What does all of this have to do with Christian folk?
Sometime in the 80’s, Bible-believing Christianity married politics like never before, increasingly seeing government administration as God’s way of intervention in the world. Today, if you’re a Christian, you’re probably conservative, convinced that poverty in the US is not your problem.
God’s People Have Been Doing This for a Long Time.
The God-followers of Jesus’ day considered poverty to be a consequence of faithlessness, a punishment from God Himself. If these people could manage to get their act together and worship God like the rest of us, the problem would solve itself.
As you can imagine, that didn’t sit well with Jesus.
Today, not much as changed: contemporary US God-folk are still blaming the poor for their plight. Why? What is it about Christianity in particular that this attitude finds such fertile ground?
Maybe it’s a simple, human response to the psychological burden of poverty.
My city of Denver has recently allowed “urban camping” in some areas. Every time I get in the car I’m confronted with tents, tarps, shopping carts – a huge mess, and maybe a bit of a threat. It’s tempting to judge, but this is Denver in the wintertime: if my first response isn’t compassion for people camping in 18 degree weather, there’s a problem.
Stepping in to alleviate this level of brokenness, however, would require much from me, so I understandably seek ways to excuse myself. Blaming the poor is a brilliant way to do that, freeing me up to be Christian and live the American dream.
But, as I suggested above, our problem is an ancient one, so I have to assume that there’s something else afoot.
In his letter to a group of newly-minted gentile Christians, the apostle John said to “test the spirits,” i.e., when you get an idea in your head, take a minute and consider where it came from. According to John, our beliefs, ideals, and deeply held values don’t always come from the right place.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…” ~ 1 John 4:1-3
If you’ll allow, there might be a metaphysical aspect, a “spirit” of jackassery that whispers in our ears and works in concert with our discomfort, ultimately convincing us to blame the people who are suffering for their suffering.
It’s been around for a long time, and man are we suckers for it.
Don’t Under-Do It
Scripture never warns us about going too far, or giving too much, or over-helping. It only offers stern warnings for those who fail to go far enough.
In the following passage from the book of Matthew, true righteousness has nothing to do with church attendance, or Bible studies, or sound theology. It’s defined by a person’s posture towards the poor:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. He will gather before him all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” ~ Mattthew 25: 31-46
If you’re from my Christian camp, it might sting a bit to learn that God will judge ALL OF HUMANITY purely on the basis of something so “social-justicy.” It stings the hell out of me. We tend to focus on things like morality, sunday AM attendance, etc. If anything, social justice is a side thing that you can opt out of if you want to.
Ultimately, according to scripture, it’s not our place to judge why the homeless guy is homeless, or why the black family can’t bootstrap their way up to a better life.
When it comes to poverty, the Bible only commands (threatens?) us to act.
Photo courtesy of Mihály Köles at Unsplash.com
