Been thinking a lot about poverty lately. Of course, I’m doing research on my next book that I am writing, called God’s Heart for the Poor. I should have it written by next summer, I believe.
But in my musings, I’ve been meditating on the state of the poor in America. I believe this is a very unique time in our history and in world history in general, so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts.
While America might deserve its reputation as a violent nation, I feel America has a much different testimony when it comes to poverty … at least as it stands today. Let me explain using a couple real world examples.
I got sucked into watching American Idol while living with my mom. One night was dedicated to charity and helping the poor in Africa and America. In watching that special 2-hour show, something amazing caught my attention.
In visiting the poor of Africa, they showed these orphans who had nothing. Literally. It was horrifically sad. They barely had a roof over their heads. They rarely ate at all. The money given to these children from American Idol would buy food, clothes, and some semblance of health care and education.
Then they visited orphans in America. While some money went to food banks for people who didn’t have enough food, some of the donations went to an orphanage. You know what they gave the orphans in America?
Emotional survival kits. These included crayons and CDs and a CD player and other artistic ways to express themselves. While noble in its own way, can you see the disparity? Orphans in America have food, clothes, basic health care and education taken care of.
That is untold wealth compared with much of the world, orphans or no. The “poor” live so well in America today that people immigrate to this country just to be part of our poor. Why do you think we have such an influx of Mexican and hispanic illegal immigrants? Poverty here is wealth compared to where they come from. There are long waiting lists of people from other industrialized countries because of the opportunities available in America.
Not sure of the actual numbers, but I would say that the unemployment rate in the US is the lowest of any non-Communist country (whom I don’t count because their economies are a joke).
I’m not saying that we don’t have poor people in America. We absolutely do. But we have become a nation where being poor isn’t necessarily an excuse for staying so. I’m well aware of how racism, discrimination and greed forced whole groups of people into the violence of poverty in the past. But the oppressive systems that perpetuated that poverty have been largely dismantled (by liberals of their day … Republican and Democrat).
In fact, in America, if you live in the poorest neighborhoods, you still have an opportunity to go to a public school, make decent grades, and get a scholarship to most public institutions … your chances are even higher to do so because you are poor and a minority. This access to education is unparalleled in world history.
We have poor people in government housing and getting free lunches at public school with big screen TVs and wearing $100 sneakers.
Please hear me out. I’m not denying that we have genuinely poor people in this country, nor am I stating that we have somehow arrived at some sort of utopia. There are some aspects of our economic culture that could be improved to make a higher quality of life more accessible, especially among the working class poor, a group forgotten by many. But the numbers of American desperate poor are so low compared to the rest of the world, it is staggering.
The US has achieved a level of prosperity unmatched in human history. With the possible exception of the nation of Israel under Solomon, we do a better job caring for the poor and providing access to a higher quality of life than has ever existed on this earth.
A good friend asked me the other night, “Do you think poverty can exist apart from oppression and injustice?”
I absolutely do. Proverbs says much about the rewards, and even the obligation, of giving to those in need. Much of the Old Testament equates righteousness with giving to the poor (as does Christ).
But Proverbs also warns us against laziness because it leads to poverty. Poverty is also a sluggards reward. Proverbs has little compassion for such people. Being a teacher in a public school, I saw the truth of this. Most kids who failed, failed because of a lack of effort. Rarely did I see a student genuinely try and fail.
While I won’t go into detail here, there may be social influences at play that contribute to the attitude of failure, but those influences aren’t inherent in the system or in those that manage it. In fact, most public school systems are set up to help the marginalized much more than the priviledged, which has its own problems.
The American Church does need to learn how to give to the poor more than they do, in real relational ways, ways that necessitate personal contact, both in America and around the world. Class distinctions among the Body of Christ is evil to God. It would be crazy to deny they exist.
But it would also be unfair to paint America as currently oppressive to the poor. Based on biblical standards, I feel the nation does fairly well, better perhaps than a worldly government ever has. It doesn’t excuse class divisions or the greed that causes those in power to take advantage of those with less (companies that refuse to pay a fair wage or abuse the control of money or benefits), but credit should be given where credit is due.
The only place we have any hope of getting rid of such greed, class division, and even poverty itself is in the narrow way of the Church … It will always exist in the world.
Peace.