Tag: poverty

Book Plunge: The Bible and the Ballot Chapter 12

How do we help the poor? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There is an increasing refrain in these later chapters where I largely agree with Longman’s exegesis of the text. Instead, I disagree when we get to the application. Once again, the same has happened here. I do fully agree that there is a mandate to help the poor in Scripture. I do agree that there are times someone is poor not because of laziness, but because of tragedy or injustice.

I also do agree that the prosperity gospel should be thoroughly condemned. Jesus is not meant to serve you on the path to riches. I do not think that being wealthy means being an evil man. You can be a devout Christian and be extremely wealthy.

Also, in case anyone asks, no. I am not one of those rich people. I make minimum wage and I don’t want to see minimum wage go up. I personally would like to see it abolished. I simply try to watch my spending and I have a Patreon. You can donate to that here. For now, let’s get back to Longman.

I am pleased to see that Longman acknowledges that capitalism has brought many nations out of poverty. He is quite correct on that one. However, he does say the Bible could be used to support both socialism and capitalism. I do not see how it could be used for both without being contradictory. Both systems are opposed and how could Scripture consistently teach two systems that oppose one another? He does say both socialism and capitalism could help people thrive and are both subject to corruption. Unfortunately, he shows us no examples of these places where socialism produces a thriving populace. I do agree that both are subject to corruption, but the difference is capitalism is the free exchange of goods without force, theft, or fraud. As soon as you change that, it’s not capitalism anymore.

He does say a book could be written on the topic, but it already has. Consider E. Calvin Beisner’s book Prosperity and Poverty. I also recommend reading Thomas Sowell’s books.

He also says some people think government should not be in the charity business. I’m one of them, and for the reason that he gives, because I think the church should be doing it. He says that the problem is that the church isn’t. Indeed, if the government keeps doing it, what reason does the church have to step up? Unfortunately, all of this creates government dependence. When I see someone say “If we shut down government program XYZ, what will happen to all these people in need?” My thinking is “Don’t you think it’s a problem that they’re that dependent on the government anyway?”

Also Longman, yes, the government is inefficient. We have an organization that is $36 trillion in debt and you want to tell me I should trust that organization to help the poor? Do I agree the church needs to step up its game? 100%.

Finally, I should say something about how this goes when I talk with people of a left-leaning persuasion.

Me: I think we should help the poor.

Leftist: Great! Here’s a program that we think will help the poor.

Me: I don’t think that will work.

Leftist: So you don’t really want to help the poor?

Saying you want to help the poor doesn’t mean that you agree with every way to help the poor. An excellent read on this is When Helping Hurts. Our government has declared war on poverty, drugs, and terror. How many of those have we eliminated? People can have really good intentions for when they want to help out the poor, but good intentions do not equal good results. They’re not all about helping the poor, but for examples of this, see Reason TV’s Great Moments in Unintended Consequences.

Reality determines if your method works. Your intentions don’t.

Next time, we will wrap up with discussing racism.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: When Helping Hurts

What do I think of Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett’s book published by Moody? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This is a book I read recently, but it is still fresh in my mind, and it’s the kind of book everyone interested in helping the poor needs to read. You might think I say, “All leftists need to read this book.” After all, I disagree with their policies economically, but you would be wrong partially. I do think all on the left need to, but so do all conservatives.

The authors make no bones about their being Christians, but I think even a non-Christian could agree with many practical aspects of this. The authors do go after many of the practices that we do today that we do in the name of helping the poor, but in fact, they really don’t help the poor.

Consider a simple solution we think we have. Just give them money. The problem is we have been doing this for decades and not only does it not help, sometimes, it also makes it worse. How so? Imagine this scenario that is not fake but really described in the book. A tribe of people regular give some of their best to the local deity that they think grants them blessings. What happens when they receive more money suddenly? Well, guess where the major portion of that goes to.

I can speak of this from experience as well. When I was married and we had to live on food stamps, I hated it. I would much rather have been in a situation where I was able to provide for myself rather than just have money thrown at me.

That leads to another problem this approach has. This gets people in the state of mind of being in a state of dependence and usually, it’s the rich western white male who has to come in and save the day. Part of the way of helping the poor is to enable them to realize they have the capacity to help themselves.

That also means listening to them. The story is told of a group that went to build a house for a pastor of a church. They didn’t listen and they put the bathroom in the center area of the house. The pastor is not sure he wants to live in his house. Why? Because in his culture, that is a shameful position for the bathroom to be in. Now you might think the pastor needs to just grow up or something like that, but that is also demeaning to that culture.

Ultimately, the solution is to help the poor but at the same time, help them to be a part of the solution insofar as that is possible. People are more willing to work at something if they have a reason to be invested in it. It is through this means that we can best help to alleviate the burden of poverty on people.

That also means listening to them. Just because you have a business degree from Harvard and an economics degree from Yale doesn’t mean you know the culture and way of life of the people you are talking to better than they do. What do they want? What drives them? What motivates them? These things need to be known.

Some of you may be wondering also about my asking people to donate while doing this. Is that contradictory? No. I’m not asking for handouts with donations, but more people saying they believe in the work that I am doing. The more I get, the more it frees me to be doing that work full-time.

It’s also important to note that all of this works because the problem people have is not just material. It is spiritual and relational. People need to be in better relation with themselves, with their neighbors, and with God. When we treat their problems as purely material and thus, more money is the fix, we neglect the multi-faceted reality of who these people are. We can sadly enable a culture of dependence which will make them worse.

If you care about the poor, get this book. If you’re not a Christian even, consider it and see if maybe a purely materialistic approach might not work. Could it be there is more to humanity than just the material?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Thought For Election Day

What can we think about what happens at the polls today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Today in America, we have an election going on and it is one that has been anticipated for quite some time. Lately, every election has been touted as the most important election of our lifetime. So it is that this one is as well the most important election of our lifetime, until, of course, the 2020 election.

I’m all for doing your civic duty. My wife and I both did early voting together. This is what I think we should do in America if we want to have a say in what goes on. There’s no wrong in voting and we should support the people that we think will do the best job.

At the same time, there can be too much dependence, as if the government is supposed to fix everything. One subject I have done some reading on is economics, which is really a fascinating topic. Not too long ago I was in a Facebook discussion dealing with the housing situation in our country. What was the major solution? Government.

My stance is simple. Any power that is given to the government like that is power that can be used against you someday. If the government can tell you what you can sell or not sell something you own for, they can do the same to anyone else. They can control your property and tell you how to handle it.

This is why I am convinced government cannot be our savior. We should strive for one that is good, but we can’t make it our everything. We actually have power ourselves to do something about many of the problems we see. The problem with housing could lead to things that can help us out much like some entrepreneurs started companies like Uber and Lyft.

There is another fear I have in this. The more we let government do the work of caring for the sick and the poor, the less the church realizes that this is its responsibility. The early church regularly cared for the sick and in the fourth century, the emperor Julian the Apostate complained that the church was doing the work of not just taking care of its own sick, but the sick in the pagan communities.

Maybe, just maybe, we can consider doing that in the church today. Please understand I am not advocating the social Gospel. Economic well-being is not the goal of the Gospel. However, if the Gospel is truly being spread somewhere, I think that insofar as the society embraces that, it will be better off economically. It will care for the poor all the more.

We can react so much against Liberation theology that we forget that part of Christianity is indeed helping those in need. Liberation theology just takes one part and makes it the central part. We should emphasize the central part of salvation in Christ, without neglecting the lesser part. Even Paul, when given the right hand of fellowship by the apostles, was asked to remember the poor.

I don’t know what will happen tonight. Neither do you. I do know, whatever happens, my marching orders are the same. Preach the Gospel and seek to bring about the Kingdom. If the government we elect is favorable to that, then all the better. If not, then we still have the same orders anyway.

In Christ,
Nick Peters