A Closer Look at Poverty - part 1 of 2

What is poverty?

From When Helping Hurts:
On poverty-

"It is easy to conclude that the majority of the problem lies with the people themselves--their worldviews, behaviors, and values--because the people's faults are far more obvious than the fallen systems in which they live.

The Broken American System
The ghetto into which [many people are] born, through no choice of [their] own, originated in the massive migration of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities from 1910 to 1960 as a result of the increased mechanization of Southern agriculture.  Centuries of slavery and racial discrimination contributed to the relatively low levels of education of these migrants, who fled north looking for blue-collar manufacturing jobs.  Upon their arrival in the North, a combination of economic forces, public policy, and housing discrimination caused the migrants to concentrate in inner cities.

Despite the crowded conditions, in the early 1950's the African-American sections of America's inner cities were largely viable, stable communities; however, the subsequent three decades were quite destabilizing.  Federal urban renewal and highway programs required land in inner cities, and African-American neighborhoods were often razed.  Low-income African Americans were then relocated into publicly funded housing projects, while middle- and upper-class African Americans were forced to relocate elsewhere.  Using a set of policies that both explicitly and implicitly discriminated against African Americans, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) then began to offer subsidized mortgages that enabled millions of Caucasians to purchase homes in the suburbs and flee the cities.  Ironically, advance in the civil rights movement later reduced suburban housing discrimination, allowing middle- and upper-class African Americans to relocate to the suburbs as well.  As a result of this suburban flight, the remaining inner-city, African-American communities lost leaders, role models, working familites, and a solid economic base.

And then the jobs left.   America transitioned from a predominantly manufacturing ecomony to a service economy.  From 1970 to 1985, millions of high-paying, blue collar jobs simply disappeared from inner cities, moving to other parts of the country or overseas.  Unemployment in the inner cities skyrocketed, and many African-American inner-city residents joined the welfare rolls, a system that penalized them for working by taking away benefits for every dollar they earned."

This book, although I've only read three chapters so far, has opened my eyes to why things are the way they are today.  The book is written by Steve Corbett who gives many examples of methods used by the church to alleviate poverty that have caused more harm than good due to a lack of understanding of the people who live there, their perception on life, and what they're really needing. (there, their, and they're in one sentence--ten points!)  It's a great book and I recommend reading it.  I'm going to give another excerpt from the book that may illuminate some of what may be in your own heart.  The author states,

"One Sunday I was walking with a staff member through one of Africa's largest slums, the massive Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.  The conditions were simply inhumane.  People lived in shacks constructed out of cardboard boxes.  Foul smells gushed out of open ditches carrying human and animal excrement.  I had a hard time keeping my balance as I continually slipped on oozy brown substances that I hoped were mud but feared were something else.  Children picked through garbagef dumps looking for anything of value.  As we walked deeper and deeper into the slum, my sense of despair increased.  'This place is completely God-forsaken,' I thought to myself.

Then to my amazement, right there among the dung, I heard the sound of a familiar hymn.  'There must be Western missionaries conducting an open-air service in here,' I thought to myself.  As we turned the corner, my eyes landed on the shack form which the music bellowed.  Every Sunday, thirty slum dwellers crammed into this ten-by-twenty foot "sanctuary" to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The church was made out of cardboard boxes that had been opened up and stapled to studs.  It wasn't pretty, but it was a church, a church made up of some of the poorest people on earth.

When we arrived at the church, I was immediately asked to preach the sermon.  As a good Presbyterian, I quickly jotted down some notes about the sovereignty of God and was looking forward to teaching this congregation the historic doctrines of the Reformation.  But before the sermon began, the service included a time of sharing and prayer.  I listened as some of the poorest people on the planet cried out to God: "Jehovah Jireh, please heal my son, as he is going blind." "Merciful Lord, please protect me when I go home today, for my husband always beats me." "Sovereign King, please provide my children with enough food today, as they are hungry."

As I listened to these poeple praying to be able to live another day, I thought about my ample salary, my life insurance policy, my health insurance policy, my two cars, my house, etc.  I realized that I do not really trust in God's sovereignty on a daily basis, as I have sufficient buffers in place to shield me from most economic shocks.  I realized that when these folks pray the fourth petition of the Lords' prayer--'Give us this day our daily bread'--their minds do not wander as mine so often does.  I realized that wile I have sufficient education and training to deliver a sermon on God's sovereignty with no forewarning, these slum dwellers were trusting in God's sovereignty just to get them through the day.  And I realized that these people had a far deeper intimacy with God that I probably will ever have in my entire life."

1 John 2:15-17 says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

Do you love the world and the things of the world?  What do you put more importance, thought, time into than your relationship with God?  What acts as a shroud in your life even though God intended and has made his children alive through Christ? (Ephesians 2:4-6)  I ask you once again--what is your definition of poverty?

-to be continued