Apr 15 2008
More on Poverty
Ok. So I got four comments on a post that I just threw together without really thinking about it. That’s more than I’ve gotten on a single post in quite some time. Which means people are reading and thinking (or at least a few of them) and so I’ll write about that.
If you didn’t read the other post or the comments under it the link is right there. What I’m about to say has its jumping off point in what the two posts (and underlying comments) by Josh Gibbs that Seth linked to. I used to read Gibbs but stopped because I was skipping more posts than I was reading, but these two were pretty good, or at least thought provoking.
Some of what I’m going to write on this topic is in the “thinking out loud” category. I realize that it’s dangerous to think out loud walking around a room of people who kind of know you—and that doing the same thing on a blog that can be accessed from anywhere in the world but Tibet is another level of insanity altogether. But then maybe I’ll start a controversy and become famous. Not likely—but I might attract more than the current seven loyal readers.
It is somewhat ironic that I write this on tax day. I filed my taxes quite some time ago, but today is the day that many are rushing off to the post office to mail tax forms and extension forms. It is in this realm of taxes that some of the controversy surrounding poverty happens. At the outset of this discussion of poverty I want to make it very clear that I completely oppose any helping of the poor through dollars taken from taxpayers at the point of a gun. All government run poverty “helps” do just that—and while I’m going to talk a lot in this series (oh no! It’s over now) about all the things that need to be done in ministering to the poor in Jesus’ Name it is Christians who are supposed to do this, and with our own resources, not those that the government has taken from others.
I have been looking at this issue from one perspective of economics for quite some time, and have not found a lot out there that I agree with. It seems like somebody decided that there are two ways to look at the poor, and we have to simplify it down to those. There are those who think we should take money from the rich to help them (I’ll call these the Christian Robin Hoods) and those who just assume that you’re poor because you’re lazy or a drunk. There are varying grades of these two views, but there are very few in between.
As you read what I’ll write, you’ll know that I am decidedly in between. Here are some guiding questions as I get started:
- Who are the poor? Defining who is poor and who is rich is controversial and difficult at best. Who is objectively poor and who is objectively rich? I have some thoughts on that but it’ll be a post in itself.
- What is our responsibility? And how do we carry that out? And by whom? Is it enough to give lots of money to the local rescue mission? Should the rescue mission even exist? Is it OK to give a drunk money? Methodologies abound. I will make a distinction between methods and methodologies (principles that guide the methods). Of the former there are many right ways, of the latter the principles ought to be the same.
- What are the goals? Is the goal that the poor become rich? Or that they are less poor?
- Why is this a big issue of disagreement? Why can’t we agree that helping the poor is important and figure out how best to do it and go out and do it?
- What are charity and justice? What do they look like in our current society? What might they look like in a non-capitalist society?
There may be more, but these are questions that can guide any discussion that takes place here and on other blogs that might throw stones this way. I’ll have more later.
