Consider with me the World Bank's definition published in the 1990's. They said that a person is living in poverty if they live on less than $1 per day. An individual is moderately poor if they live on less than $2 per day. That means more than 3.6 billion people in the world today fall within these parameters. Since their definition is purely economic, guess what causes poverty? Yep, not having enough money. (duh.) What is the solution then? Their website says it best, "[the world bank's] primary focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries. It uses its financial resources, its staff, and extensive experience to help developing countries, reduce poverty, increase economic growth, and improve their quality of life." Yet, isn't it more than a lack of funds? Doesn't this negate major issues like colonialism, corrupt governments, evil corporations, to name just a few?
We then briefly examined the World Summit's leading definition as it was put forth in the early 21st century. Moving beyond economic limitations, the new definition focuses on severe deprivation in a myriad of categories: education, health care, food supply, knowledge sources, shelter, water, sanitation facilities, etc. These additional vulnerabilities seem to more fully encapsulate the plight of what it means to be poor. Clearly the poor in developing countries and those who are impoverished in our own country are major victims of human rights violations.
Therefore, to see poverty as the result of a lack of social justice throughout the entire world certainly complicates the ways in which it can be resolved. Under this scope, monetary goods and financial donations simply won't correct all that needs fixing.
What is more, let's throw in the spiritual component. Not only do we need to start responding to this lack of human rights because it makes sense to do this as able, wealthy, caring Westerners, and because its resolution is going to require more than just writing a few checks every now and then, but shouldn't we be responding because it's the right thing to do?
Why? Why is caring for the poor right? Because Jesus cared for the poor? Why? Because God cares for the poor. Why? Because God creates people in God's likeness. God created humankind and saw that it was very good. Therefore, all humans, rich or poor, have intrinsic value and worth by the mere fact/miracle that we are God's children created in God's likeness! To deny people of this truth in their livelihood excuses us from the Kingdom of God. yikes.
So let's together embrace our need to care for the poor on micro and macro levels, for this is where God resides, among the people who need God most--the absolutely poor. And let us not shy away from a definition that encompasses all of the varying causes of world poverty. We need to directly face all that it will require to resolve such a monstrous issue and join in where God is leading us to participate.
1 comment:
What I think about is how the "Western" world seems to have an attitude towards those people in poorer countries, that just because they lack material goods, they must be poor, desolate, empty in every sense. But I know from stories we hear about missionaries and others who travel to these parts of the world that often those most lacking in material goods are spiritually rich. How does that work? Perhaps because of what you said, Lauren, that God (and Jesus) care so deeply for the poor that in their faces is where we can most clearly see God. There's a song by my favorite group, Caedmon's Call, a Christian band, from when they visited India to share their music, share the message, and learn from the people. One song tells the story of a women who had barely anything, was the mother of eight sons, with her husband off at war. She lived in a tiny home with a dirt floor, and made meager suppers for her sons. Yet she said to the group (and this is the refrain of the song): "Jesus is all that I need." That's just ... wow. It makes me wonder, what could I learn from her, here in my cushy life, where I'm fortunate enough to have the funds to go to grad school (as much as we all complain about it sometimes), eat well, and my husband and I own how many appliances? What would it be like to completely rely on Jesus to be your everything?
-LRS
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