The great evangelical weakness, pt. 3 - Poverty
I spent some time today talking to my good friend Carolyn about poverty. She works with it regionally and understands a lot about its causes. I hope she’ll write a guest post on the subject here soon. In the meantime, she helped me see some connections between our stalwart evangelical individualism and our lack of understanding about poverty. (See parts one and two in this series of posts).
Let’s say a guy comes by the church for food from the pantry (and let me make it clear that I’m making up these details, not trying to represent some specific real-life person). Because of the kindness and care he receives from Joanie M., he comes to church and accepts Christ. He even gets into some counseling and kicks his drug habit, which certainly contributed to his poverty. Because of our elevation of the individual, evangelicals tend to think that his problems with poverty should be over - or if not, it’s his fault. This is exactly where our belief in the power of self leads us.
But because this guy grew up in a culture of poverty, it isn’t so simple. He has a tenth-grade education, but he really stopped trying after fifth grade. He has few employable skills. He lives with five other people from his extended family who haven’t made the transition to faith with him, so he won’t get a lot of encouragement to clean himself up and get moving - quite the opposite. The house they occupy has had its water and electricity cut off many times for non-payment, so even staying clean and presentable for a job is a challenge. But he can’t leave that house since he has nowhere else to go.
Even more, he has some simple but chronic health problems - perhaps a recurring abscess tooth or severe allergies. Most of us would get treatment for such things and miss only a little work, but he has no health insurance and no money to pay for these basic medical services, so they may keep him from working regularly or even hamper his performance in a job-training program.
I could go on (and I hope Carolyn will read this and add to it) but the point is that saving the individual’s soul, while of eternal significance, is only the beginning. There’s a whole culture of poverty which still reaches out to enslave this man, and it takes the whole church community to pull him out of it.
And all of this is complicated further when race issues enter the picture, which is the subject for pt. 4…
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“Saving the individual’s soul” means that we are watching the birth of an infant Christian. Anyone who has cared for a baby knows the time commitment involved. We would never leave a newborn to get his act together, or take care of himself. I think we have the idea, somehow, that our time is our own, but a deeper sacrifice of self and time is necessary to help these baby Christians grow into powerful men and women of faith (and maybe begin to escape the enslavement of poverty, too.)
Exactly! Well said!
I’ve pretty much heard this kind of thing my entire life… Keyword:”HEARD” I’m tired of hearing about it!! There’s a ton of “Christians” in our community, so what’s the problem? The problem is, No one really cares… It’s too uncomfortable to get to close to these people. Who wants to deal with a crack addict, someone who might stab you to death for a fix!?! No ones held accountable anymore, not even individuals in our church… There’s double standards for different people!
(By the way… These are my statements, so please don’t try and dispute them with me, and tell me I’m wrong!!!)
Who’s going to take the time to deal with these people? Can anyone answer my question? How many people that we’ve helped from the food pantry attend Morrison Hill? Please don’t respond with the typical answers either!!! Everyone can make a difference, so why aren’t we? Who is REALLY making a difference? Let’s not worry about hurting the feelings of those so called “difference makers”!! Let’s GET REAL, and be honest with ourselves, only then can we truly change this pattern.
Well I think the reason we don’t make much difference is the tendency to make this individual, as I’ve written. And if it’s all on the man or woman, poverty becomes exclusivelya moral issue to us (which I think is only part of the truth) and therefore, we think people get what they deserve. Besides, we’re kind lazy and don’t want our comfort disturbed.
Well, I guess sometimes this is my problem with the church. Maybe I’m being judgemental but I don’t mean to be. I really see a lack of reaching out (myself included) to the people who might be considered unlovable. I have gotten burned out and taken by people who I was trying to help in the past. It’s hard to set ourselves up to where we might be used by people. That’s where is gets real uncomfortable. Except, reaching out seems like the one thing we should be doing regardless.
This is not an argument; it’s simply a difference of opinion:
We are doing something about it. As a church we are reaching out to the community and the world. If you get around in Roane County you will find out quickly that M.H.C.C is known for it’s generosity to the local community through it’s food pantry and let’s not forget the missionaries, the well, the 30 hour famine… That’s the start. Dennis’ acknowledgment that we need to do more and start acting like one unit instead of hundreds of individuals with separate and self-seeking agendas is the next step. If we continue to take these steps we will accomplish bigger things.
All we can do is something;we can’t do it all.
One more thing: every person that we help is important and significant. That’s something!
Let me clarify. I am a part of the church and I don’t reach out like I should because of “fear” of the unknown. My problem isn’t just with seeing others do this, it’s in seeing myself do this also. Yes, there are many in our church who reach out individually. And as a body, our church gives much in the way of financial help to missions and people. I’m by no means degrading our efforts, just simply wondering what it would be like to be able to reach out without being afraid of what we don’t understand (homeless, poor, drug addicts, prostitutes, disabled). I used to have much zeal in doing this and it’s harder now than it used to be for one reason or another. I really can’t stand the “pull yourself up by your bootstrap” mentality that the church (myself included) seems to adopt sometimes.
For every person we help, there are also those that “fall between the cracks”, so to speak. I would like to know how to catch them.
yes, this is the kind of dialogue that makes a difference. It is encouraging to read. I’m seeing Martha’s angle. My wife and I have housed a few different people for short times and two for about 6 months. These people needed longer term connection but our home, with all our kids, is not conducive to doing this. All of the experiences had their merits and their set-backs but I can say one thing for it, our whole family grew from the experience and it instills accounability in my 6 kids. Food pantries may be a good idea for large cities but most people who qualify for the food pantry (have their “poor” credentials) also qualify for food stamps so its not really a life-changer. We need life-coaching homes with extra bedrooms and fearless people willing to risk it all for a human being. For the two that stayed longer we had two different outcomes. One has a job, an apartment, and it going to school. She just came and watched our kids yesterday for us. The other lady left our home, was doing okay by herself for awhile, fell in love with the female pastor of another church that was counseling her and went off the deep end. She ended up in an institution for a year and is now out again but because of some violent behavior toward the pastor we cannot allow her to return to our home. She was great while she was here with us but she thought she was ready to be on her own and we couldn’t and wouldn’t stop her. If you’ve but the faith of a mustard seed the Lord will help you move mountains. Sometimes he wishes the mountains to be moved, other times they are there for other reasons.
Great discussion.