Vince Deagler

read an eye opening book this summer entitled “when helping hurts” by steve corbett and brian fikkert, moody press.  what i liked, beyond that i had finally found a resource that agreed with many of my thoughts :), was the depth of thinking on a very important subject, near and dear to us as christ followers.  let me explain.

one of the great values the christian community holds is to “love our neighbor as ourselves”.  it is why the church is perhaps the most generous people on earth.  but generosity and productivity are 2 very different things.  i am 53 years old :(, and for most of my life we have waged a war on poverty w/in the united states.  i can remember as a child carrying a container for unicef while trick or treating so this same war could be waged internationally.  i have seen the sally fields commercials, the call of bono, and even have a “save the children tie”.  untold trillions have been invested in this war, but may i point out a very obvious problem.  not only do we still have poverty in the usa, not only do we still have poverty internationally, but it is actually getting worse in many places.  isn’t that a problem someone ought to address?

for some it is being addressed.  they tend to be the same ones presently in charge.  the problem is we have not spent enough, therefore the answer is spend more.  since they have been in charge, since their plan has not worked, i think it’s time to try something else.  this is where “when helping hurts” comes in.  i highly recomend you read it. 

let me give you a few basic principles it fleshes out.  first it defines poverty on 4 levels.  poverty of spiritual intimacy, poverty of being, poverty of community, and poverty of stewardship.  this is important on several levels.  most of our failure in this area starts with a minimal definition of poverty.  if we define poverty incompletely, our answers will not be effective.  for instance if i see poverty resulting from a lack of material resource, my answer will be give material resource.  we have been doing that forever, by now we should know that is not the answer.  poverty is more than a lack of resource, education, oppression, personal sin, etc.  it is multi-dimensional, so the answer must also be multi-dimensional.

from this multi-dimensional understanding, we get a much clearer picture of the problem and solution.  i do believe all poverty starts with the fatal choice made in the garden by adam and eve to reject gods rule.  without that choice we would be living in the garden with god in a perfect environment where everything we could ever want or need would be available to us.  but this is no longer our reality.  man outside the garden is disconnected from god.  the first step to the eradication of poverty is reconnection.  the problem with this is in our disconnection (poverty) we run the gamet of denying gods existence, to creating and worshipping false gods the biggest of which is materialism.  from that spiritual poverty it is easy to understand our poverty of being.  this focuses on how easily we can be confused in the area of identity.  if i am not careful, b/c i possess material resource, i can become arrogant, develop a god complex, assume i have all the answers for myself and others.  if i do not have material resource i can easily feel inferior, have no sense of esteem or worth, conclude i am a loser with nothing to offer so why even try.  this can help us understand the poverty of community, another layer of truly understanding poverty and its remedy.  when you understand there is a poverty of spiritual intimacy and being,  spread throughout the entire population of the earth, it is easy to see how the idea of living in community breaks down.  in that outside the garden environment we can easily become self centered and society itself can quickly evolve into an exploitative, abusive, cut throat battle between the have’s and the have not’s.  here the have’s (god complex, arrogant, i’ve got the answer) dictate to the have not’s (low self esteem, resentful, entitled, frustrated) what they can have, what they should do, etc.  and when it doesn’t work the have’s grow resentful of the have not’s lack of appreciation, effort, and change, while the have not’s fall even further behind.  this is where the 4th dimension is essential.  poverty of stewardship.  every human is created in the image of god, has a purpose, and gifting to fulfill that purpose.  but stewardship does not mean we are to live as owners.  no, we were made to live under god’s rule, as stewards managing what rightfully belongs to him.  here we understand the purpose for which we have been created, and utilize all our gifting and opportunity to fulfill that purpose despite the fact we no longer live in the garden.  this does not change the brokenness of our environment (in biblical terms the ground is still cursed), but it will sure guard against aimlessly drifting through life w/o any sense of meaning or purpose.  it will guard against the extremes of laziness or becoming a workaholic.  and it should prevent a life lived under the control of materialism. 

now if this is true, as i believe it is.  all of us are to some extent in poverty.  our experience in poverty varies greatly depending on a number of variables.  but most of all, the real answer is quite complex, and never a one size fits all.  i think i’ll save that part for next week.  as usual, weigh in.  i’d love to hear your thoughts.  i have often been frustrated in how to address this issue and finally think there is hope.  thanks for reading.  check back next week as we move into the realm of solutions.  peace.