On Poverty - Part 1

Imagine two countries. In country 1, 55% of the households are "working households", and have an income after tax of around £100,000. The other 45% of the households don't need to do paid work - they are variously looking after children, retired, volunteering for charities and so on. Due to generous welfare, they have an income after tax of £40,000, which is still plenty to live on. They could get jobs if they want to, but have decided not to for this part of their life. Life expectancy in country 1 is in the mid-80s. Crime is negligible.

Country 2 is ruled by a small, fabulously rich elite, who plunder the natural resources of the country and exploit the workers. They earn in the region of £1M each or more. The other 98% of the country are living around the bread line. The government are "fair" in their oppression though, so none of the workers is much better or worse off than any other. Life expectancy among the workers is 35 years, because they have to work down mines from the age of 6. Most adults are malnourished; most teenagers are orphans.

Which of those countries has more poverty? Well, according to the definition used by the British government, country 1 has 45% poverty, and country 2 has 0%. That is because they use the stupid Marxist definition of poverty that someone is poor if their household has less than 60% of the national median income.

Why does this matter? Because we should care far more about the problem of poverty in country 2 than in country 1. Because I am concerned for those who are genuinely poor, but not for those who are only "poor" because of bad definitions. By the government's definition, I've been poor, but I haven't had to go without food, water or shelter. Our efforts for relieving poverty shouldn't go towards redressing the shape of the income distribution, but towards helping those who need it. And what that looks like might be the subject of another post.

A Christian Perspective on the Financial Crisis

Last week, we had some high-flying financial chap who is also a committed Christian come in and give us a talk about a Christian perspective on the financial crisis. You can read a rough summary of what he said here.

I want to give a different perspective...

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted:
" 'Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!'
She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
" 'Come out of her, my people,'
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes."

...

"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore — cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.

...

In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!'

...

"Rejoice over her, you heavens!
Rejoice, you people of God!
Rejoice, apostles and prophets!
For God has judged her
with the judgment she imposed on you."

from Revelation 18, TNIV

Without going too deeply into how to interpret Revelation, an eschatological Christian perspective on the financial crisis might look something like this:

• Financial markets and so on will be destroyed, therefore we should not find security in them.
• At the end (or maybe even in the present), it will be clear that what exists as a world trading system is hostile to the Church.
• It will be destroyed by God.
• The Church's response should be to rejoice at the destruction of Babylon because of the hostility Babylon has shown to the Church.

This all somewhat raises the question of why it's so different now. I suspect it's partly that the Church is hugely compromised with society and with the world's view of money...

God and Free Market Capitalism

There seems to be an assumption in many Christian circles, especially in the US, that God would be a free-market capitalist. (In the UK, people assume that God would be some kind of moderate socialist. Both seem to be completely wrong.) Here's a bit of Amos 8...

Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,
saying,
"When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?"—
skimping the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,
buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.

Amos 8:4-7, NIV

Isn't it interesting that Amos condemns in the same breath practices we would agree are immoral, like cheating with dishonest scales, and practices we would assume are perfectly legitimate, like boosting the price and looking forwards for opportunities to make more money?

Of course, I'm fairly sure that God wouldn't go down the statist redistributive route either - it quite clearly encourages laziness.

The sort of economic model God seems to be encouraging here is one driven by the priority of worship and rest (New Moons, Sabbaths) as well as hard work, and one driven more by love and concern for others (especially the poor) than by desire for profit and growth of the economy.

Brazil 11 - All the Way Down

Brazil is a country with virtually no social security and where politicians are famous for being corrupt. As a result, society genuinely seems to go all the way down. If human existence is possible at a given level, there will be people there, it seems, from the luxury beachside flats to scavenging with the vultures on a rubbish dump.

I used to wonder why there was no household recycling here. Now I realise that it is a mercy that there is not - recyclable material is a major source of income for those at the rubbish dump.

Here there is capitalism in a way that doesn't seem to exist in either the UK or the US. Politicians are widely viewed as corrupt, and voting is compulsory. That means that votes in the poorest areas can be essentially bought for as little as a T-shirt or $1 a day to stand by the side of a road in the hot sun waving a flag. And the politicians have very little incentive to do anything about it. Free schools in the poorest areas are apparently next to useless, and free hospitals are described by Brazillians as abattoirs. And even if the poorest children did go to school, they would still need money to survive and so have to work.

The poverty here is shocking. And without the poorest children having access to good schools, there seems to be little to keep them from following in the same poverty as their parents. Brazil is the country with the biggest financial difference between rich and poor in the world, and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. Keeping the poor poor keeps their votes cheap.

Now I think I understand something of the oppression of the poor, and a tiny bit of God's anger against it.

Sermon on Matthew 6:19-7:6 (Part of the Sermon on the Mount)

These are rough notes on what I said when speaking on Matthew 6:19-7:6 recently. The talk wasn't recorded, and I wasn't speaking from a script.

If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? A large house? All the money you wanted? A gorgeous boyfriend or girlfriend? A fast and very expensive car? Instead of all that, Jesus says that we should seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness.

Why should we seek first the Kingdom of God?

Three reasons for this which we see in the passage are as follows:

In 6:19-21, it is clear that everything else passes away, but there is real treasure that lasts in the kingdom. Whatever else we seek after will not last, so it is far more worthwhile to seek God's kingdom and righteousness.

In 6:22-23, we learn that if we seek God's kingdom, we can really see, but otherwise we are in darkness. The picture is that of the body as a room, with the eyes as the only window. If we look at something dark, we are filled with darkness. But if we set our eyes on the kingdom, we are filled with light.

In 6:24, we learn that we are slaves to whatever we seek. People who run after money are slaves to that money. People who run after relationships are slaves to those relationships. People who run after God are slaves to him. So who would you rather be slaves to - some inanimate, pointless and transitory principle, or the loving Father God?

What does it mean to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness?

In Matthew, the Kingdom of God is clearly both now and not-yet. It starts in the Old Testament, is brought in in a new and powerful way by Jesus, but still isn't fully here yet - it gets finally and fully brought in by Jesus' return.

So what it means to seek the now and not-yet kingdom of God is that now we should obey Jesus as our top priority. We should seek for him to be the person who is ruling in our lives now. We should seek for more people to come to see and acknowledge him as their king.

But we should also seek the future kingdom of God. We should be setting our sights primarily on heaven rather than on the here and now. We should be aiming for heaven and for the treasure that is there.

What stops us seeking first the kingdom of God?

In 6:19-24, it is treasures on Earth. v21 tells us that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. It is that way round - our heart follows our treasure. It isn't saying that we shouldn't have money or relationships or whatever - they can be great gifts of God. But it is saying that they shouldn't be our treasure, because where our treasure is, there our heart follows.

In 6:25-34, it is worry about the future. If we look at nature, we see that God is totally reliable - that's what science is about. And we know that he is our Father - he cares for us far more than he does for nature. We should look at the birds and the flowers and see God's providence there far more than we should look at adverts or magazines, which are all about making us feel uncomfortable and wanting more.

In 7:1-6, it is judging. Seeking the kingdom of God is founded on poverty of Spirit - on recognising that we are spiritually bankrupt. Jesus says that we will be judged according to our attitude to others - if we are mean-spirited and nitpicking with others, when we are judged it will be in a mean-spirited and nitpicking way. But we should be wise in this v6. We shouldn't be vulnerable to those who will take advantage of us.

Summary

There will come a day when all of this world around us will have passed away, when our houses will have crumbled into dust, our cars rusted, our friends and relations died. There will come a day when we can see God fully, when it will be absolutely clear that God has always been totally trustworthy, and that his grace is far greater than ours. On that day, will we feel that we have wasted our lives?

The Parable of the Ten Minas

This parable, I think, is the one that is most at odds with the way I thought when growing up.

Interestingly, the most common criticism of Christian men I hear from talking to single Christian women is that they/we are insufficiently willing to take risks.

11While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. 'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'

"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.'

"He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.

"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'

" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'

"The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'

"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'

"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'

"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'

"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'

" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'

"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me."

Luke 19:11-27, NIV

All kinds of interesting questions:

• What does this say about the correct attitude to risk for God?
• How can we be using what we have riskily?
• How does this tie in with Luke's other teaching about money - for example the Parable of the Unjust Steward, where good stewardship is again risky stewardship?
• Isn't it interesting that some things we are meant to take care to guard (e.g. the gospel, our hearts) and everything else we're meant to live light to?

Materialism and Social Action

I was at a church service this morning (blog entry to follow), where someone who had made a recent trip to a poor area of India was talking about it.

Much of what they said was great and encouraging, but two things stuck in my mind as clashing.

One was the continual emphasis on how happy all the children, especially the Christian ones were (in contrast to here). The other was commenting on how depressing the poverty was and how good it would be to change it.

This got me thinking.

A lot of the time we talk as if we want to bring other people up to the same standard of living that we enjoy (or, more often, don't enjoy). But isn't that just us being materialistic and wanting other people to be the same. What if it's better being just above the breadline?

Compare Proverbs 30:8

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

Wouldn't a better conclusion from looking at situations like that was that having lots of money doesn't make you happier?