How might Christians respond to poverty?

 On the one hand, the world has never been so wealthy and prosperous as it is today. On the other hand, it has never been so unequal. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Billions live on a few dollars per day. The covid-19 pandemic has made this fragile existence even more tenuous and has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty. Poverty is not just material but also involves limited access to education, health, social networks, and political representation. There are also psychological and spiritual dimensions to poverty.

Addressing global poverty has become a massive billion-dollar "industry", for better or worse, involving governments, philanthropists, NGOs, universities, and researchers. Yet, the effectiveness of this industry in alleviating poverty is contentious.  

The Bible, from beginning to end, says a lot about poverty, wealth, inequality, injustice, and caring for the marginalised. Hence, addressing these issues should be central to the mission of the global church. But, this is a complex issue as it involves theological, political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. 

A helpful place to begin is the book, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. They state

one of the biggest problems in many poverty-alleviation efforts is that their design and implementation exacerbates the poverty of being of the economically rich—their god-complexes—and the poverty of being of the economically poor—their feelings of inferiority and shame.

There is also an excellent small group guide with videos that my wife and I have used with a church small group.

For those who want to go deeper, either because they are academically oriented or are practitioners, there is a "textbook".

Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development by Bryant L. Myers

Myers worked for World Vision for many years and now teaches at Fuller Seminary. It is comprehensive, balanced, easy to read, and has helpful diagrams. There are many things I like about the book.

Integral mission

"The Christian message is an embodied message, carried by living witnesses." Word, deed, and sign cannot be separated. Poverty alleviation and gospel proclamation are both acts of love that go together. Transformational development has spiritual, relational, and material dimensions. It is central to the Kingdom of God.

Bringing together theology, social science, and activism

Activism and programs need to be informed by both social sciences and by theology. Activism receives motivation and direction from theology, being informed by a Biblical worldview.  That provides a framework to understand who humans are, how they act, and how they change. The themes of creation, fall, incarnation, redemption, and re-creation are central. 

Poverty occurs in a social context. A community is "disturbed" by any outside intervention or internal initiative that aims to reduce poverty. Social sciences can be useful in understanding social structures and dynamics, including designing and evaluating the impact of any program.

A compact overview of state-of-the-art thinking and practice on development

There is a huge academic literature on development, from both Christian and secular, Western and Majority World perspectives. 

Myers provides a succinct introduction to the ideas of Jeffrey Sachs, William Easterly, Paul Collier, Banerjee and Duflo, Muhammad Yunus, Amartya Sen, ...

There are methods for planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluation of projects. These include The Logical Framework (logframe), Participatory Learning and Action, Appreciative Inquiry, and Positive Deviance. They are all introduced and critically evaluated.

Sensitive to culture and context

Most poverty alleviation programs are led and funded by WWWs (Wealthy White Westerners) but implemented in Majority World contexts that are not WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic). Given the hubris that too often goes with money, power, and education (a god-complex) it is hardly surprising that many programs fail, particularly in the long term, because of a lack of understanding and sensitivity to local culture such as social structures, values, methods of communication, ...

The modern Western worldview presupposes dichotomies between the spiritual and material. The figure below shows pairings of categories, such as religion and science, faith and reason. These pairs are assumed to be in conflict or completely independent of one another. These dichotomies are often presupposed by Western Christians. But, they are not part of a Biblical worldview.

Postmodernism does not accept these dichotomies, and rightly points out they are naive. For example, faith and reason can never be separated, either for a Christian or an atheist. Everyone starts with some presuppositions. Rationality takes place in the context of a particular tradition, as emphasised by Alisdair MacIntyre.

Myers draws on ideas from the anthropologist, Paul Hiebert, who contrasts modern and traditional worldviews, illustrated below. A key idea is that of the "excluded middle" in the modern worldview: there is no room for forces and phenomena that bridge the spiritual and seen world. 

This presents a problem for development initiatives in communities with a traditional worldview; this excluded middle that may be seen to determine health, prosperity, natural disasters, and conflicts. Hence, a community will not be receptive to technical "solutions" that are presented by Westerners.

Treats the poor with dignity  

The poor and non-poor are all made in the image of God. They are of equal value in God's eyes. Hence, the poor should be valued, respected, celebrated, enjoyed, empowered, and listened to. 

Myers reviews social science research that shows that the poor actually know a lot more than they are often given credit for. They are incredibly resilient. It is a miracle how they manage to survive and persevere. Myers describes the work of the Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto who "demonstrated the vitality, creativity, and entrepreneurial activity of Peru's urban poor." However, this positive energy is significantly constrained because they are required to operate in the informal (underground) economy which means they do not have protections from the rule of law or the property titles that others use to access capital. 

Discussion of complexity theory and emergence

Communities are composed of many interacting units (individuals, families, businesses, churches, ...) that are embedded in an environment (e.g. a city and the global economy). For such complex systems, it is hard to predict how they will behave, including in response to a "perturbation". Hence, the concept of emergence and ideas from complexity theory can provide some insight into development.

Principles are relevant to other Majority World issues

The focus of the book is on poverty alleviation, particularly extreme poverty in the Majority World. However, most of the principles (theological and social scientific) and practices are relevant to any initiative of a Christian organisation that aims to have a transformative influence in a community. Part of my interest in the book is because it addresses many issues that we face in the IFES Logos and Cosmos Initiative.

If you want to know more about the book you can download the Table of Contents and Chapter 1. The latter provides a nice overview of the book, introducing some of the key ideas, and describing how it came to be written.