Everything is Backwards

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself is a new book by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert that argues that there are four primary relationships that have been broken by the fall: our relationship with God, our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the rest of creation.

Another way to look at this is that these are four different types of poverty. All four of these types of poverty are part of the effects of the fall, and in Christ all four of these types of poverty are being reconciled back to their original place in the created order.

1. Poverty of Spiritual Intimacy. This is the most profoundly and utterly devastating effect of the fall, because it severs us from God himself. Human beings are now profoundly estranged from the very source of all life. Conservative, evangelical Christians are chiefly concerned with this sort of poverty. This is, indeed, the pinnacle of the work of Christ on the cross, because Jesus died for people, first and foremost. Believers in Christ will respond in love and faith to this reconciled relationship through prayer, studying God’s word, evangelism, and fellowship with other believers.
2. Poverty of Being. This sort of poverty affects how we view and understand ourselves. Romans 12:3 teaches one “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” The fall corrupts our capacity for accurate self-assessment, leading to either God-complexes (thinking too highly of ourselves) or self-loathing (denying the image of God in each of us).
3. Poverty of Community. We are ultimately self-serving people which comes at the expense of the greater good and other people. This leads to exploitation, abuse, discrimination, and so forth. We see this in scripture at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), where humanity’s one great attempt at world unity was a grand plot to overthrow God Himself. We experience deep divisions of community through racism, classism, intellectual elitism, agism, and social Darwinism (only the strong shall survive).
4. Poverty of Stewardship. God gave humanity a stewardship over creation, calling us to cultivate the earth and bring forth its fruit through joyful labor. The fall screwed all that up and now the earth fights back and doesn’t want to be subdued. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and droughts cause devastation and kill people. Human beings resist our mandate to subdue the earth and either become workaholics or lazy. Instead of caring for the earth we waste its resources. Many people have lost a sense of purpose in their lives because they don’t realize that they were created to subdue.

In short, “poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings (p. 62).” The job of the church is to work to restore shalom to the earth, reaching its apex in personal conversion, but not limited to that.

Corbett and Fikkert argue that we all experience multiple types of poverty and different degrees of poverty. “Every human being is suffering from a poverty of spiritual intimacy, a poverty of being, a poverty of community, and a poverty of stewardship.” But many poverty alleviation efforts reduce the notion of poverty to the material realm, and then only use one possible tool of poverty alleviation, monetary relief.

This is particularly useful for me, because I frequently encounter people who are asking for money on the street, or pull up in my car beside people  on the exit ramp holding signs.

The problem, according to Corbett and Fikkert, is that if we don’t see poverty in all of its forms, we make the problems worse through our relief efforts. For example, when a middle class person gives away free money to a homeless person, s/he feels superior which contributes to his God complex. The middle class person’s poverty of being is worsened through their attempts to help.

The homeless person experiences shame or self loathing or inferiority, and having to beg for free money from others further complicates his own poverty of being. And the homeless person’s poverty of stewardship locks him into a mindset that he has no responsibility as an image bearer of God to work and provide. Both people’s poverties of being were made worse by the transaction.

The authors urge a broader understanding of poverty that encompasses the whole person and not just his amount of material possessions or income earning potential. Poverty of stewardship could cause one person to be homeless and refuse to work, and cause another person to be a workaholic and greedily oppress others.

As a result of this, poverty alleviation is best not handled by handouts. But this does not get anyone off the hook, but rather calls us to something much deeper. It calls us to relationships. I could toss a couple of quarters into the homeless dude’s cup and feel great, but harm us both in the process. That costs me practically nothing. But building a relationship with a person is much more difficult.

It means that I will have to make myself available to hang out with people outside my social class. I will have to listen to them, ask them questions and get to know them, and be patient with the fact that they may not open up to me until I’ve known them for a long time. And I will have to be open about my sin. I am not going to save them, but we may be mutually beneficial to one another. That homeless person can teach me about my own poverties as well.

Jesus came to not only die for sins, but to reconcile all things to himself. That means he wants to reconcile us to God, reconcile us to each other, restore within us a “sober judgment” about ourselves, and restore creation to its proper place in subjection to God.

That’s our calling. Let’s do it.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. He knows a couple who is about to get married and who has a debt burden from college that exceeds $100,000 between the two of them.

That’s a bad place to start a marriage.

Are these Ivy League graduates or med school students? No. They’re graduating from Cedarville with degrees in education and English. To put it in perspective, my first home in Louisville cost my wife and I less than $100,000 and we mortgaged that amount for 30 years. Our monthly payment was around $850 per month. This makes perfect sense when you’re purchasing an asset that appreciates in value  over time, like a home. But that is a crazy amount to pay for degrees in education and English from a small Bible college.

With this kind of sticker price, is this worth it? Most people go to college because it’s what you do in order to secure a decent job and better lifestyle in the future. College is supposed to do two things. First, it is supposed to educate and train you to contribute to society in a particular field (prepare you for a vocation) and second to indirectly recommend you to potential employers by awarding you a degree.

If employment does not await the graduate with sufficient income to offset the debt burden, then the college education becomes an obscenely expensive venture that will not propel a person’s career.

The Bible says that “the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov 22:7). College is supposed to lead to a good career. A good career is supposed to produce freedom and financial independence. This freedom can then, in turn, be used to serve God and the financial affluence given to advance Kingdom causes.

But when colleges are charging $100,000 for degrees that lead to careers that pay in the $30,000 price range, the student has enslaved himself to a life of financial slavery.

Thomas Chatterton Williams answers this question.

Black children would be able to avoid internalizing what James Baldwin called “the propaganda of race inferiority,” since every night on the news there would be a visible reminder that there is nothing whites can do that blacks cannot. That is the real change Obama offers-all of a sudden the world young black kids imagine themselves inhabiting would seem a richer place to live, one without an upper limit. To Biggie Smalls’ dismal list of career options afforded young black males-”You either slang crack rock / Or you got a wicked jump shot”-we could add the office of president. And in response to what Jay-Z cynically defined as the black man’s lot in life-”All we got is sports and entertainment/ Until we even, thievin”-we could say, No, not anymore.

The symbolism of a black man in the Oval Office would certainly advance the cause of racial equality in America. Unfortunately, we do not elect a symbol for President, we elect a man (or woman) who has a worldview and a set of policies that they wish to enact to shape the country and world to their liking.

If Obama were elected, racial reconciliation would improve in America. But the plight of the unborn will become more bleak. The black woman’s womb will be one of the most dangerous places in America, government expansion might make poverty worse in America which will adversely affect blacks, and an out of control liberal media will further their attempts to silence voices of dissension.

I wish to God I could vote for the first black Presidential to run successfully at the top of a major ticket. But I’m afraid the cost is simply too high.

If every Christian is called to be generous with their resources, how much should we give? To what extent should we sacrifice?

I am reading Tim Keller’s book Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road and he offers a helpful principle. “Be sure that your giving cuts into your own lifestyle so that the burden of the needy falls on you.” He is essentially arguing that if your giving habits do not alter your lifestyle in someway, you aren’t giving enough yet. You should give until you feel pinched.

He also quotes another book by Thomas Gouge, who said that “the poor have a right unto part of thine estate.” God supplies some of us with abundance so that we can steward it properly by giving to meet others needs. Gouge says that the poor man’s bread rots in my cupboard, the poor man’s clothes hangs useless in my closet, and the poor man’s gold rusts in my treasure chest.

What dollar amount out of your monthly income causes you to feel squeezed?

This would need to be determined by each person’s conscience, according to Keller. Are we squeezed when it forces fewer meals out in restaurants? Are we squeezed when we buy a higher mileage used car instead of a new car?

This is convicting for me, because I can force myself to squeeze when OPEC and the Saudi’s want more oil money to waste in Dubai by charging me $4 a gallon for gas, but did I squeeze myself enough for my poor neighbors down the street?

When your church gathers for worship, what are you really doing? If you truly want to worship, then you should be giving ascent to the things God says are important.

What, then, are the things God really wants to see from you when you gather for worship? Does he want to see good musicians and a talented vocalists? Does he want to hear skillful arrangements and prayers laced with tender piano music, led by an up and coming worship leader with diving board hair?

If you have a kick-butt worship band, and everybody comes and raises their hands and sings out really loud, and the offering plate is overflowing, and everybody is having a great time… if you have all of this but your church does not have any sort of outreach to the poor, needy, broken, psychologically troubled, physically handicapped, or the otherwise down-and-out, and your church favors the affluent, pretty, smart, creative, educated, white, sophisticated, and/or the otherwise resourceful and well-to-do…

Your worship music will suck.

Amos 5:23-24

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Worship is primarily theological and secondarily musical. If you have great music but a man-centered, do it yourself, I’m OK and you’re OK bankrupt theology, God doesn’t want to hear it.

Mud Cookie: Dirt, Vegetable Oil, and Salt.

Backwards Verse of the Day: Luke 22:25-30

Since Jesus was going around announcing his Kingdom to everyone, the natural questions started to arise among his followers. Who will be the chief of staff? Who will be the Press Secretary? Communications Director? Secretary of State? Who will be VP?

Its hard to run a kingdom alone and his disciples knew that when Jesus’ kingdom is fulfilled he’d need to surround himself with the right personnel. Naturally, then, they wondered: “Who is the greatest?” This is not a school-yard conversation between bullies. This was a legitimate question to ask when one expects to be in the inner circle of a revolutionary new king.

This is how Jesus answers the question:

And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

This was at the heart of Jesus’ kingdom message. The poor, outcast, the hungry, servants, lowly, needy, the homeless, and so on are the best qualified in God’s kingdom to be the Chief of Staff, the Speaker of the House, etc. God’s Kingdom is not like the “Gentiles” who demonstrate power and authority via harsh rule; God’s kingdom is ruled by service, humility, and kindness to those in need.

The homeless man who doesn’t have a dime to his name but spends cold winter nights in an urban shelter, going to a store front church because that’s the only place that will accept him — he may be your boss in the Kingdom.