Work For The Bread That Doesn't Perish

John 6 is often brought up in contexts like soteriology, the eucharist, and the historicity of John's gospel and miracles. That's appropriate, and it should keep happening, but the passage is also relevant in another context that should get more attention than it does.

In verses 26-27, Jesus rebukes the crowd for being overly focused on physical food and not focused enough on spiritual food. And he said that in a context in which problems like lack of food and poverty were much bigger than they are today, especially in a place like modern America. It's a documented fact that there's been a major decrease in poverty worldwide over the last several decades. It's also a fact that the modern world has far more technology, medicine, comforts and conveniences, literacy, and other advantages than people had in Biblical times. Yet, people, including Christians, frequently don't make the relevant distinctions between the Biblical context and ours. As if the tens of trillions of dollars we spend on government programs to help people in physical contexts, military assistance in such contexts, private charities, etc. don't make us significantly different than ancient Egypt, ancient Israel, or the Roman empire or only make us a little different. But even in a setting in which people were much worse off in these contexts than they are today, Jesus often made comments like the ones in John 6:26-27. How much more should we be doing it today?

The culture often suggests that the primary or only context in which Christians are doing good is when they benefit people physically in the short term (giving food to people, giving them clothing, giving them medicine, providing shelter, etc.). And Christians frequently accommodate that mindset by giving an inordinately large amount of attention to that sort of work. (And the fact that liberal professing Christians do that more than conservatives doesn't prove that conservatives aren't doing it. You can do something to a lesser extent, yet be guilty of doing it to some degree.) If people still haven't noticed the explicitly Christian names of the hospitals they go to, the widespread presence of explicitly Christian charities in so many contexts, etc., then they're culpably negligent. We can point these things out to them from time to time, but we need to keep the priorities Jesus set out in this passage in John 6 (and in many other places). There's some value in explaining to people what charity work and other such things Christians have done over the centuries, but we need to avoid taking that too far. You can be overly focused on it and leave people with false impressions. Mind precedes matter, and there are higher priorities than benefitting people physically in the short term.

I've occasionally heard John Piper make a good point in this context. One of the reasons why Christians should be so focused on work like evangelism and missions is to benefit people physically over the long term. The afterlife will have a physical dimension after the resurrection. The spiritual has priority over the physical, but as far as the physical is concerned, the long term has priority over the short term.

Some Reactions To The Chick-Fil-A Situation

- It's early, but it looks to me like Chick-Fil-A is being intentionally ambiguous about much of what's going on. In the stories I've read, I've noticed a suspicious lack of quotations when the alleged comments of Chick-Fil-A representatives are being discussed. I wonder how many of them agreed to talk to the media only if they wouldn't be quoted. That allows them more opportunity to revise their comments, claim that they were misunderstood, etc. We'll see what develops. But the ambiguity so far and the lack of a quick clarification in support of what Chick-Fil-A has traditionally been associated with is telling.

- I don't involve myself in boycotts much. I'm highly selective about them. Even when I participate in one, as I have against Target on transgenderism issues, I don't give much attention to it. It's not a high priority. There are more important things to be occupied with. But I think there's merit in boycotting to some extent, especially in cases that have a lot of potential for optimal impact. My sense at this point, and it's still early, is that boycotting Chick-Fil-A would be a good idea. I don't intend to put a lot of time and effort into figuring out all of the details and trying to maximize the situation, but I'll probably try to avoid supporting Chick-Fil-A in the future to some extent, depending on how the circumstances develop.

- The Salvation Army's response is problematic. They told Bisnow:

"We serve more than 23 million individuals a year, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, we believe we are the largest provider of poverty relief to the LGBTQ+ population."

By the same reasoning, they're probably also the biggest provider of poverty relief for adulterers and polyamorists. I doubt they'd mention that in a statement to the media, frame it the way they've framed their help for LGBTQ people, and do some equivalent to adding the ridiculous "+" to the end of "LGBTQ". Like Chick-Fil-A and so many others, the Salvation Army is far too defensive. That sort of weakness is part of the reason why they're in such a bad situation. They're digging themselves deeper in the hole.

- There's some merit to helping the poor, supporting educational efforts, and other such activities that Chick-Fil-A, Salvation Army, and others are highlighting in this context, but I want to remind people of something I've said many times before. Poverty is far less of a problem in the world today than it was in Biblical times and even just several decades ago. (See, for example, here and here.) That's largely because of Christianity's positive impact on the world. It's also because of the advancement of technology, medicine, democracy, and capitalism, for example. Rates of poverty have plummeted in recent decades. In many contexts, our standard of living and standards in other parts of the world have gotten much better in recent years. To be as concerned about something like poverty today as the Biblical authors were in their day is irresponsible. It would be like being as concerned as Biblical authors were about diseases that either no longer exist or exist to a much lesser degree. That wouldn't make sense. The fact that disease X was prominent to degree Y during the Biblical era doesn't prove that disease X has the same significance today. The amount of attention that's given to issues like poverty today is inexcusable. Governments, charities, businesses, churches, individuals, etc. are spending oceans upon oceans upon oceans of money and other resources on such issues in the modern world. There's a widespread cultural consensus in many parts of the world that we should be helping the poor, educating people about secular and trivial subjects, improving people's health, and so on. Christians should be more focused on supporting missions, evangelism, apologetics, theology, the study of the paranormal, work on ethical issues, philosophical work, and other such endeavors. The world is overly focused on helping people in physical, short-term ways. Christians should work on benefiting people in a physical and short-term manner to some extent, but we shouldn't follow the world's lead in being as imbalanced as they are on these matters (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

- The biggest problem related to LGBTQ issues isn't with the organizations that promote the LGBTQ movement or organizations that are too accommodating to them, like Chick-Fil-A. It's not with political leaders, pastors, etc. Rather, the biggest problem is with the average person. As in so many other contexts, there's too much of a focus on leaders and not enough focus on laymen. The latter bear far more responsibility for where we are in this culture. LGBTQ organizations wouldn't be as influential as they are, and organizations like Chick-Fil-A and Salvation Army wouldn't be as weak as they are, if the average American (and the average person in many other nations) weren't so corrupt. Even in conservative Evangelical circles, how many people provided objective, verifiable arguments against same-sex marriage when the controversy over that subject was at its height? How many, instead, either stayed silent or just did something like state their view without supporting it or supported it inadequately, such as by merely quoting the Bible? My estimate is that only a small percentage of conservative Evangelicals, probably a single-digit percentage at best, handled the same-sex marriage controversy in anything even close to a responsible manner. The large majority either were silent or spoke up in a highly inadequate way. How many Christians are putting much effort into doing research and reasoning with people in a mature way, whether on LGBTQ matters or other issues? See my article here about the neglect of apologetics and the neglect of intellectual maturity more broadly in modern Christianity. Non-Christians deserve the primary blame for the absurd situation with LGBTQ issues in modern America. But some of the blame also goes to American Christians, who are so intellectually immature, among other problems. That's part of the reason why the Chick-Fil-A story stings them so much. They've been overly focused on such organizations, activities like eating at restaurants are too big a part of their lives, they're overly focused on what their leaders (such as the people running Chick-Fil-A) are doing and not focused enough on their own responsibilities and opportunities, etc.

- There's been a lot of focus on how the LGBTQ movement won't be satisfied with Chick-Fil-A's concession. That's largely true. But don't underestimate how much some people will respond positively, will enjoy seeing Chick-Fil-A compromise, and will want to encourage more of it.

John Chrysostom Condemns Neglect Of Apologetics

In a culture like the United States, in which people have such significant advantages and responsibilities that Chrysostom's audience didn't have, every pastor should be speaking this way. So should other people in positions of influence. Notice that Chrysostom includes the poor in his criticism. Even they should be involved in apologetics and should be criticized when they neglect it. In societies like the United States, we often classify people as poor when they aren't poor by historical and global standards. But even when Chrysostom was addressing people poorer than the average allegedly poor person in America, he held those individuals accountable for being involved in apologetics. If pastors, parents, teachers, and other people in positions of influence would speak this way, we'd have a much better culture. Read through to the end, as the focus moves more and more to apologetics. Notice how the faults and excuses Chrysostom demolishes are so similar to the ones we see in our day:

Pure religion

Arminian NT scholar Scot McKnight has weighed in on the World Vision debacle:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/04/07/world-vision-and-the-brother-of-jesus/

Here are some of the highlights:

When I think of World Vision and the monies Kris and I send to World Vision (and still will send should you care to know and we are thinking of adding to our support — and believe when I say I despise the culture wars and our support of WV has nothing to do with that), I think of words from the brother of Jesus at James 1:27, words that many of the critics of World Vision’s recent decision need to read with some integrity- and soul-searching:  

• Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. 

The critics of World Vision, if the numbers are right, may be right in their own minds about what to believe, but they won’t be right before God if they lift those donations and don’t sink them into compassionate donations toward those in need in our world. And they are surely not right if they have merely taken an opportunity to pounce on brothers and sisters though they do not care about orphans and widows (this is not just about children, folks, it is about widows, the most neglected segment in the church today — read Miriam Neff’s book about widows, please). 

What is the world? In James that word will refer most especially to power-mongering, violence, and verbal assaults on one’s brothers and sisters. Notice James 1:19-21 and then 2:5 and 4:4 and especially James 3:13-15. James, as always, has much to say. 

A good-before-God religion cares for the needy and eschews violence against one’s brothers and sisters.

This is so confused at so many different levels. 

i) First of all, it's striking that what he takes to be self-evidently true, critics of World Vision take to be self-evidently false. This reflects McKnight's insularity. There's a growing rift between the evangelical left and the evangelical right, where some positions taken by the evangelical right are simply inconceivable to the evangelical left. Members of the evangelical left belong to like-minded, ideologically self-reinforcing communities where their assumptions go unchallenged. It's a self-enclosed subculture. They can't even enter into the mindset of Christians with whom they disagree. 

ii) Notice how he equates criticism of World Vision with "violence." If you criticize World Vision management for hiring homosexual "couples," that's tantamount to practicing "violence" against one's "brothers and sisters."

a) One problem is trivializing the concept of violence, so that a "verbal assault" is equivalent to "violence."

b) Another problem is his failure to appreciate that, when World Vision management capitulated on homosexual marriage, that, in itself, is a test of their withering Christian commitment. Are they "brothers and sisters"? 

iii) Offhand, I don't know of any Bible verses which command charity towards widows and orphans outside the community of faith. Aren't such verses typically directed at Jewish widows (in the OT) and Christian widows (in the NT)? 

That doesn't mean it's ipso facto wrong to extend charity to needy individuals outside the community of faith. But McKnight is ripping these commands out of context. 

iv) Then he seems to indicate that he wants to opt out of the culture wars or compartmentalize charity towards widows and orphans from the culture wars. Evidently, he's never bothered to notice that when liberals win the culture wars, widows and widowers are among the first casualties. 

Liberals push to euthanize the elderly because seniors are a drain on the healthcare system. A development which Wesley J. Smith regularly documents at Human Exceptionalism. 

Liberals would rather see limited medical resources go to worthier causes, like insuring sex-change operations, fertility coverage for same-sex couples, building more transgender rest rooms, and developing HIV vaccines. 

And their policies are just as harmful to orphans. They are shutting down Christian adoption agencies that refuse to place children with homosexual "couples." Christian agencies which insist that children should be placed with normal couples who can model a normal father/mother, husband/wife relationship. 

Instead, liberals are now making adoptive children guinea pigs in their social engineering experiment. Forcing orphans into an unnatural environment. Classic corruption of minors.  

For that matter, it's only a matter of time before liberals have CPS remove children from their Christian biological parents. 

v) In addition, the way liberals deal with unwanted children is to kill them. Having largely won the legal battle on abortion (through judicial fiat), they are now pressing ahead on after-birth abortion (i.e. infanticide). 

vi) Furthermore, as the president of World Vision has indicated (in an interview), World Visions employees are not allowed to "proselytize." But in that event, they are treating symptoms rather than causes. After all, the problem of widows, orphans, and poverty in general, is often exacerbated by a false religion informing the culture.

For instance, when Muslims practice child marriage, that means more women and children will be widowed or orphaned, since the husband/father will often predecease them by a wide margin. Likewise, the Hindu caste system creates a culture of poverty. So does belief in reincarnation and karma, which is punitive and fatalistic. 

One fringe benefit of evangelizing the lost is to reduce certain social maladies which result from a false worldview.  

vii) Likewise, simply providing for the physical needs of the poor, when you refuse to evangelize them, is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. For they are still hellbound. 

Choices

I’ve read that she sang Gershwin songs for American officers, after the war. “Yes,” she says, “and I stole everything possible to eat. Because, you know, after the war, we had nothing to eat. We had nothing. One egg a year. Can you imagine, one egg a year? And we could have 68 grams of butter a month.” (About two and a half ounces.) 

“I went into the officers clubs, and they had everything. They would make a big loaf of bread or something, and whatever was not eaten, they threw away. And we had not the right to take it. Ja. It was not fraternité, not at all. Whatever I could steal, I did. 

“Once, there was a brown paste. It was something to eat, so I took it.” It turned out to be peanut butter. “We had never heard of it.” I ask, “Do you like peanut butter?” “I don’t eat it, but yes: I like peanut butter with crunches in it. Fattening, though.” 

I say, “After the war [with all the privations she has described], the rest of your life must have seemed easy. The hard part was at the beginning; all the rest was easier.” 

“I didn’t feel it so,” she responds. “No, when you have nothing, you have your will. All you can think about is overcoming. Overcoming obstacles. You just go forward. You don’t think, you just do it. You have no choice. Then, afterward, you have choices — and that is difficult.” 

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/369194/print

Snake in deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a well-known astrophysicist as well as director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC. He's also an educator and immensely interested in furthering scientific learning and knowledge in society. He's presumably against racism and sexism and would fight against poverty in low socioeconomic areas such as inner cities.

However, he evidently not only has no problem with the consequences of his following recommendations, but in fact he indeed maps out and hopes for a particular result:

Learn evolution on your own. There's nobody stopping you from accomplishing that. And if the absence of evolution is state sanctioned, then move from the state. Such an exodus (if you allow the term) will render the region without scientifically literate people and the local economy will collapse in this technologically competitive 21st century in which we live. My hope is that Americans usually pay attention to when they lose money. So poverty may be the force required to effect these changes.

(Source)

Book Review: The Poverty of Nations

The following is an extended review of The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution (Crossway, 2013) by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus (hereafter referred to as TPN).  I received an advanced digital copy of this book through the NetGalley program.  TPN will be published August 31 and is available at Amazon.

___________________________________

The discipline of economics is in a state of confusion. This is no more apparent than when surveying the myriad solutions offered to alleviate poverty around the world.

Enter Wayne Grudem, a theologian, and Barry Asmus, an economist. This pair has undertaken to create a “sustainable solution to poverty in the poor nations of the world, a solution based on both economic history and the teachings of the Bible” (25). Written primarily to leaders of nations and lay persons, it is concerned with the laws and cultural principles that govern the economic arrangements of nations as a whole, rather than how local ministries or relief efforts should operate. With a major focus on the creation of goods and services, it advocates the free-market as the most efficient and morally superior method of increasing worldwide wealth. With its global perspective on poverty reduction, this is an ambitious book.

Grudem and Asmus claim that their contribution is “unique” inasmuch as it comes from both a Biblical and economic perspective. I suppose this is true insofar as I am unaware of a work of this caliber with such an interdisciplinary focus. On the other hand, many of their recommendations come from an old economic tradition and will be familiar to those who study or even merely follow politics. (Grudem and Asmus seem to acknowledge as much.) Many of the issues they discuss, such as whether multinational corporations pay unfair wages in poor countries, are not particularly in depth. As such, the value of this book is that it constitutes an introduction to the conservative perspective on international poverty.

One danger of books on economics is a lack of clarity. Here the book avoids serious pitfalls: the material is accessible and the writing generally clear—a refreshing change from other many other economic or theological works. Additionally, TPN has footnotes rather than endnotes, greatly enhancing the value of its citations.

Unlike some authors, Grudem and Asmus have done their homework—at least for the most part. They are conversant with many leading economists or other relevant scholars (Easterly, Collier, Novak, Ferguson, Acemoglu, Mauldin, Soto, etc.) and have sought to incorporate relevant historical evidence in their analysis. This has led to an impressive, if not daunting, list of seventy-eight specific causes of poverty.

The nuance is most welcome; indeed, it is necessary for a subject as complex as economics. Poverty is not reduced to a single cause—say, the laziness of individuals. The authors acknowledge, for instance, that structural corruption can allow leaders to act in ways that prevent individuals from escaping poverty.

However, sometimes it felt as if they were arguing with popular slogans or ideas rather than with leading liberal economists; the arguments against socialism felt anachronistic. What modern, currently living political leaders or economists are Grudem and Asmus critiquing? This was unclear to me, and the book risks shadowboxing with conservative caricatures or historical ghosts. This is additionally problematic given that the national leaders Grudem and Asmus would like to reach are likely to have more sophisticated views on economic matters than whatever passes for popular wisdom on a liberal blog or The Daily Show, and might not feel their position has been adequately addressed (or even that it has been addressed at all).

One of the great strengths of TPN is that it defines and explains core concepts in economic policy. Wealth and poverty are explored with reference to critical ideas such as GDP, per capital income, market value, commodity dumping, comparative advantage, composite price, what constitutes wealth creation and so on. Anyone who wants to make a lasting and serious comment on economic matters needs to understand these concepts and how they function as indicators of or factors in economic growth.

The Bible and Economics

TPN attempts to find support, perhaps even justification, for its free-market views in the pages of Scripture. To be frank, sometimes it felt as if Scripture was being tacked onto an economic philosophy. For example, Ephesians 4:28, 1 Thessalonians 4:11 and 2 Thessalonians 3:10 are invoked to imply that Paul “wanted [Christians] to continually create goods and services that were of value to other people” (61). It is difficult to see that in these texts. This is not to say that Paul would have been against this idea, but these passages seem to be dealing with work from a different angle, and I do not know if our Enlightenment understanding of goods and services is coterminous to Paul’s Jewish understanding of work.

One familiar argument is their use of the eighth commandment to justify the ownership of private property, as the law could not function without the assumption of ownership. This is true enough, although this kind of argument seems stuck in the concerns of the previous generation. Communism is all but dead; even ostensibly communist countries like China functionally operate under principles much closer to a free market than communist ones (China has introduced private property legislation). The danger to private property tends not to come from unsound economic policy, but the selfish actions of governments, many of which care not one whit about the Bible’s commandments.

Much of what we call economics we might otherwise call wisdom. For example, it is wise to learn from the failures of, say, sixteenth century Spain toward the accumulation of gold and apply those lessons to modern, oil-rich nations (80). Yet while wisdom is Biblical in one sense, it is inappropriate to loosely cite Scriptural passages in defense of free-market economics, especially when many of the leaders in the world who are not Christian do not take Scripture as a reliable source for economic policy. It often felt as if the Bible was being used to justify the cultural position of its authors, rather than being exposited to challenge and shape it.

This touches on the debate between Christian economists over whether Christians can offer anything substantially unique to the field of economics that cannot already be discerned through secular study. In some ways this book inadvertently vindicates the critics of a distinctively Christian economics, as its value lies primarily in its economic prescriptions rather than its Biblical injunctions.

Morals and the Free Market

Grudem and Asmus spend chapter six arguing that the free market contains the greatest moral advantages as compared with other economic systems. This chapter is one of the weakest in the book.

What constitutes morality varies from nation to nation, so it is not clear that this appeal will successfully translate in an international context. Additionally, claims that the free market system provides the best incentives for the development of virtue seem exaggerated, at best, or naïve, at worst. For example, Grudem and Asmus argue that the free market promotes more truth-telling than any other system. Given the enormous amounts of deception in the American market, especially in areas such as marketing or finance, this hardly seems like an advantage worth commending as morally superior!

Additionally, their appeal to the free market as the best solution to environmental problems assumes people will act in the long-term interest. Yet what is to prevent one generation from plundering the local environment for their own gain?

In another example, Grudem and Asmus argue that the free market promotes social cohesion. This is not so clear. Some of the most popular technology that has been invented, developed, produced and marketed in the United States—the mobile device—has led to a serious breakdown of relationships. Even secular sociologists have warned about these trends (cf. Sherry Turkle’s Together Alone). This is anecdotal, but one of the chief complaints I have heard from refugees who come to this country is how lacking the community is in the United States, and these people often come from countries run by brutal dictators.

Most importantly, their distinction between greed and self-interest seems weak. The idea that markets are the best, even if inadequate, corrective to greed does not account for how people who idolize greed tend to be those who dominate industries. Consider the hours required of the modern CEO and the negative effects this has on his family life (if he can even have a family), to say nothing of serving his local church or community.

It hardly seems useful to talk about the moral superiority of the free market when true behavioral change—the kind that makes for sacrificial, selfless living—arises from the kind of community Jesus promotes in John 17. The Church in Acts lived under an oppressive dictatorship, yet they gave more generously than most American Christians today, who are comparatively far richer.

Influences and Perspective

TPN is informed by the work of Corbett and Fikkert’s When Helping Hurts, which strongly warns against the ills of a paternalism wherein those helping others approach the situation as a parent over the needy rather than partner with the “poor” in mutually giving relationships. This is refreshing. It also signals a change in the thinking of Christians on relief efforts.

It is also heavily informed by David Landes’s The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, which in turn is derived from the classic (and highly disputed) work of Max Weber, who argued that the ethic of Protestantism led to the economic prosperity of the West. In addition to other familiar appeals and conservatives sources, such as to the Laffer Curve or The Heritage Foundation, economic liberals are unlikely to find this work convincing.

Changing the World

Many of the recommendations in this book will be familiar to political conservatives. Given that it comments on many issues, this work is best suited as an introduction rather than an in depth discussion. In some ways, I suspect this undermines their desire to speak to national leaders in two critical ways. First, many national leaders are already trained in or familiar with economics; it will take more than an introductory level book to change their minds. Second, few lay persons are likely in any position to change economic policy in either the West or poorer nations. The average American voter has surprisingly little influence on foreign policy arrangements and the actions of foreign governments, and the American Evangelicals who read this book are increasingly irrelevant in the major cultural institutions that actually do shape international policy. How much more so for American missionaries in countries ruled by brutal dictators or unelected oligarchies!

Rick Warren closes his foreword to TPN by exhorting its readers to: “Study it! Reread it and make notes, then put it into practice and teach it to others” (20). Not only is the book described as a new classic that should be “recommended reading” for every major Christian educational institution, local pastor and relief organization, but the book “could change the world” (Ibid.). Grudem and Asmus are no less fervent, as they tell national leaders that “there is a solution to poverty that really works. It has been proven again and again in world history. And it is supported by the moral teachings of the Bible. If this solution is put into place, we are confident it will lift entire nations out of poverty” (32).

The driving assumption, all but explicitly stated in Rick Warren’s foreword and otherwise claimed in the introduction (“preaching and teaching can eventually change a culture,” 32), seems to be that if enough people spread the ideas of the book, those ideas will become policy in other nations. As much as this would be nice, culture does not change through the popularity of an idea or even though how many pastors believe and preach it. This is a democratic, individualistic approach to change, but I don’t think it has any real historical backing, and it certainly overestimates the cultural capital of conservative Christianity. Additionally, having Rick Warren write the foreword automatically alienates a significant number of the people Grudem and Asmus believe would most benefit from reading this book.

Final Verdict

I would recommend this book with some caveats. Its value lies chiefly as a popularization of conservative economic philosophy. Its theological arguments are less impressive, and here I would hesitate to commend the book as an example of sound exegesis. The arguments are too loose and there is a risk it will serve as a negative example of Scripture use for impressionable lay persons, especially with the endorsement from Warren. I suspect the book would have been more successful without the Biblical arguments.

Attempts to end poverty are not new. I remember a talk at NYU several years ago by Columbia professor and economist Jeffrey Sachs, who was promoting his (then) new book, The End of Poverty. With opening remarks by U2’s Bono, the event was charged with anticipation and hope. Sachs went on to make a presentation that would have inspired even the most languid liberal. Yet what has come of that effort today?

The only material difference I see between Sachs and Grudem and Asmus is which portion of the white, American, Enlightenment-indebted economic tradition they embrace. Moral sentiments draped over economic philosophies will never change the world. And what Bono was to Sachs, Warren is to Grudem and Asmus: a celebrity endorsement.

In their introduction, Grudem and Asmus state that what they are recommending is hardly new (20). And in sense they are right: like so many books claiming to have solutions to enormously complex, intractable problems, it will make a splash and fall by the wayside.

I am reminded of something wise someone once said:

“You will always have the poor among you.”

Global poverty rate cut in half, 1990-2010

Economic growth fuels drop in global poverty

How did this happen? Presidents and prime ministers in the West have made grandiloquent speeches about making poverty history for fifty years. ... The impact of such [official governmental] initiatives has been marginal at best.

Almost all of the fall in the poverty rate should be attributed to economic growth. Fast-growing economies in the developing world have done most of the work. Between 1981 and 2001 China lifted 680m people out of poverty. Since 2000, the acceleration of growth in developing countries has cut the numbers in extreme poverty outside China by 280m. How that growth is distributed matters too. In a country where income inequality is high, each percentage point of GDP growth will do less work than the same growth would in a more equal place.

This is great news. Unfortunately, taking the remaining billion people above the threshold will be harder. The next country that should move millions of people across the line will be India, whose economy has slowed. Then it will be the turn of sub-Saharan Africa. By 2030 two-thirds of the poorest will be in fragile states like Congo and Somalia, where they will be hard for domestic governments or foreign agencies to help. Still, shifting people above the threshold that marks dire poverty has begun to look achievable within a generation.

It seems to me that this data is fairly supportive of the notion that future government initiatives (anywhere in the world) that are interested in “eliminating poverty” ought to be initiatives that favor economic growth rather than almost anything else that governments like to do.

Which, on balance, means laissez faire when it comes to business. Lower taxes. Fewer regulations.

But will governments anywhere pay attention to this sort of thing?

[Photo: the Ghost of Ronald Reagan.]

The Hope Of Millions Of Enslaved Peoples

In my post yesterday on Evangelicals and the poor, I mentioned that giving money isn't the only way to help the poor. Let me expand upon that point with some other examples. Then I want to address another subject raised in David Platt's sermon.

Around Thanksgiving, churches often collect food to give to the poor. And some charities accept donations of clothing. Some accept computers, furniture, or other items. People who work in homeless shelters or other facilities intended to help the poor often do things other than giving money. They spend time with the poor to help them with a drug or alcohol problem, to teach them how to read, to present the gospel to them, etc.

What about our development of technologies, medicine, and other non-monetary products that benefit the poor around the world? When American doctors teach doctors in other parts of the world how to perform a particular type of surgery, for example, don't they act, at least in part, out of an interest in helping the sick in other nations, including the poor? When we give other nations our technology, our medicine, our methods of producing food, and other such things, aren't we intentionally benefiting the poor (among others)?

America has also been a major source of missionary work around the world. Much of that work has benefited the poor.

I mentioned that the United States military will often help the poor to some extent in a nation like Afghanistan or Iraq. A couple of other examples, involving more than just our military, would be our efforts to defeat Nazism and Communism. What we did, through our military and by other means, benefited many millions of poor people around the world. Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor who spent more than a decade in a Romanian prison camp, wrote:

Every freedom-loving man has two fatherlands; his own and America. Today, America is the hope of every enslaved man, because it is the last bastion of freedom in the world. Only America has the power and spiritual resources to stand as a barrier between militant Communism and the people of the world.

It is the last "dike" holding back the rampaging floodwaters of militant Communism. If it crumples, there is no other dike, no other dam; no other line of defense to fall back upon.

America is the last hope of millions of enslaved peoples. They look to it as their second fatherland. In it lies their hopes and prayers.

I have seen fellow-prisoners in Communist prisons beaten, tortured, with 50 pounds of chains on their legs - praying for America...that the dike will not crumple; that it will remain free. (cited in William Federer, America's God And Country [Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994] pp. 705-706)

In his Farewell Address, Ronald Reagan commented:

I've been thinking a bit at that window [in the White House]. I've been reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one -- a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, "Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man."

A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it has to -- it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again -- and in a way, we ourselves -- rediscovered it....

But life has a way of reminding you of big things through small incidents. Once, during the heady days of the Moscow summit, Nancy and I decided to break off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat Street -- that's a little street just off Moscow's main shopping area. Even though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there immediately recognized us and called out our names and reached for our hands. We were just about swept away by the warmth. You could almost feel the possibilities in all that joy. But within seconds, a KGB detail pushed their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people in the crowd. It was an interesting moment. It reminded me that while the man on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and they view such issues as freedom and human rights very differently....

The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still....

And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

I don't think it's accurate to describe Americans in general, much less conservative Evangelicals in particular, as the rich man of Luke 16. We've always been a nation that's had a significant amount of concern about the poor and have benefited many poor people around the world. That's due largely to our Christian heritage.

And that brings me to something else I want to address from David Platt's sermon. Why do we give so much attention to issues like homosexuality while, allegedly, neglecting the poor? I've explained why I don't think we neglect the poor as much as David Platt suggests, though I do agree that we should be doing a lot more. But why so much attention for an issue like homosexuality? Part of the answer is that this nation seems to be more at a turning point on the issue of homosexuality than it is on issues pertaining to the poor. There isn't a prominent movement of people arguing that we shouldn't be concerned about the poor, comparable to the prominent pro-homosexual movement. Thanks largely to our Christian heritage, there's an American consensus that we should be concerned for the poor. Despite disagreements over how to best help them and disagreements over just how much of our money and other resources we should give, there's widespread agreement that we should help the poor and should do so in many ways and to a large extent. The comparable consensus that used to exist on homosexuality has been rapidly deteriorating in recent years, and that deterioration has implications for other issues (polygamy, how we view human sexuality, the raising of children, etc.). There's good reason to give an issue like homosexuality more attention than issues of poverty in some contexts.

Evangelicals And Neglect Of The Poor

I think Justin Taylor's description of this sermon ("The Gospel Demands Radical Generosity") is better than the sermon itself. There's an element of truth that David Platt is getting at in his sermon. I suspect that most Christians should be more concerned about, and should be doing more to help, the poor. But that conclusion isn't the same as equating conservative Evangelical Christians in America, Platt's primary audience, with the rich man of Luke 16. This subject could be approached from so many different angles, and there's a lot I'm ignorant about on this issue, but here are several qualifications I would add to Platt's sermon, qualifications he doesn't mention much or at all:

- The main problem with the rich man in Luke 16 is unbelief (Luke 16:31). Neglect of the poor is one symptom among others, but a symptom particularly relevant to the materialistic Pharisees mentioned in the nearby context (16:14).

- I doubt that the way the rich man dressed and ate (16:19) is comparable to what the average attender of a church like Platt's does. Yes, Americans generally have better and more clothing than a lot of other people in the world. But you can have better and more clothing without being excessive or going to the extent of excess described in Luke 16. The same is true of food, for example. Excessive and wasteful use of food is a significant problem in America, including among conservative Evangelicals, but the degree of the problem varies a lot from one individual to another, and I doubt that more than a small percentage of America lives the way the rich man in Luke 16 lived. There's a large gray area between poverty and the rich man of Luke 16. Americans are closer to the rich man. (And we're even better off than him in some ways.) But saying that Luke 16 has a secondary, significantly qualified application to people like those who attend Platt's church is different than saying that those people are the rich man. Some of Platt's comments would be more appropriate if directed at leaders of third-world nations or the executives at some corporations, not the average American Evangelical.

- Is Lazarus literally at our gate, as he was for the rich man? When Platt refers to people in other nations, sometimes thousands of miles away from us, as people at our gate, he's defining "at our gate" significantly differently than it's defined in Luke 16. The rich man didn't have to get past corrupt government officials, a corrupt military, language barriers, significant differences in cultural customs, etc. in order to get to Lazarus. Even when a Christian ministry or American government program has been set up to do such work, while being funded by the American people, much of the time and money involved has to go into getting those ministries and programs in place and keeping them going. It's not as easy as giving crumbs to a man who's literally at your gate (Luke 16:21) or helping him in some other manner.

- If Luke 16:21 is meant to suggest that the rich man didn't even give crumbs to Lazarus, then is such behavior comparable to what the average conservative Evangelical in America does? My understanding is that while Americans don't give as much money away as they should, they do give away some. And conservative Evangelicals seem to be among the most generous. Ministries to the poor are common, and they often receive a lot of attention from churches, businesses, the media, etc. Think, for example, of Salvation Army or the many radio and web ads you see for ministries helping the poor around the world. Are we truly refusing to even give away crumbs? We don't have to exaggerate a problem in order to address it. Hyperbole is acceptable at times, but let's be sure that people understand when a particular comment, like one of David Platt's, is hyperbolic at best.

- Even Americans who don't know much about politics tend to be aware of government programs like welfare. Our government spends a large amount of money on the poor, and we know it. Americans knowingly, and to some extent approvingly, provide for the poor through government programs.

- Part of the work done by our military involves helping the poor. We often provide food and water, build schools, and help with other such work in other nations, whether through our military or by other means. We don't just give financially. We also give our time, energy, and, in some cases, the lives of our soldiers in the process. Our concern for the poor often involves investing large amounts of money in rebuilding their nations and sometimes laying down our lives in service to them. This year, there will be American families who will be celebrating their first Christmas since losing a child, parent, or sibling in Afghanistan or Iraq, for example. Much of the work done by our military in those regions of the world constitutes helping the poor. What would a family of such a soldier think if you told them they were equivalent to the rich man of Luke 16?

- We're surrounded with many appeals to help the poor. How often do you see television, radio, and web ads for such ministries? How often do local Evangelical radio stations have fund raisers for such things? Even when the fund raiser is for something like the Bible League, so many of the people who receive the Bibles are poor people. Why do organizations seeking to help the poor set up stations outside of popular stores or in other such locations? Why keep setting up in such locations if nobody is even giving away their crumbs? Even if Americans don't give as much as they should, which I think is the case, I doubt that these organizations would be so numerous and would keep operating the way they do if the average American or the average Evangelical were behaving like the rich man in Luke 16.

- How many conservative Evangelical churches don't do anything to help the poor? From what I've heard from my church's leadership, it seems that they frequently are involved in things pertaining to the poor. We work with local ministries to the poor, we gather food for the poor, poor people come to us for help, etc. I suspect that the average conservative Evangelical church is frequently involved in helping the poor. Maybe we should do some things more or differently, but we are doing some things already.

- When poor people want help, do they usually go looking for a local group of atheists? They probably look for a religious or government organization to help them. They know that any help they're going to get is likely to come from professing Christian ministries or a government set up by professing Christians, one that largely reflects Christian priorities. Given how many shelters, hospitals, etc. there are that have been founded or operated by Christians, and given how widespread such things are, isn't it highly inaccurate to suggest that we refuse to even give away crumbs?

- Old Testament passages about the oppression of the poor or passages about using dishonest scales in order to steal from the poor, for example, can't be applied without qualification to Evangelicals who are only guilty of not giving as much as they should to the poor. Not helping the poor as much as you should isn't the same as oppressing the poor or stealing from them in an unqualified sense.

- Scripture distinguishes between different types of poor people. As Proverbs and Paul tell us, some poor people don't eat because they refuse to work. And many poor people, particularly in a nation like the United States, are poor partially because of something like mental illness, drugs, or alcohol. They sometimes don't want help or resist it, and they're sometimes largely blameworthy for their poverty.

- As Platt acknowledges, the poor can be helped in more ways than giving money. Giving them knowledge of important truths, developing their skills so that they can provide for themselves, spending time with them, and other such things are important. Giving to them financially is important, but so are other things. That includes apologetics, I would add. Ideas have consequences, including for the poor, both directly and indirectly.

- In some parts of a nation like the United States, you can live for many years without knowingly coming into face-to-face contact with somebody who's poor. You may know or walk or drive past people who have a relatively low income, but still have multiple pairs of clothing, a car, a television, housing, etc. They aren't in the same category as Lazarus. You could go many years, maybe even a lifetime, without meeting somebody like Lazarus face-to-face.

- We shouldn't assume that every commendable act of giving to the poor in scripture is meant to be taken as a universal commandment. Must everybody give 50% of their possessions to the poor upon their conversion to Christ (Luke 19:8-10)? Sometimes people are commended for giving their resources elsewhere instead of to the poor (Luke 21:1-4, John 12:3-8, Acts 6:1-4). Helping the poor is one good work among others, and different people are called to different fields of labor. Yes, poverty is common in the world and a frequent subject of discussion in scripture, and we should act accordingly. It should be relatively high on our list of priorities. Even those who don't do something like working for a ministry to the homeless should be helping the poor to some extent in some manner. You'd have to be unusually corrupt or unusually incompetent to avoid helping the poor altogether in a society like ours, where there are so many opportunities to help them and so many reminders to do so.

- Much of what our society has in place to help the poor, through non-governmental agencies or government programs, is a result of our Christian heritage. Those who went before us established a society in which we would be surrounded with reminders of the importance of caring for the poor and would have many opportunities available to do so. To refer to such a society, and particularly the portion of that society that most serves as salt and light, as the rich man of Luke 16 is inaccurate and slanderous.

Having said all of that, I want to repeat what I said at the beginning of this post. There is an element of truth to David Platt's sermon. And I'm glad that he's highly concerned about the poor. But qualifications like the ones above have to be kept in mind.