Heath Haussamen
The pastor of my church caught my attention on Sunday when he said that some people live in such horrible circumstances that they can’t pull themselves out of poverty, and so we shouldn’t fall into the trap of believing poor people are lazy and just need to get a job.
It caught my attention because it’s not the sort of thing you hear every day in an evangelical church. I found myself looking around to see who was offended by my pastor’s words.
To my church’s credit, I didn’t see an obvious look of disbelief or disgust on anyone’s face. But I’ve been to plenty of churches where such words would have elicited strong, negative responses.
My pastor was speaking about having a “compassion mindset” and the importance of serving others. Ever since Sunday, I’ve been thinking about his words in the context of the recent discussion about personal versus societal responsibility that has played out primarily in debates over financial bailouts and health-care reform.
There’s a lot of shouting going on right now. There’s a lot of anger, and bitterness, and hurt feelings and polarization.
Many are breathing a sigh of relief over the swinging of the pendulum to the left with the election of Barack Obama and a strong Democratic majority in Congress. On the opposite side, some are wondering whether we’re heading toward a time when it will be necessary to take up arms against the government.
Many on both sides have contributed to the breakdown in communication, and a superficial and scandal-happy media only makes it worse by encouraging such polarization.
‘A name, a face, and eyes looking back at you’
In that context, I’ve been thinking about how, at least politically, my church isn’t the sort of place that’s squarely on one side or the other. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely evangelical. It’s a theologically conservative place, and I suspect that most of the people who attend church there are politically conservative as well.
But last fall, my pastor asked me and others to participate in a forum about the upcoming election. The point he wanted to come across — and that did come across — is that you don’t have to belong to a certain political party to be part of the church.
I was reminded of that this weekend during my pastor’s sermon, when he quoted evangelical leader Richard Stearns as saying, “Until poverty, homelessness and despair have a name, a face, and eyes looking back at you, it is not something you can really feel or understand.”
That’s when my pastor pointed out that there are some people in this world who live in such extreme poverty that it doesn’t matter what they do, they can’t escape it without help.
He’s right. There certainly are such people in this country and world. But there’s also a nugget of truth in the statements of those who take the opposite stance that people in poverty need only to get a job and work hard. There certainly are some who milk welfare for all it’s worth and take advantage of other programs.
Neither extreme by itself is true. Some people who live in poverty need to stand up on their own. Others need a hand up. Most need a little bit of both, and even that statement doesn’t really begin to scratch the surface of the complexity of the problem of poverty.
Once we recognize that the causes of and solutions to poverty are more complex than the either/or scenario usually debated, we can start to work together.
‘Great is our sin’
I’m not surprised at all that my pastor has the wisdom to understand that truth, even though many others in the culture to which he belongs do not. He spends a lot of time working among the poor in Mexico, Zambia, the Philippines and other places. And our church is quite diverse, in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
There are lots of Hispanics and a handful of Africans and Filipinos at my church, mixed in with the white people who more traditionally fill the seats in other evangelical churches across America on Sundays. At my church, people wear anything from shorts and a T-shirt (I’m usually among that group) to suits and ties.
Such diversity creates a climate ripe for genuine discussion that can lead to understanding among people who view life through different lenses. And that, I think, is the key to understanding and combating poverty.
It was Charles Darwin who said, “If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” Certainly, problems with some of our institutions and programs enable people to live off the government and remain in poverty, and that’s wrong. There are also people who are trapped in poverty because a lack of programs and institutions to address their specific needs means there’s nobody to give them a hand up. That’s equally wrong.
Perhaps if more of us were willing to give poverty “a name, a face, and eyes looking back” at us — as my pastor has done — people who are currently polarized over these great societal and political debates would find ways to come together and actually help combat poverty.