For two millennia, the Christian Church has stood for and on the side of the poor in its midst. From its beginning as an expression of faith in and devotion to the One born in a manger, an outcast of dubious birth and no social standing in an occupied land, to thousands of missionary and benevolence movements across the globe, Christianity has chosen to identify with the poor — the poor in spirit as well as the poor in pocketbook. We worship the high and exalted One who Himself brings the Good News to the poor, desiring to bless them with the temporal and eternal riches of His heavenly treasury, and even when we have made a caricature of our faith and indulged in obscene excess, Christians nonetheless view care for the poor as one of the fruits of a life given over to God.
But it invariably takes a toll on the individual believer to live in a way that honors the poor and dishonors worldly institutions and habits that oppress them. By definition, giving is costly and self-giving especially so. Further, it’s easy to stand with the poor when we ourselves are comfortable, or when those outcasts we stand with are deserving of our kindness — but when times are tight, the needs of those less privileged than we are seep uncomfortably close to our homes, our budgets, and our hearts. We take comfort not only in what we have, but in the presumption of blessing that explains just as much why we have it as it does why others, don’t. How to respond, then, to an increasingly lost and needy world without appearing to abandon, or actually abandoning, a Biblical theology of giving to the poor?
It’s easy. Devise a “Biblical” theology of poverty that casts their plight in a different light — they suffer not from poverty or oppression or lack of power, but from ENVY. A determination that the poor are, in fact, engaged in un-Godly envy of those who aren’t, and therefore need regeneration, repentance, and reconditioning instead of resources, is a clever, high-minded way of addressing the root cause of poverty without risking actual involvement with people experiencing it. This new theology replaces indifference to the poor with contempt for them. Flush with Proverbs about laziness and admonitions to return to Old Testament economic law, mixed with condemnation of the State and sneering jabs at “effeminized liberals” who bleed dollars trying to help, it packages itself nicely as a good, hearty, Godly theology of economics. I don’t know the Latin for “Make ’em squirm, watch ’em suffer,” but should the purveyors of this new paradigm need a slogan, I can’t think of a better one.
There are many lazy people in the world. Many of them are poor; some would continue in poverty if given a fortune every year. Others have given up or given in; for others, life itself has pretty much given out, and they feel they have nothing left. Most people, though, are poor because this fallen world has devised ways to keep certain groups of people, who are almost always never “just like us,” down and out and away from the shining streets most of us walk. As the failure of the Church to provide light and love along with bread, water, and shelter has become more evident, the need for the State to take over has increased.
There once was a time when Christians paid their taxes and rejoiced in public schools, public libraries, public hospitals, and public programs that extended a hand to those who most needed one. That was, evidently, before the metastasizing sin of envy was diagnosed among the widows, orphans, addicted, sick, old, young, disenfranchised, foreign, and weak. Now, public efforts to aid the poor and strengthen society are seen as theft, and the beneficiaries of those efforts have been revealed to be conspirators, co-belligerants, and miscreants of the worst kind. This “Theology of the Contemptible Poor” is energized by those men — affluent, powerful, educated white men — who, like their first-century counterparts, the Zealots, want their Messiah to come conquering, sword drawn and victory assured. The weeping, tender, self-sacrificing One who told the rich young ruler to give away all of his possessions to the poor, the Messiah who regularly associated with the lost and oppressed — that, perhaps, was for the Church Suffering. Surely the Church Conquering can hope for something else, Someone who will convict the poor of their poverty and comfort those who benefit from their impoverishment.
Christian Libertarians, Reconstructionists, and some post-millennialists appeal to the Bible when writing their jeremiads against public aid for the poor. A return to Mosaic economic precepts devised in and for agrarian or nomadic communities is not likely to be God’s way of using His people today to aid the poor, but it has its appeal — it sounds holy, grounded in obedience and faithfulness to the Lord. But charging the poor with envy or laziness, cursing the State as it tries to help them, and mocking those Christians who stand with the most hurting, most hated among us cannot ever be excused by an appeal to the Law. Cutting and pasting together a theology of contempt for the poor from Scripture ought to terrify those who wait for the Conquering Messiah, before whom all who justify societal indifference by His Word will fall.
“He has told you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you — live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8