Toward a Multi-Faith Approach to Dealing with Poverty in USA (Essay Sample)

Theology, the Church and the Marginalized: Toward a Multi-Faith Approach to Dealing with Poverty in the United States of America
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1. Problem Statement
Poverty is a complex phenomenon with many dimensions that affects people and is viewed in a wide range of ways by people. It is relative- no single definition fits all descriptions of poverty. It also is not caused by the lack of one thing, but by many different factors that are found in the experiences of people that fit the people’s definition of poverty. Among definitions that are widely held for poverty, it is described as the inadequacy of people to meet their own basic needs. It is also defined as lack of resources that would facilitate provision of needs to people, or the inability of people to engage in economically productive activities to meet their own needs.
Scholars widely agree that poverty is a leading cause of crime and conflict, and that reducing poverty levels would reduce the rate of crime and conflict in affected area. Ikejiaku cites that poverty that is linked to political strive is the leading cause of conflict. He elaborates that groups of people with with a common interest on ideas or interests may reach a point of negotiation and agreement on how to trade them, but a common interest on basic needs is not negotiable and is likely to result in conflict. Statistics in America relate poverty to race, where the American white community is the least poor, and the black and Hispanic communities are the poorest. It could be argue that communities that are native to America have less poverty level than those that are not indigenous to America. Numerous studies have also shown that poverty and unemployment are related directly with crime, and that communities that are discriminated against are likely to engage in criminal activities than those that are not.Crime and poverty are therefore inseparable and to reduce crime, poverty has to be reduced.
Poverty is often linked to destitution and this applies to all countries and communities. This brings the description of poverty to a common concept that equally applies to all people and gauges them on the same level. Measuring absolute poverty, however, is still difficult. Poverty measured by destitution gauges the poverty level of a person in relation to the way the person is disadvantaged socially or financially as compared to other people in their community. The classification of the poor and not poor in such a community may not be transferable to another community, but would only apply in that community or environment.
Poverty is also linked to religion in that communities that have a high poverty level tend to show more religious involvement than those that have a low poverty level. According to Paul, there is a significant correlation between poverty and religion. In a number of studies, he was able to establish that societies that are highly successful and religiosity have a correlation of about 0.7. This is a low score that shows lack of correlation. Paul observes that religion is on the decline in countries in the West, and on the increase in developing countries, and he attributes this to the tendency of the poor to seek reprieve from their predicament from a higher being. Paul’s assertion gives a view that the poor identify more with religion than the non-poor. The relationship between poverty and religion is still not clear. While poverty has been linked to a variety of things, the given link between it and religion is not substantial enough, and requires more study. This paper will examine the relationship between religion and poverty with a Christian perspective to determine key issues that relate the two. Through this study a deeper understanding of the role of religion on society will be understood and a multi-religious approach to poverty eradication developed.
2. Literature Review
The biblical concept of poverty is based on the descriptions of those considered vulnerable and unable to meet their own needs through decent economical activities. In the Old Testament, the wealthy owned large pieces of land, and/or participated in farming both crop and livestock keeping, and traded in precious commodities. Other economical activities included general commodity trading, production of goods such as textile, and artisan activities like carpentry and tent making. Those who were peasants and artisans usually could earn a decent living, but were rarely earning enough to be considered rich in the society. The rich were usually few in the society and often very rich. Poverty in those times referred to destitution, where the poor had to engage in activities like begging, selling themselves to slavery, crime, or prostitution to survive. Bauckham identifies key groups of people that were frequently regarded as poor in the Old Testament as day laborers, aliens, orphans and widows. Furthermore, slaves were not grouped in the category of the poor in the Old Testament. They were usually treated much better than laborers because at least their owners were concerned with their livelihood rather than just obtaining service from them as is the case with day laborers. Slaves were offered accommodation and subsistence and were more or less like extended members of the family.
The prevalent view of the early fathers of Christianity to poverty paints a new concept of poverty- that it is an undesired and more of an unprivileged condition than an active result of a person’s activity. Teachings of the early church indicated that poverty is a condition that will always be with man and that the wealthy should freely share their wealth with the poor. In this context, the notion that poverty is a punishment from God holds no ground because through logic, the same God could not command His people to ‘share their wealth with the poor’ if indeed He was out to punish them. Poverty in the early church was more a result of oppression than of the poor’s own lack of zeal, laziness, or individual action. Usually the wealthy acquired their wealth through conquest, and other privileges like inheritance and therefore they were require to share their wealth freely with the poor. In some cases wealth was the result of the individual’s ‘hard work’, but in such cases, it was viewed that the person was enabled by God to make wealth, and therefore was also required to share it freely with the poor. The Bible in several occasions promised a blessing from God to those who gave to the poor.
Fox  observes that God’s command for the wealthy to share their wealth with the poor as a concern for justice rather than the poor themselves. The wealthy in numerous occasions acquired their wealth through oppressive means that denied the poor their right to wealth. According to the early church, all people have a right to work, engage in activities that create wealth, and own land and property. In this case, god was against those who denied people these rights and therefore he demanded the sharing of wealth by those who were wealthy.
The conduct of missionaries as they entered new grounds spreading the gospel of Jesus was often interpreted to relate poverty with Godliness. Many times Missionaries had a challenge to present the Gospel in a hostile environment, while trying to uphold good conduct without showing love for worldly possessions. In many communities particularly in Africa, missionary work was ridiculed and the missionaries held in suspicion. They often lived in hardship many times required to travel long distance in their missionary work. Furthermore, the missionaries taught that poverty is close to Godliness through statements like ‘blessed are the poor, for they shall see God’. Those who were converted to Christianity found a place for consolation in their problems and some felt ‘comfortable’ in their poverty. While most missionaries did not discourage accumulation of wealth, their comforting of the poor had the impact of changing the poor’s attitude towards acquiring wealth. Missionaries were however credited with not only spreading the Gospel but also western education and culture. The missionaries often doubled as educators and spent their time persuading the natives of their mission fields to go for school lessons to enable them read the bible. In the long run missionary work laid the foundation for education in many communities in Africa and the developing world, and contributed to development.
Through history, the concept of wealth and poverty has been dynamic and dictated by the economical activities of the time and socio-economic factors like attitudes of people to work, career development and societal values to wealth. Modernity poverty was defined and gauged in terms of actual value of materials, while post modernity poverty is based more on contractual wealth, or what is commonly referred to as ‘paper money’. While there is no common consensus among scholars on when modernity gave way to post modernity, there is a distinctive departure of the description of wealth between the two eras. Probably the single event that signifies this transition is the Brettonwoods agreement of 1944 and its consequent collapse in around 1972, which was the beginning of free flowing currencies that were not pegged to equivalent amounts of real wealth – gold.
The distinctive feature between the period before the Brettonwoods agreement and after is the way economies equated their cash to tangible wealth like gold or precious stones. In this case the cash that an economy had could not surpass the total amount of gold and other valuables the country had, and money represented what a country had...