it’s good there’s poor people

“It’s good there’s poor people, because we can do mission now.”
“It’s good there’s poor people, because now they need us and when people are in need they listen.” 
“It’s good there’s poor people, because we needed to salve our conscience by helping somebody.” 

Like any good writer, I made those quotes up. Imagine how you would feel if you actually heard somebody say them? The thing is, I don’t think you have to scratch very far in many of us and our churches to find those opinions, however unspoken, however unrealised. Let me explain, and I will begin by saying some really positive things about the church generally at the moment.

The church (or a lot of it) is seizing the moment and being active among the poor and those in need, even parts of the church that didn’t used to do much. The support for FoodBanks, Street Pastors, School Pastors, debt counselling and so on is, without doubt, a Good Thing. And it is being (slowly) collectively realised that much of our contemporary worship is removed from the world in which we live, so there are (a few) songs that actually mention how we live (e.g. Bring Heaven to Earth by Andy Flannagan and Build Your Kingdom Here by Rend Collective). This is good. It almost goes with out saying that church pilgrimages like New Wine/Spring Harvest/Soul Survivor have a practical social action element to them. Brilliant. 10 years ago this was new. 

Now to the crunch though. I was recently in a meeting of church leaders in which a speaker was talking about the link between government welfare cuts and church social action projects; he said that it isn’t and never was the state’s responsibility to care for the poor, but it is the church’s responsibility, and we should see the (positively spun) welfare cuts as an opportunity for mission. To my horror, there was a murmur of approval from many of said church leaders.

Reduced to it’s unspoken core, this says it is good there are poor people, because now we can do mission. For churches who were faltering to find a place and a voice in contemporary society, and who were not engaging with people in poverty in any meaningful way, it is so easily seen that way. I will now tell you why I think this is wrong. 

1. Poverty should never be an opportunity for mission, but an opportunity for service. Service must come first. We serve the poor, relentlessly and selflessly and even if they never come to church we serve and serve.

Sutton Foodbank

2. Poverty needs more than sticking plasters. Martin Luther King said the church is great at being the Good Samaritan, but not good at going back to the Jericho Road to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Desmond Tutu said the church is great at pulling the bodies out of the river, but what we need to do is go upstream and see who is pushing them in. And stop them. Foodbanks are great, an essentially but TEMPORARY sticking plaster. There is one in my church but I don’t want it there – not because I don’t like it, I don’t think we should need them.

3. Tackling poverty is a long-term community-based issue, which means building relationships, asking questions of councillors and MPs, lobbying on behalf of those who do not have a voice. Finding out about people who are not me. 

I feel passionately about this because I am so middle-class I know how easily it is to think you’re helping by buying Fair Trade, supporting a Food Bank and shopping in Waitrose. But it’s not enough. Can you write good letters? Write them. Can you argue well? Argue for the poor. Are you a shareholder who’s CEO salaries are outrageous? Tell them. Campaigning for a Living Wage, for example, must be done hand in hand with FoodBanks, as 60% of people on benefits are IN WORK. 

We need to see the current economic situation not as a wonderful opportunity to do mission but a terrible opportunity to do service. Challenge your church leader. Ask them for a theology of poverty. Do a Bible study on Isaiah 58. And see what happens. 

…

I’m thinking about joining Christians on the Left (formerly Christian Socialist Movement). Have a look for yourself. 

intentional generosity: a christian challenge to punitive welfare reforms

It goes without saying that a minority will take for granted the generosity of the welfare state. It also goes without saying that the majority will not. What we have to decide is: does that matter? Yes, of course. So what then do we do… Do we take away benefits from everyone because of the bad choices – and yes, sometimes criminal behaviour – of the few? Do we offer support to those in need even when we know that support may well be abused?

Yes. Yes, not because we are woolly-minded liberals who are happy to be taken for a ride. Yes, because our model for love is Jesus and is by definition self-giving. We give in full knowledge of rejection. We are taken advantage of, and we give again. We do it because we believe that love gives. Of course there are consequences for its abuse. Of course there is no bottomless pit of money. Of course when we see people deliberately milking the system that must be challenged. At the poorest AND the richest end. 

But we believe that we help those at the bottom, whether they are there because of their own bad choices or not. When I worked in a drop-in centre for street homeless people we knew full well there was a tiny minority for whom this was a lifestyle choice we were enabling. But we also knew the true stories that put the majority there. We knew there were those who were genuine, and truly needed help. To help those, you must help the others. To truly show love, you give without prejudice, in the knowledge that there are those who cannot and will not survive without it.

Yes, some will abuse it. Yes, that rightly makes us angry. Does it make us withdraw help? No. We give knowing that our gift will be abused by some, and taken for granted by others. Our model is Jesus, and he gave everything. Punitive Welfare reforms that target the most vulnerable in our society are not acceptable within this model of thinking. Neither is the vindictive and divisive language against the poor, by elected politicians, writing then all off as thieving, idle drunks.

Bringing Jesus into it doesn’t make it easy, by the way. It’s not like a naive belief in fairies that makes you want to treat everyone like a flower. No. This is hard. This is no doormat philosophy. Faith isn’t a vain superstition or a crutch for the weak and indecisive. And this is where we show it. Faith necessarily prompts a conscious and intentional decision to show generous love in the face of possible rejection and abuse. Compassion comes from the Latin for ‘suffering with’. It has a cost we willingly accept – generous love. Worked out in the Welfare system. 

Madness? Maybe. Fairness? Probably not. The right thing to do? Without doubt.