A Self-Inflicted Problem

A recent Washington Post/Kaiser Family poll claimed there exists a judgmental view in religious people exercised towards people who live in poverty. The pollsters noted:

 “White evangelicals are more likely than any other group to believe that the poverty of the poor is their own fault.”

The outcome of the poll records forty-six percent of Christians believe poverty was a self-inflicted problem. The number increased when white evangelical Christians responded; that percentage was 53 percent. Non-religious people agreed poverty was self-inflicted at 29 percent of the ones surveyed.

When Al Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was questioned about the Washington Post and Kaiser Family poll results he said “There's a strong Christian impulse to understand poverty as deeply rooted in morality — often, as the Bible makes clear, an unwillingness to work, in bad financial decisions or in broken family structures.” Mohler, attempting to explain a Christian’s worldview on poverty said:

“The Christian worldview is saying that all poverty is due to sin, though that doesn't necessarily mean the sin of the person in poverty. In the Garden of Eden, there would have been no poverty. In a fallen world, there is poverty.”

Mohler was correct in his assumption that poverty lies at the feet of sin. Not just poverty but every evil attribute in the world has its roots deep in sin or in God’s response to sin.

Ignorance is NOT Bliss!

God’s people hold not just a Christian worldview but a Christian worldview that is filtered through God’s word. Often the subject of the collapse of the American family is not addressed out of fear of being labeled as a racist or being judgmental. This conversation has been avoided in and out of the church’s conversations. Failing to address birth out of wedlock has repositioned many church groups on the sin of fornication. The problem is generationally more progressive as childbearing to single parents becomes more common in and out of the church. National statistics in 2014 gives the effect that the sin of fornication has on poverty. Statistics reveal 40.6 percent of all children in the United States were born to unmarried mothers. That includes close to 72 percent of black children, 53 percent of Hispanic children, and 29 percent of white children. It is a sad truth having a child outside of marriage increases the likelihood of poverty. Statistics reveal if you have a child out of wedlock you are about five times more likely to be poor as married couples with children. Worse yet, their children are more likely to remain poor. Not only does God’s word indeed link sin and personal choices to poverty, but the statistics also bear witness to this fact. The greatest contributors to poverty are having children out of wedlock and not getting a skill or education that has value. What should a follower of Jesus do when confronted with the issue of people caught up in poverty, self-inflicted or otherwise? God’s word gives us this advice:

“Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.” (Pro 17:5)

When we witness the effects of sin self-inflicted or not in the lives of people we should be compassionate. If we ridicule or mock the ones caught up in poverty, we are an embarrassment to God. It would be a good start in our approach to poverty to remember Apostle Paul’s reflection of his own life:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain…” (1 Co 15:10)

It is said, when witnessing criminals being led to the scaffold, the evangelical preacher John Bradford stated: "There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford." Re-coining the words of Apostle Paul, Bradford gives us this advice, we too could have been caught in the snare of poverty. Just as we have witnessed as they suffered misfortune, we too might have suffered a similar fate, but for God's mercy. Solomon, observing people caught in poverty, said:

“The poor is hated even of his own neighbour: but the rich hath many friends.” (Pro 14:20)

Poverty can be resolved, by your personal intervention. When God places someone in poverty in your life you can be a friend that gives not only monetary solutions for the physical needs but truth from God’s word that will give eternal hope.