The encouraging poverty of a recent Pew study

The New York Times recently published a story on a Pew Forum study that shows where various religious groups in the United States fall in terms of education and income. You’ll find by looking at the full chart that Christian denominations appear across the spectrum, though for the most part education and income coincide with each other (this is no big surprise).

Looking at the results, I wondered if it would be better if more Christians appeared toward the top right of the chart (more wealthy, more educated) or at the bottom left (less income and less education). Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the presence of Christians across the range of incomes and education is more encouraging to me than any other kind of data point would be. It means that the gospel message is real and important to everyone.

In fact, it would be most discouraging to find that all Christians were comfortably affluent. In Luke 4, Jesus says among other things that he has come to preach good news to the poor. So I’m glad that Christians aren’t at the top of this chart. If our religion stops being good news to the poor, real good news for real people, then we’ll have lost sight of something important.

And that’s where this chart hits a fundamental conflict of logic for me. Sure, for journalists, the distribution of wealth, education and therefore influence among religious people in our country is worth paying attention to. But that data seems almost irrelevant to the way I practice my faith. Economic differences matter insofar as the Bible is full of directions for how we are to treat poor people. We ignore them at our peril. If our denomination or congregation is light on the less affluent, we might start asking if we’re doing something wrong.

What do you make of this information? Do you think we have a responsibility to help poorer people (Christian and not) get access to education and higher-income jobs? Should we be serving the poor in some other way? Is there a point at which Christians should stop pursuing higher incomes altogether?

(Image taken from New York Times graphic. Full chart is here.)

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Comments (14)

Where
else in the world should we be if not fellowshipping with the poor. I say fellowshipping,
and not serving because truly were are served just as much by the interaction There
are extreme hardships and prejudices working against people of low/no income,
it is well within our responsibly as Christians to undo some of that injustice.


 


Further, it is important to remember
that we have the most to gain from a relationship with the poor. This is not a
charitable endeavor, but one that it fundamental for own souls.
We need the poor--to understand what it is to depend on God rather than money, to enjoy every day as it
comes, and not to be preoccupied with rat
race that is 'planning for
the future,' to gain pleasure from relationships rather from stuff, to respect natural
resources rather than domineering over
them, to trust in the daily manna rather than storing up treasures. These are skills that I do not
posses in any meaningful way.  Do
you? In a world where some churches have million dollar mortgages, we have a
lot to learn.


 


As Christians, we should be on the forefront of inclusively, not
limping along in the rear. What message does it send the world when we will
not unite together to
worship our Jesus? What does it mean when someone is more welcome on a
street corner than they are in a church pew? What does it say about
Christ if drug dealers are more inviting and less discriminating in their
outreach than are pastors? 


 


Are
we Christians that love Jesus as long as he sticks to our social
norms and knows how to put on a good face? What about when he smells
funny, or speaks with a slur? Do we love Him then? Do we love Him when he over
eats, or when He needs help understanding bus schedule? Do we love Him
when he is incoherent and confused? Do we love Him when He is rude, or when our
feelings get hurt?

And by 'love,' can we say that we seek out His
company, that we enjoy being with Him? Or do we just tolerate Him? Do our
time with Him so that we can move on with our lives? Loving through gritted
teeth, and glances at the watch? Being charitable with our gratuitous
kindness?  Is that what we mean by love?
Nothing really surprising here. American Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Jews at the top of the income scale as they have been for eons. I am really happy to be a part of those who are dead last. There is a special blessing on the poorest in the community.
In my own experience, at least where I live, it's only the Episcopalians and Presbyterians that do any actual ministering of the poor, however. (And this is coming from someone who's attended a lot of different types of churches.) Perhaps their position at the top of the scale enables them to do more?  Is it different in your community?
Pardon the long answer. The pentecostal expression of the church was birthed in poverty and has always been a racially mixed movement. The original birthplace of the pentecostal movement in America was a small black evangelical church on Azusa Street in 1906 in the poor district of Los Angeles and the meetings we packed daily with blacks, whites and hispanics fellow-shipping together. During the 20s, Amy Semple McPherson insisted on full integration for her meetings and churches, drawing the ire of the KKK. During the depression the church spread out into the community with soup kitchens and was estimated to have fed over 1.5 million people Keeping the poor of Los Angeles alive. It has always been strongly missional. Matthew Barnett is continuing that Foursquare Church tradition with the conversion of a hospital in 1994 to a massive service center to feed, minister, train and educate the poor. They care for 35,000 people each week and the Church is open 24 hours a day to minister to people’s needs. Our pentecostal church (Beaverton Foursquare in Oregon) hosts 60 refugees from Bhutan (they meet together as a church here as well, plus we have a virtual Korean church meeting weekly), we help fund homeless shelters locally, treatment centers for drug addiction and behavorial problems, we still have teams working in Haiti and Mississippi, our sunday schools raised funds for a substantial well digging project in africa and have formed sister church relations with Chinese Churches. We put over 1000 kids through our summer camps, basketball camps and soccer camps. We spend our money on the poor and open the doors to the community and in doing so they become part of the growing family of Jesus. We work in cooperation with the catholic Church next door and many churches of other denominations in our city.
Well, just goes to show you the difference between a pentecostal church on the west coast and one in the southeast US. :\
Rickd:  check out Krista Tippett's "Being" program (American Public Media, radio and online)---this weekend June 12 is a featured piece on Amy Semple McPherson. Also included is a review of a new biography on ASMcP. Thought you'd like to know if you're not a regular listener/reader of Tippett's site.
I too am happy to see that Christians span the spectrum.  After all, we are all people first and foremost, no matter where we choose to categorize ourselves and others.  We are a people graciously invited to the table and the kingdom from all walks and backgrounds as people created in His image.  It is encouraging to see some measure of this all encompassing kingdom already.
The great advantage of being a wealthy Christian is you have the means to give back.  The greatest blessing of being wealthy is the ability to feel (a bit more easily) that you can be a blessing to others.  Not that wealth is the only or best blessing you can give (or recieve), but as some have remarked, it certainly helps.   However, if we reach the point that we as Christians are building ourselves bigger barns, then I think that we have erred and forgotten what we were striving for.
Bethany,

You write, "f our religion stops being good news to the poor, real good news for real people, then we’ll have lost sight of something important."I agree with all but the thought enclosed in the parenthetical commas; those who are not poor are also real people ( :) ).As you write, "[an equal distribution of Christians across all levels of income and education] means that the gospel message is real and important to everyone."  Indeed.  Just as a prosperity gospel is a distortion of the true gospel, so is a populist one.  Sadly, I find that, unlike in Jesus' time in which he had to contend mainly with a popular ideology that equated wealth with goodness, we in America now see the candle of civility burned from both ends as popular culture rejects both the poor, for being lazy and deserving what comes to them, and the wealthy, for being elites who, paradoxically, do not deserve what comes to them.js
Jason, I am not sure what you are proposing here. I actually think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the gospel is inherently populist, though it may not necessarily condemn the wealthy.
I did not mean to imply that only poor people are real, though. I should have written that sentence differently.
Really?  Perhaps we understand the meaning of the term "populist" differently.  Populism positions "the People" in opposition to "the Elite."  In contrast, in Luke 4 when Jesus quotes Isaiah 61 he is declaring that he will bring justice; there is nothing particularly populist about that.  If he had instead made some sort of quasi Tea Party statement and said that he was anointed to give everybody ("the People") what they wanted and destroy the objects of their envy ("the Elites"), well, that would be a populist gospel.  Again and again Jesus called the wealthy and powerful to uses their wealth and power in ways that were fundamentally just and challenged them not to seek their security in that wealth and power.  That is not particularly populist.  In the parable of the laborers in Matthew 20 he tells a story of generous grace to all that is a far cry from the "get what you deserve/earn" bootstrapism of today's American populists.  A populist rendering of the Gospel is a tempting one, but it is a distortion.

js
Doubtless God is especially concerned for the poor. When asked by John’s disciples whether Jesus was the Christ, His response was, “the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” Jesus voluntarily became poor for our sakes and lived among the poor. Yet He had a family house He could have lived in had He wished. He often stayed at Peter’s larger home with Peter’s extended family. James, John and Peter owned several boats, many servants and had a successful family fishing business that continued while they traveled around the country. Jesus was followed a group of wealthy women (like Herod’s steward) who funded the ministry and there was enough excess that the disciples had a treasurer (who was skimming off the top...times never change) and they felt secure enough to give to the poor from their funds. While they might not have had enough to provide meals to 5000 people, they had enough to buy food for all 12 and rent larger rooms when needed for feasts. One of the first actions of the first century church was to create a social welfare program for single women over 60 and to relieve the painful poverty of poor Christian converts. Frequent offerings were also taken for the poor. There is no class warfare encouraged by the Bible, afterall, we have entered into a new family relationship. In fact I’ve always considered Deuteronomy (and Proverbs) the Bible’s “prosperity gospel”. But the wealthy have an obligation to work to lift up the poor, that’s what tithing was all about. I am not advocating taxing the rich, only that it is the responsibility of the church (not government) to partner with the poor.
We as Christians need to re-focus our public/political spirit on the good of people and not on making people be good. The church either drove or supported many of the humanitarian goals of history, supported civil rights, and lifted people up from Colonial times into the early 1980's. Then a sea change occurred in which it became acceptable to us to deny humanity to people who do not
accept our rules for lifestyle choices and to use the government
(dominion) to try to impose our behavioral directives. In recent years the church has slipped into a different and more
militantly political attitude in which wealth and poverty are in God's
dominion, and we are rich or poor based on where God has led us to be
born, live, and die. We have ceased to bend the mind of the rich to
share responsibility for human good.
 
The only way to mitigate poverty and its effects is through the public sphere, politically, by electing leaders who will institute good humanitarian policy. We previously supported this by enlightening congregations on public policy and encouraging good citizenship that recognizes and mitigates poverty and difference among all people. Without the focus of the message of Jesus that "whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely," we have lost the good effect of our ethic of tolerance and sharing within the community and within the larger society. In doing so, we have supported the driving down of the poor and middle class and the rise of mega-wealth, a wider division than has ever existed in our nation between the poor, whom Jesus loved and lifted up, and the rich, whom Jesus loved and challenged.

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