I am reading a book right now that promises to be enormously helpful — When Helping Hurts. Often poverty relief efforts are as well-intentioned as it gets, but the results unfortunately do not match the intentions. This book understandably begins with the biblical mandate to see the connection between the gospel and actually changing the world. We must never forget which is the root and which the fruit, but if there is never any fruit, then the root might as well stay buried. So to speak.
There is good reason for believing that the promise of Dt. 15:4 is echoed in Acts 4:34. All that said, the authors go on to show that good intentions are not enough — we have to do things that actually help. Disciples of Christ are called to heal the sick, but we should never confuse this gospel mandate with a less helpful mandate, invented by our selves, to treat advanced liver cancer with our specially-grown juju beans, every one of them organic and dark brown. If you busted out your bottle, and someone challenged you on it, it would not be enough to say that Jesus called you to minister to the sick (Luke 9:2). If you did, the reply that would come back would be something like “yes, but you’re not.”
Okay, then. This book looks to be really helpful. But there have been a couple comments made (just in passing) that made me want to point to a valuable distinction made by Jay Richards in his wonderful book, Money, Greed and God. That is the distinction between absolute poverty and relative poverty.
Absolute poverty kills. Many millions live in that kind of poverty — it is starvation poverty. Relative poverty is a different thing altogether. The Census Bureau ranks a certain number of Americans as officially “poor,” but a large percentage of these folks own their own homes, own one or two cars, color television sets, and so on. These people are relatively poor compared to those on the other side of town who are relatively rich, but nobody in this scenario is going to starve to death.
I bring this up because the discrepancy between my wealth and somebody else’s is none of my business, and it need not concern him either. I might be poor because I cannot yet afford to upgrade my iPhone, but things are tough all over. Discrepancies are not the issue, because there is a larger discrepancy between a millionaire and a billionaire, both doing just fine, than there is between me and someone at starvation level. Discrepancies are immaterial.
If I live in an economy where I have all I need to get by decently, and my purchasing power doubles every ten years, but another stinking rich guy has his wealth quadruple every two years, the discrepancy between us is certainly growing, but not in any way that gives me any cause for complaint.
The case is quite different with absolute poverty. God has given us all great wealth in the West, and we are called to be eager to share it with those who genuinely need it. But, returning to the original point, such eagerness is not enough. We need to be generous in an intelligent way. Wise as serpents, innocent as doves, that should be us.