God Wants Unequal Economic Outcomes: Challenging the Assumptions of the One-Size Fits All Poverty Victim Narratives

If you listen to the "Social Justice" religious left then you might easily be misled into believing poverty only has one cause and that cause is free market capitalism. In the propaganda narratives spewed by the left, the poor are always cast as the helpless victims of an evil and unfair economic system that is exploiting them. This one-size fits all approach to poverty and its causes is not only naive but it is outright deceitful.

What are the causes of poverty?

There are many causes of poverty and it is beyond the scope of this article to provide an extensive look at all of the causes of poverty. Instead this article will challenge the assumptions of the one-size fits all poverty victim narratives offered by the "Social Justice" left.

Yes, it is true that there are well documented instances of greedy and unscrupulous business owners and CEOs and corporate management teams who, in an effort to maximize corporate profits have resorted to enslaving people, including women and children. It is important to note that when examples of this type of exploitation surface that it does not reflect the inherent nature of free market capitalism but instead demonstrates the bad character and criminal activity of those who've made the decisions to enslave and exploit. Saying that free market capitalism is to blame for these instances of exploitation is like blaming constitutional liberty when there is an increase in the crime rate in any particular city in the United States and then offering martial law as the solution. Fact is poverty has many many causes, two of which are worth noting. The first is evil totalitarian governments and another is laziness.

Just like some heads of corporations break the law and enslave and exploit, heads of state also rig their own country's system so that they and their cronies can steal the wealth and resources of their own nation at the expense of those whom they should be serving. The examples of this type of governmental abuse throughout the ages of human history are too numerous to count. One could argue that the temptation to corruption of governmental power is so strong that good rulers are the exception in human history rather than the norm. This is precisely why the founders of the United States framed the Constitution the way that they did. The goal was to distribute power across multiple branches of government to keep it from being centralized so that the government would serve the people rather than enslave them. When a bad government enslaves its people, especially the way Marxist governments do, scarcity and mass poverty becomes the norm.

In light of this fact, those who are truly concerned for the world's poor would do well to focus their efforts on bringing freedom and a true free market to those countries where corrupt governments have enslaved its citizens. In the case where corrupt corporate managers are doing the exploiting, their crimes need to be uncovered and those responsible need to be brought to justice.

The other cause of poverty that is worth noting is laziness. Yes that is right. There are some people who are poor and it is their own fault. They are not victims and they are not being exploited. Instead they are poor because they just won't work. These are those who feel entitled to sit on their laurels and mooch off other people. Those in the religious left rarely if ever talk about such people because it doesn't fit their victim narratives. Yet, the Bible has plenty to say about them. Here are just a few examples:

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” (Proverbs 13:4)

“How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man” (Proverbs 6:9–11)

“A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (Proverbs 10:4)

“The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” (Proverbs 12:24)

“He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.” (Proverbs 10:5)

“Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” (2 Thessalonians 3:6–12)

To put it more bluntly, those who can work but refuse to do so are disobeying God and their poverty is the just wage for their laziness. Notice also that the Bible doesn't consider it inherently unjust that there are unequal economic results. Diligent and hardworking folk have more money, more property and more resources than the slothful and in God's economy that is exactly how it should be. If it is always unjust that some people have more than others as the "Social Justice" Neo-Marxist theologians would have you believe, then God would never have said "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" or “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” In fact, God's word knows nothing of the so-called human right of "economically equal results". In this fallen creation, God's economy requires that we eat bread "by the sweat of our brows" (Gen. 3:18) and those who refuse to work do not have an divine entitlement to take from those who work diligently and have taken the time to learn the skills necessary to increase their value in the free market.

Maybe this is why Benjamin Franklin noted:

"I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

Poverty is a complex issue with many causes. Helping the poor and saving out a portion of our resources in order to assist them is the epitome of what it means to "love our neighbor as ourselves." That being the case, it is important that we have a realistic understanding of poverty and its complex causes and that our efforts are spent working to free those who are enslaved by corrupt governments and corrupt corporations as well as offering financial assistance and relief to those who are willing to work but are genuinely unable and also giving a swift kick in the butt to those who are lazy and selfishly refuse to work but instead feel entitled to live off the hard work of others.

Comments

[Larry C]

There are so many who claim Christ but do not follow His teachings. This latest post clearly places you in that group. You jump up and down shouting about "what the Bible says" and totally ignore what Christ did or His teachings on the Law and Prophets (Old Testament).

In this case you should start with Deuteronomy 15, specifically verse 11, but please read the entire chapter so you might understand Christ’s view of the poor.

Deut 15:11 "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land."

I would guess your reply would be that Christ did not say this, God did. So then read John 11:14 and Paul’s Letter to the Church at Colossae, Colossians 1, specifically verses 15-23. But again, you would benefit from reading the entire chapter.

[Jobezking]

Nope. Poverty has a singular cause: the fall of Adam. Therefore, poverty cannot be eliminated with market-based economies and capitalism (which by the way did not exist until about 450 years ago anyway; before then most economies were feudal or tribal). And it cannot be eliminated with hard work (haven't you heard of the phrase "working poor"?). An example: Christian Dalits in India. Very hard working and very poor Christian people in a capitalist country.

Now the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ was not to eliminate poverty. That is where not only the liberal Christians (liberation theology et al) err, but also strangely enough a lot of religious right types, including the ones who assert that America's wealth and power is due to our having some sort of special covenant relationship with God, or having a large population of churchgoing people. Never mind the wealthy powerful pagan empires that the world has seen, or the many nations with lots of Christians that are poor. (It also ignores the poverty of the early church ... called Ebionies because the term means "poor.")

Instead, the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to save sinners. Not to lift people out of poverty or to transform nations, cultures and economies. And there will be rich Christians, middle class Christians and especially poor Christians until Jesus Christ returns and sets up New Jerusalem.

And I would caution against your claiming that poor people are in this condition because they are lazy. Luke 6:20 reads "And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God." Of course, in America, people of a more conservative political bent tend to look at Matthew 5:3 and insert "in spirit" into Luke 6:20. Sorry, that type of hermeneutics is just as political agenda-driven as is what the liberation theologians do, especially when we interpret Luke 6:20 in light of the rich young ruler, and of the negative examples of the rich man parables (Lazarus and the man who stored his goods in barns). Of course, the liberation theology people purposefully misinterpret those parables, but politically conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists simply ignore them, and are more likely to pay attention to the poor-bashing of politically conservative radio talk show hosts than what the Bible - and especially the New Testament - actually says about the poor (and the rich).

[Mike Baker]

There are more causes for poverty than the few that this article mentions.

Poverty is also caused by the external sources and circumstances of this fallen world which are beyond human control (natural disasters, famine, overpopulation, plain "bad luck", etc). To exclude these circumstances is to oversimplify the problem of poverty as a purely human condition divorced of the particulars of man's environment.

It is true that institutional unfairness is not the only cause of poverty, but to blame the poor as the only alternative is to “fall off the donkey on the other side”. There are causes of poverty that are not anyone's fault per se. Sometimes people are poor without it being self-inflicted or having it inflicted upon them by some other human agency. To assume that, if the guilty party would just do what their supposed to, poverty would not exist is unrealistic. The presupposition that man is master of this world rather than just a steward of it is a level of human pride on par with the Tower of Babel. We are not the unencumbered masters of our own destiny. There are problems in this world that we must battle against, but should recognize that we will never fully eradicate.

We must have the humility to admit that human potential is woefully limited. Even if you could have a perfect economic system that was perfectly fair and just, there would still be poor because there are things in this world that are just beyond human control. Even if you work hard and do your best you can still be mired in poverty because there are things in this world that are just beyond human control. This gets to the root of the problem on both extremes: The assumption that man (corporately or individually) is the key variable that controls his environment if he would just get his act together. There is no promise of this--not in Scripture and not in the example of recorded history.

One needs only look at the example of Job to see that some circumstances defy man's ability to understand or mitigate. No social system could have prevented Job's loss. No hard work on Job's part could have kept him from the junk heap. It was God who restored Job. It is God who provides our daily bread. We must not lose sight of that.

Both Social Justice and Rugged Individualism are unrealistic in that they operate in hypothetical worlds that simply do not exist after The Fall. Poverty is part of the curse and is a problem that will never be overcome as long as this fallen world exists. While individual situations can be cured and localized improvements can be made, there is no promise that a particular situation is fixable or that the problem on a macroscopic level will ever disappear. We can treat disease, but we will not eliminate all infirmity. We can cure illness, but your individual malady may be beyond our reach. Humans have limits both corporately and individually. We seem to forget that in these modern and post-modern ages.

We also should not exclude the small minority of individuals who are voluntarily poor and choose to live that way. If one assumes that poverty is the most undesirable state and no one would WANT to be poor then their addiction to worldly possessions has been made obvious. This greed and shallow materialism is rampant on both ideological extremes of this topic.

[Paula]

Mike, did you read the article?

Chris said
There are many causes of poverty and it is beyond the scope of this article to provide an extensive look at all of the causes of poverty

[Mike Baker]

I did read the article. Did you read my comment?

Chris said, "There are many causes of poverty and it is beyond the scope of this article to provide an extensive look at all of the causes of poverty."

I said, "There are more causes for poverty than the few that this article mentions."

It looks like we were in agreement on that point. That’s why I started my comment that way. I then went on to generally point out some of the other causes that BOTH Chris and I agree exist. I guess my only disagreement that I have with Chris (which is a minor one to be sure!) would be that I think that we should at least mention the other causes of poverty because they are important to the topics of poverty and social justice.

The other causes are important to the topic because the nonhuman causes of poverty make Social Justice even more untenable. The real problem with Social Justice is not just that it is wrong, but also that it is unrealistic. It presupposes that man can completely control his environment so that he can eradicate social ills when this has never been the case in human history. This was the point that ultimately proved that Prohibition was a bad idea: not so much that it was wrong, but that it just did not work in the real world. I think that this is a strong argument against social justice because it points out that their goal is impossible.

And so the intent of my comment was to include some examples that were beyond the scope of Chris' original point rather than just parrot what has already been said. It serves this topic to discuss these matters further and deeper. Why? Because the additional causes of poverty are important for us to discuss. They also further prove Chris’ original thesis which was in the title of the post: That there is “no one-size fits all poverty victim narrative”.

As “Jobezking” pointed out, there is also a danger in blaming poor people for being lazy without qualifiers. This should always be considered because it is so prevalent. There is a large strain of thought among our own camp that has embraced the political boiler plate that basically says "if someone is poor in this great land of opportunity, it must be their fault". This popular misconception must be explicitly disproved when we talk about causes of poverty. This is a popular excuse that people fall back on when they sinfully avoid charity to their neighbor. In my work with the poor, I have found that this assumption runs rampant through an Americanized Christian Church that seems to listen to the founding fathers more than Scripture. You probably know people who believe that all homeless are just lazy and/or felons. This is just not the case and we should correct this misconception as strongly as we do the errors of Social Justice because it serves as a significant barrier to charity and compassion. So I think that any mention of the poor should include the point that some people are poor through no fault or sin. It is important... not just to win an argument against our opponents, but to remind everyone that there are actual victims of poverty through no fault of anyone that need our help.

In Summary: I agreed with Chris. I didn't address Chris’ points because he did a good job of laying them out. I just felt they were incomplete and wanted to broaden the discussion. I thought that the comment section was a good place to do this. I think that my intent has been misunderstood. My goal was not to argue with Chris but to openly discuss this important topic. Sometimes people aren't engaging in Red Herring arguementation. Sometimes they agree with what has been said and just want to expand, broaden, or deepen the discussion beyond the scope of the original point.

I'm sorry if I have confused, mislead, or frustrated people.