Class War

Closing Up!

2009-04-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

For those who have been following this blog, I just want you to know that I am closing this one up. The themes I've been dealing with here are just too close to the "Homeless Ministry" blog I also write and I've often struggled as to which blog to post a particular topic, so I decided to leave it to one. So I will be moving all original topics over to the "Homeless Ministry" blog, and I enourage any of you following here to attend to that blog instead.

http://pastoralblog.blogspot.com/

Bible Passages on Social Justice

2009-03-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

For those who are interested in developing a biblical theology of the poor, here's a good place to start: Look up all these passages!

Basic justice:
Exodus 23:2-3
Leviticus 14:21
Leviticus 19:15
Leviticus 25
Deuteronomy 24:14-15
II Samuel 12:1-6
Psalm 72:12-14
Isaiah 11:1-8

God’s provision to the poor:
Exodus 15:23-16:36
Psalm 145:15-16
Psalm 146
Matthew 6:25-34
Luke 18:2-8

The Plight of the Needy
Proverbs 13:23
Proverbs 14:20
Proverbs 18:23
Proverbs 19:4, 7
Proverbs 22:7
Proverbs 28:15
Proverbs 30:7-9
Ecclesiastes 5:8
Ecclesiastes 9:15-16

Acting with Generosity to the poor:
Genesis 18
Deuteronomy 15
Psalm 41:1-3
Proverbs 14:21, 31
Proverbs 19:17
Proverbs 22:9
Proverbs 28:27
Proverbs 29:7
Daniel 4:27
Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 6:19-34
Matthew 25:31-46
Mark 14:3-9
Luke 12:33-34
Luke 14:12-14
Luke 16:1-13
Luke 19:8-9
Acts 2:43-45
Acts 4:32-37
I Corinthians 13:3
II Corinthians 8:1-9:15
Galatians 2:10
I Timothy 6:17-19
Hebrews 13:1-3
James 1:27-2:13

Respect to the poor
Genesis 18:1-
Proverbs 17:5
James 2:1-12

God’s deliverance of the oppressed:
Genesis 19 and Ezekiel 16:49
Exodus 2:23-25
Exodus 5-15
Exodus 22:21-27
Psalm 22
Psalm 34:6
Psalm 37
Psalm 73
Psalm 82
Psalm 107
Psalm 146
Proverbs 21:13
Proverbs 22:16, 22-23
Isaiah 10:1-4
Isaiah 40
Isaiah 52-53
Jeremiah 5:26-29
Ezekiel 22:29-31
Amos 5:11-12
Zechariah 7:9-14
Matthew 6:2-4
Matthew 11:1-5
Mark 3:1ff
Mark 10:46-52
Luke 4:18-21
Luke 6:24-26
Luke 16
Luke 18:2-8
Romans 12:14-21
James 1:9-11
James 5:1-5
Revelation 6:9-11
Revelation 18:1-24

Warning against stinginess/greed:
Deuteronomy 15
Deuteronomy 24:14-15
Matthew 25:41-46
Mark 10:17-30
Luke 12:15-21
Luke 16:19-31
Acts 5:1-11
I Timothy 6:9-11
Revelation 3:14-22

God’s call to the outcast and lowly:
Genesis 50:15-21
Proverbs 19:1
Proverbs 19:22
Proverbs 20:13
Proverbs 21:17
Proverbs 28:3
Proverbs 28:6
Ecclesiastes 4:13
Isaiah 40
Matthew 5:3-12
Matthew 10:7-8
Matthew 21:28-32
Mark 2:13-17
Mark 4:17
Mark 12:42-44
Luke 4: 18-19 (Isaiah 61:1-4)
Luke 14:16-24
Luke 15:1-7
Luke 18:9-14
Luke 19:1-10

Calling to be poor:
Genesis 12:1-9
Genesis 22
Judges 7
Matt 6:19-34/Luke 12:22-34
Matthew 10:5-42/Luke 9
Luke 6:20-24
Luke 14:26-33

The Exaltation of the Outcast/needy:
I Samuel 2:6-8
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 113:5-8
Luke 1:46-55
Luke 14:8-11
Philippians 2:1-11
James 1:9-11

"Get A Job!"

2009-03-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

Many people think that the homeless should just "get a job". The homeless, especially in holding signs looking for money or work will be told this. However, it is very difficult for the homeless to get a job. I had been planning on writing an essay on this, but Steven Samra has done it for me! Check this out:

http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/dont_be_homeless_get_a_job

God's Call To A New Community

2009-02-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

From The Mirror of Perfection, a biography about Francis of Assisi

Francis said, “The order and life of the Friars Minor is a certain little flock which the Son of God in these last times asked of his Heavenly Father, saying, ‘Father, I wish that You should make and give to me a new and humble folk in these last times, unlike to all others who have gone before them, in humility and poverty and content to possess me alone.’ And the Father said, having heard the Son, ‘My son, that which You have asked is done.’”

Francis used to say that for this reason God willed and revealed to him that they should be called Friars Minor, because this is that poor and humble folk which the Son of god demanded of his Father. This folk the Son himself speaks of in the Gospel, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” And also, “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you have done it to me.” And the Lord understood this of all spiritual poor men, yet He spoke it more especially of the Order of the Friars Minor, which was to be in his Church. And so, as it was revealed to Francis that it should be called the Order of Friars Minor, so he made it to be written in his testament and the first Rule which he took to Pope Innocent III who approved and conceded it, and afterwards announced it to all in Consistory.
-Section II, Chapter 23

What a contrast is Francis’ attitude of his people from the majority of the church! Today, we want bigger churches, bigger incomes, larger congregations, and more significant influence in the world. Francis, however, recognized that Jesus called the church to be of and among the disenfranchised, the outcast, the poor, the suffering, the lowly.

Jesus said that it was the wealthy who were to be cautioned, for “you have already received your comfort” and because “It is difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus said that those who were lauded were to be unhappy for “this is how the false prophets were treated.” Francis sought out those who were willing to give up all they had to be lowly and poor and suffering and wretched. Jesus also told his disciples to be prepared for poverty, for the surrender of all we have, for injustice and for persecution. But in our teachings of the gospel, we encourage people to expect all blessings—a better life, health, wealth and honor.

Woe is us! Woe to those who preach the American gospel! Woe to those who think that they can gain everything in this world and have the next world as well! But blessed are the poor, for they shall receive the kingdom of God.

The Injustice of the Inaugeration

2009-02-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

An excellent article on "Treating Homelessness" found:
http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/news.aspx?id=0b40f7e1-834a-4a73-b8ac-91ea94362460&refer=rss

Treating Homelessness for the Long Term, By Scott Schenkelberg, Executive Director, Miriam’s Kitchen
A Problem That Can’t Be Swept Away

"Ironic” isn’t a term often used to describe the recent inauguration of Barack Obama. But it was, in my opinion.

Despite the event’s prevailing message of diversity and inclusiveness, there was one population that was left out: the homeless.

To ensure a safe inauguration, many of DC’s streets were closed, fences were erected around the Mall, and security sweeps were made throughout the city. While these measures were an inconvenience for many of us who work in the nation’s capital, they were devastating for the homeless men, women, and children who call those areas home. The places where they sleep — parks, bridges, and streets downtown — were swept “clean” to ensure security; but, perhaps more insidiously, they were swept to present a “clean” image of America’s capital to rest of the world: one that doesn’t include desperate poverty and grinding need.

These men and women were forced to abandon their homes and belongings in a way that none of us with more conventional homes would have tolerated. While we may not like thinking of their homes as the city’s streets and parks, they are. And they were ordered to leave those homes and spend the night before inauguration in a shelter.

Some might say that this seems like humane, if not generous, treatment for folks who don’t receive this kind of service every day. The city’s ten shelters are not normally open all day. And the city doesn’t usually provide free storage for men and women who have no place else to keep their worldly possessions. But they did for inauguration. And perhaps did it in an effort to hide the image of DC’s growing homeless population.

Just like any of us have our routines, so too do those who are homeless. Where they sleep, where they eat, and where they go for services are all part of their routine. But those are a much bigger part of their lives than just being a routine, they are methods of survival. By uprooting our homeless neighbors from their homes and taking away their possessions, we negatively impacted their lives—and their chances of surviving.

This may all seem perplexing—the city gave them shelter, warmth, and food during one of the coldest days of the year. How does that negatively impact them? On its face, it all seems fair. But when you consider that many of these men and women were shipped off to shelters on the outskirts of the city, that shuttles to and from the shelters were suspended on the day of the Inauguration, and that they had no access to their belongings, it begins to take on a different appearance.

Unfortunately, these injustices aren’t limited to inauguration day. They happen every day in cities across America. The “cleansing” of the city on inauguration day is emblematic of the little consideration that is given to the trials and tribulations of people living on the streets. Rather than looking at them as a temporary blight on the American cityscape, it is time we addressed them as a population that isn’t going away.

We need to lower barriers to services for the homeless and reach out to those in need, instead of waiting for them to come to us and making it difficult for them to receive services when they finally find us. Both the expunging of the homeless from downtown DC during the inauguration and the persistent treatment of homelessness as a temporary crisis with a fixed solution is insidious because it allows us to become complacent. We can’t think of homelessness as temporary; we have to think long term.

We here at Miriam’s Kitchen believe that much like hospitals serving sick patients, agencies like ours serving homeless men and women will continue to exist. They will have to. As advocates for our guests, we believe that homelessness is not going away. Therefore, we need to focus on providing the best services for those who experience homelessness on a regular basis.

The thought that homelessness isn’t a solvable problem will rankle many who are very well intentioned. Certainly, there are things we can do to help alleviate many of the problems associated with homelessness. Cities and organizations can invest more in permanent housing, make mental health and addiction treatment services more readily available, and provide basic income supports to those living on limited means. However, there are two strikes against ending homelessness through these reforms—the laws surrounding how those with persistent mental illness are engaged in treatment and the ongoing cycle of homelessness that those who find themselves newly homeless inevitably fall into.

The current laws surrounding how those who have severe and persistent mental illness are engaged in treatment are in part born out of the civil rights movement. Concurrent with the closing of state mental hospitals, patients’ rights also changed to rightly allow patients a say in their treatment. These laws counteracted the abuse that many patients faced in a mental health system that effectively held them as prisoners throughout their lives. Now, unless you are endangering yourself or others, you cannot be treated against your will. This high litmus test comes with a caveat, though: those who are held forcibly may only be held for 72 hours, after which an administrative hearing is held to determine whether the patient is meeting this standard for hospitalization. In three days, many patients have stabilized to a point that they no longer meet this standard, and they are released. For many of these patients, this means they are released to the streets. Unfortunately, this often begins the cycle of moving from hospital to street to jail and back again. And no matter how well constructed our safety net is for these patients, some are going to fall through it.

So what can we do?

By treating homelessness as a permanent need rather than a temporary crisis, we can build lasting institutions to serve these men and women. What are needed are downtown spaces that aggregate numerous services for those who are homeless. Instead of asking those with the least ability to travel to go numerous places for services, we should be working to consolidate services and make them geographically accessible. Service providers of all stripes—mental health professionals, addictions counselors, attorneys, medical doctors, job counselors, public benefits agencies, life skill coaches, and housing providers should all be available in these centers to meet people where they are rather than making them travel.

Permanent service centers such as this also allow people to develop trust in service providers. Creating a warm and inviting environment with competent professionals and caring volunteers goes a long way to convincing vulnerable people to take the next step to recovery. It is only through long-term commitment — not measured in weeks and months, but in years and decades — that we can start to deal with the persistent needs of those who are homeless.

The inauguration swept away homelessness in DC for a few days, but it is time we faced the reality that homelessness isn’t a temporary problem with a fixed solution. It is a fixture in American society that deserves long-term solutions for long-term needs.

Scott Schenkelberg is Executive Director of Miriam’s Kitchen, a homeless services provider in Washington, DC. Each year, they provide healthy meals, comprehensive case management services, therapeutic groups, and transitional housing to more than 4,000 homeless men and women

For more information, please visit www.miriamskitchen.org

The State Is Still The State

2009-01-25T22:15:00.000-08:00

By David C in Young Anabaptist Radicals:

Yesterday was truly a big day in U.S. history. The inauguration of the first African-American President is truly a turning point for our nation, especially given our abysmal history on race. Moreover, it was encouraging to hear Senator Dianne Feinstein’s reflections on the nonviolence of Martin Luther King, President Obama’s message that we need not choose “between our safety and ideals” and his call to diplomacy and international aid over sheer violent force and military power, and Reverend Joseph Lowery’s prayer that one day we will “beat our tanks into tractors.”
Nevertheless, I had a difficult time getting too emotional or excited over this change of guard. For, while yesterday was historical from the perspective of the United States, it was a pretty small speck when history is viewed rightly. As John Howard Yoder tirelessly argued, the locus of history is not with the state but with God’s work through his church. The state is merely the context in which the real drama of history can unfold.

So, while the words and symbolism of the inauguration may be moving, the sobering fact is that the state is still the state. Yes, Obama seems more intent than Bush on using diplomatic tactics to secure peace, but his message to our “enemy” was still virtually the same: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

Not much room there for Jesus’s message to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, and turn the other cheek. But this is as should be expected, because the state is still the state.

Ironically, with this change of guard many us open-minded, progressive Christians will begin to forget that the state is still the state. We will start to put our faith in the ideals of the state and our hope in its progress. As blogger Halden recently argued, now more than ever is it imperative (though difficult) to be resolute in our anti-empire polemics. It was far too easy to maintain a prophetic witness to the state when those in charge overtly sanctioned military aggression, torture, and seemingly unbridled increase of personal power. But when those in power seem to share many of our ideals, the temptation will be to give them a pass when they deem military violence necessary in this or that situation. And it will be difficult for us to make the unfashionable charge that those in power sanction the unjust extermination of the least of those among us. Indeed, to increase the irony still further, it may be the conservative Christians who begin to recognize with more clarity the separation between church and state (as many of my students, for example, ponder whether or not Obama is the anti-Christ!). They will now be the ones to speak prophetically, though their witness will be narrow and tainted by their continual use of political means to grasp for power.

It as at this time, perhaps more than any other, that we need to heed Yoder’s exhortation to what he calls “evangelical nonconformity,” quoted here at length:

When then Jesus said to His disciples, “In the world, kings lord it over their subjects . . . Not so with you”; He was not beckoning His followers to a legalistic withdrawal from society out of concern for moral purity. Rather, His call was to an active missionary presence within society, a source of healing and creativity because it would take the pattern of his own suffering servanthood.

Jesus thereby unmasks the pretension to use violence for the good as being a form of hypocrisy: these rulers call themselves “benefactors” but they are not servants. He who would claim to have the right to use violence, and especially legal violence, against another, places himself outside of the scope of Jesus’ mode of servanthood. This is not so much because he sins against the letter of the law from the Old Testament or the New but because he claims (with a pride intrinsic to his position) to have the right — (whether on the basis of official status, of superior insight, or of his moral qualities) — to determine in a definitive way the destiny of others. The older language in which the theme of “conformity to this world” was stated in Bible times had to do with “idols,” with those unworthy objects of devotion to whom men in their blindness sacrificed. Thus it is quite fitting to describe the use of violence as the outworking of an idolatry. If I take the life of another, I am saying that I am devoted to another value, one other than the neighbor himself, and other than Jesus Christ Himself, to which I sacrifice my neighbor. I have thereby made a given nation, social philosophy, or party my idol. To it I am ready to sacrifice not only something of my own, but also the lives of my fellow human beings for whom Christ gave His life.

- John Howard Yoder, “Christ, the Hope of the World” in The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism, 174-75
In this time of celebration, may we not forget that the state is still the state. And we are still called to be the church.

What Is Community?

2009-01-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

A community is a self-sustaining entity
A community is a collection of different ideals that coalesce into a whole
A community is an “us” that lives together
A community doesn’t always live in harmony, but issues are resolved for the sustaining of the whole
A community is usually recognized by other communities as being a unit—but even if it is not, it does not negate its viability.

The homeless are not a “problem”. The homeless are a community.

I’m not talking about the homeless who are out on the street for a month, desperately seeking a way out and then getting a home to their great relief. I’m talking about the chronic homeless, who seek to sustain in a population that denies their right to survive. They are denied who they are because of the prejudices that are forced on them. The labels “addict”, “lazy”, “violent”, “irrational” that are less likely accurate to an individual person, but is applied to the group as a whole without remorse end up causing the homeless to hate himself for being a part of what he is not.

The chronic homeless are not just outcast, they are an outcast community. The homeless have gate-keepers, who take the newbies under their wing, guiding them to the methods of survival on the street. They have leaders that keep the peace and determine the limits and allowances of their community. They have loves and hates, dramas and conflicts, resolutions and truces, hopes and goals just like all other communities.

Although the homeless are at the center of their community, they are not the only members. At the outskirts of this community, one foot in, one foot out, are the middle class servers of the community. They offer food, clothes, showers, AA meetings, sermons, temporary housing and many other services. These charity givers have different purposes, and have different impacts on the community. Most of them do their service, but don’t really want to connect to the community out of personal preference or even fear. Many of them have relationships with some of the community, but only out of professional goals, due to their job. A very few actually make the full step into the community and have personal relationships with the homeless. These are the bridges, the ones who see the community for what it is and who try to communicate this vibrancy to those who live in fear of the community.

The community also has its enemies. The city leaders who deny the existence of the community, and only see the homeless as non-citizens, roadblocks to the way of life they are trying to achieve. The police who move camps on, telling the homeless to leave their city. The young people who attack the helpless, beating up and even burning the homeless who aren’t on their guard. Those who take it upon themselves to throw away the camps of the homeless, including their tents, sleeping bags and personal items that cannot be replaced. The mutual anger at these enemies can also sustain unity, just as every other community.

I deeply regret what the community is not allowed. They are religious but not allowed a church, for they do not have the land in which to have one. They are hard workers but not allowed to be self-sustaining, because no one sees them as working unless they become a part of the community of employed. They are proud but not allowed to be respected because they are outcast. They are moral but not allowed to be legal because they are by definition criminals.

The worst of all, is that, for the most part, the homeless receive their community definition defined by the stereotypes of the threatened community—the middle class. They see themselves as a community of addicts, of the lazy, of the worthless. Not because the community fits the definition—almost everyone they know are exceptions to the rule of the stereotype. But because everyone believes of themselves what they hear. No matter how untrue it is.

Dystopia Now

2009-01-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

Excellent Point

2009-01-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

This post is from a chronically homeless person, whose blog "The Homeless Guy" I highly recommend. Check it out:
http://thehomelessguy.blogspot.com/2009/01/dont-panic.html

Don't Panic.

Nothing could be more true. Many of you may be familiar with that bit of advice from the very popular book, "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy." That story is a most improbable one, just as becoming homeless is also improbable, though admittedly possible. "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" is a story of homelessness. The story starts with the destruction of planet Earth, which would prompt most readers to ask, "Now what?"

And so a person finds himself homeless. His world, as he knew it, is completely gone. This would cause many people to freak out. Although freaking out would be completely understandable, it doesn't help. So, whatever you do, when you become homeless, don't panic. Millions of people have been, and have overcome, homelessness before you. The way out is clear enough, though perhaps a relatively difficult task.

According to the most reliable sources, at any one time there are just under one million homeless people in the United States. But those sources also say that about 3 million people experience homelessness at one point or another in a given year. Doing the math, this means that the average homeless experience lasts about 3 to 4 months. For the majority of people, homelessness is a short term event that they experience only once in their lives. If you're about to become homeless, just know that "this too will pass." Don't Panic.

Parable of the Brokers

2009-01-14T22:13:00.000-08:00

Once there was a brokerage whose owner told the brokers to invest in some high-risk stock. “It doesn’t matter which stock it is, really,” he said. “Just invest in the stock in companies that don’t look like they’re going to make it. Some of them will succeed marvelously, and we will gain a profit in the end.”

One broker in the firm denied to do any such thing. “I won’t fritter away our clients capital on just any old company! I will wait until the company shows a profit, then I will invest.”

One broker agreed with the owner and said, “Yes, what the owner says is correct.” And he invested in high-risk stock. However, when he lost a good deal of money in a dot-com investment, he withdrew and invested only in conservative stocks from that time.

Another broker agreed with the owner, but said, “The high-risk companies are best, but it is best not to actually invest in them. Rather, we should educate the companies, and those who grow will be those we invest in.” So he followed his own advice and educated companies to follow his own wisdom, and invested in those who already showed a profit.

But the owner’s son took what the owner said to heart. And while at first, the son’s investments were spotty, in the end, he pulled the largest profit. And the owner saw what all of these brokers had done. He demoted the first three for failing to do what he said, but the last, his son, he raised up to be a partner in the company. So it is in the kingdom of God.

Luke 14:21-23 Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.” “Sir,” the servant said, “what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.” Then the master told his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.”

Luke 12:33 “Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.”

Mark 2:17 “It is not those who are healthy who need a healer, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

We are to invest our time and resources in the poor, the needy, the helpless and the worthless. God will cause the growth, and we will obtain the reward of the Father.

Class Awareness

2009-01-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

Community Is Like A Loaf...

2009-01-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

"Community can be compared with a loaf of bread. Seeds are scattered over many fields and farmlands. Then the harvest-time comes. The grain brought together into the granary is not always from one field alone. Often grain from many fields and farms is baked together in one loaf of bread. In the same way, the Church community is gathered together from many nations, many different strata of society, from diverse outlooks on life, and is baked into one loaf."
-Eberhard Arnold

Equal Opportunity

2008-12-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

Irony

2008-12-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

Dehumanization

2008-12-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

Published on The Lucifer Effect website:
http://www.lucifereffect.com/dehumanization.htm

At the core of evil is the process of dehumanization by which certain other people or collectives of them, are depicted as less than human, as non comparable in humanity or personal dignity to those who do the labeling. Prejudice employs negative stereotypes in images or verbally abusive terms to demean and degrade the objects of its narrow view of superiority over these allegedly inferior persons. Discrimination involves the actions taken against those others based on the beliefs and emotions generated by prejudiced perspectives.

Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a “cortical cataract” that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and even annihilation.

In this section, we will examine three forms that dehumanization has taken: Nazi Comic Books against the Jews; Faces of the Enemy—world-wide propaganda images of the “enemy,” and “trophy photos” of American citizens posing with African Americans who had been lynched or burned alive—and then portrayed in post cards mailed to family and friends.

Nazi Comic Books

Hitler’s “final solution” of genocide of all European Jews began by shaping the beliefs of school children through the reading of assigned texts in which Jews are portrayed in a series of increasingly negative scenarios. At the end of these lessons in civics or geography, we see the “reasonable” discriminatory actions that Germans should take toward Jews.

This educational propaganda was intentionally designed to create a dehumanized conception of Jews among students by means of providing them with required texts that were colorful and visually told provocative narratives. Students from primary school through High School read these books.

The originator of this idea was Julius Streicher, the editor of a weekly newspaper, Das Sturmer, “The Storm Troope,” that spread anti-Semitic propaganda to the general public in Germany. The “facts” presented in his newspaper (for adults, parents, and soon-to-be recruited Nazi SS perpetrators of destruction) were carried over into these school books. Streicher sought to create a perception of Jews as a sub-human race that was a threat to the national state of Germany. The idea was for this total indoctrination of these beliefs in the minds of the young and the old to such an extent that they came to have a conviction about the inferiority of Jews and the need to eliminate the threat they posed to the purity and superiority of the Aryan race.

The use of stereotyped conceptions of Jews as lecherous old men seducing young Aryan women, of dirty Jewish butchers, unscrupulous Jewish lawyers, hard-hearted Jewish landlords, rich Jewish business men and their wives ignoring the poverty around them, all combined to create a hate-filled image of Jews. In one of these comic books, after providing such “evidence” of the despicable nature of Jews, three conclusions are provided: kicking their children out of German schools, prohibiting them from using public facilities, like parks, and then expelling them from the country. Those “reasonable” consequences that Nazis should create for Jews foreshadows the more sinister ones of putting them all in ghettoes, then transporting them to concentration camps, and finally enacting the “final solution” of attempting mass genocide of the entire Jewish population.

Other comic books were in the guise of Geography lessons portraying different races of the world in the traditional stereotyped poses, and illustrating the dramatic comparison between handsome, strong Aryan men and weak, ugly fat Jewish men. Other images show Jews as vermin, as insects carried on the back of the devil.

Another aspect of the process of creating dehumanized images of Jews in the minds of the German populace was later in the process of their destruction to show pictures of their naked bodies, gaunt from starvation, sickness, and overwork in such ways that it was easy to dissociate them from the rest of humanity, to make them look sub human in ways that no other peoples have been.

My access to these Nazi comic books was provided by my colleague and friend, Professor John Steiner, who after having survived 3 years in Nazi concentration camps, started a long-term project of interviewing hundreds of his former tormentors.

In addition to simply viewing the images and probably listening to their teachers discussing and explaining them, the children were required to copy the text as practice in penmanship. It was yet another form of indoctrination.

Faces of The Enemy

What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even to kill them? It requires a ‘hostile imagination,’ a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into “The Enemy.” That image is a soldier’s most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. That image of a dreaded enemy threatening one’s personal well-being and the society’s national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war, and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn ploughshares into swords of destruction.

It is all done with words and images. To modify an old adage: Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can sometimes kill you. The process begins with stereotyped conceptions of the other, dehumanized perceptions of the other, the other as worthless, the other as all-powerful, the other as demonic, the other as an abstract monster, the other as a fundamental threat to our cherished values and beliefs. With public fear notched up and enemy threat imminent, reasonable people act irrationally, independent people act in mindless conformity, and peaceful people act as warriors. Dramatic visual images of the enemy on posters, television, magazine covers, movies, and the internet imprint on the recesses of the limbic system, the primitive brain, with the powerful emotions of fear and hate.

Social philosopher, Sam Keen, brilliantly depicts how this hostile imagination is created by virtually every nation’s propaganda on its path to war, and the transformative powers on the human psyche of these ‘images of the enemy.’ Justifications for the desire to destroy these threats are really afterthoughts, merely proposed explanations for the official record, but not for critical analysis of the damage to be done, or being done.

Postcard Photos of Lynchings

For over 100 years, many American citizens took “vigilante” actions against African Americans by lynching them or burning them alive, on various pretexts. It became common practice to record this violence by taking photos of the murdered men and women along with their murderers and observers. I call them “trophy photos” because they are similar in kind to those taken by big game hunters and fishermen, proudly posing with the dead beasts they had conquered. (I also use the same term for the photos of the abuse of the Abu Ghraib prisoners by the Military Police reserve soldiers.) Many of those posing in the photos were smiling young children. Some argue that the post card industry in America was stimulated by widespread sales of these lynching photos.

Visit Without Sanctuary, a collection of photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America. Here are a sample [warning: contains graphic violence] of those images.

A recent publication provides the documentation of these destructive dehumanized practices through copies of the actual postcards and photographs. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (2004, Sante Fe, New Mexico: Twin Palms Publishers) J. Allen, H. Als, J. Lewis,& L. Litwak, Eds. and commentators. See also Ralph Ginzberg’s 100 Years of Lynching. (Baltimore, MD: Black Classics Press.)

Advertising In Christian Magazines

2008-12-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

Is it really necessary for magazines such as Sojourners, Christianity Today and others to have more advertising than content? Check out this discussion:

http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2008/12/14/why-does-sojourners-magazine-have-more-advertising-then-content/#comments

Distributism

2008-12-21T05:25:00.000-08:00

Any economic philosophy espoused by G.K. Chesterton can't be all bad. It seems to be an application of Jesus' command to "sell your possessions and give to the poor" and the early church model of Acts 4:

Below copied from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

Distributism, also known as distributionism and distributivism, is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by such Roman Catholic thinkers as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc to apply the principles of Catholic Social Teaching articulated by the Roman Catholic Church, especially in Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum[1] and more expansively explained by Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno[2] According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (capitalism). A summary of distributism is found in Chesterton's statement: "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists."[3]

Essentially, distributism distinguishes itself by its distribution of property (not to be confused with redistribution of property carried out by socialism). Distributism holds that, while socialism allows no individuals to own productive property (it all being under state, community, or workers' control), and capitalism allows only a few to own it, distributism itself seeks to ensure that most people will become owners of productive property. As Hilaire Belloc stated, the distributive state (that is, the state which has implemented distributism) contains "an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater number of owners of the means of production."[4] This broader distribution does not extend to all property, but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, etc.[5]

Distributism has often been described as a third way of economic order opposing both socialism and capitalism. However, some have seen it more as an aspiration, which has been successfully realised in the short term by commitment to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity (these being built into financially independent local co-operatives and family owned, small businesses).

The Working Poor

2008-12-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

I was asked on a survey about my experiences with the working poor. This was my response:

How much space do you have?

I have been working poor since 1997 when I quit my job and started living on donations. However, my children have never gone hungry, even one meal, nor have they had to sleep on the street. God has provided for us, and now even a house and our daily food, although we often eat food from dumpsters-- but not filthy food.

I have seen people who don't want to beg and so they look for cans to recycle. They may make 30 dollars a day for working five hours in independent recycling.

I know of some people who work for phone sales. They get hired in one place, work for a few weeks or months, get laid off and then they have to look for work again. They never get enough to get an apartment.

I know of others who are on disability at about 500 or so dollars a month. They try to work as often as they can, but their physical or mental disabilities don't allow them to work for long, so they soon have to quit or they get fired. Eventually they find another job.

People who live on the street all want to work. Everyone is looking for work to do. But they have mental or physical or social limitations that don't allow them to work as long as they would like. I know of some people who look for work, but then they have an attack from their mental illness, and they are unable to work for two days to a week after that. They can't hold down a job like that.

What people on the street and some folks on disability need is work that will be flexible with their situation. Work that will allow them to take off and who will help them to fill out the necessary paperwork. Not just a day labor place, but a social assistance project that gives people work as they are able to work so they can make more income than they currently get-- even if they don't have enough for an apartment.

Scriptures on the Responsibilities of Government

2008-12-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

Here are the main passages that talk about the responsibilty of government for their citizens-- what they should focus on and what their rule is about. This is for all government officials, whether in a small town or the President of the U.S. A couple of them-- Deuteronomy 17 and Mark 10 are specifically for Judeo-Christian rulers, those who seek after God, but the rest apply to all government officials.

I'd love to send this to President-elect Barak Obama, or, heck, even the mayor of Gresham, OR, but I don't think they'd read it or think anything of it apart from one line summary their underlings gave them. But, for those who care, here it is:

Ecclesiastes 9:14-18
There was a small city with few men in it and a great king came to it, surrounded it and constructed large siegeworks against it. But there was found in it a poor wise man and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man. So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the wisdom of the poor man is despised and his words are not heeded. The words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

Proverbs 31:4-9
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, It is not for kings to drink wine, Or for rulers to desire strong drink,
For they will drink and forget what is decreed, And pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
Open your mouth for the mute, For the rights of all the unfortunate.
Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.

Psalm 72:12-15
For the king will deliver the needy when he cries for help, The afflicted also, and him who has no helper.
He will have compassion on the poor and needy, And the lives of the needy he will save.
He will rescue their life from oppression and violence, And their blood will be precious in his sight;
So may he live, and may the gold of Sheba be given to him;
And let them pray for him continually; Let them bless him all day long.

Proverbs 29:14
If a king judges the poor with truth, His throne will be established forever.

Psalm 82:1-4
God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.
How long will you judge unjustly And show partiality to the wicked?
Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.

Daniel 4:24-34
This is the interpretation of your dream, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king: that you be driven away from mankind and your dwelling place be with the beasts of the field, and you be given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven; and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes. And in that it was commanded to leave the stump with the roots of the tree, your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize that it is Heaven that rules. Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity.'
All this happened to Nebuchadnezzar the king. Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. The king reflected and said, 'Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?' While the word was in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, 'King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.' Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws. But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, 'What have You done?' At that time my reason returned to me.”

Deuteronomy 17:14-20
When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,' you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, 'You shall never again return that way.' He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

Mark 10:42-45
Jesus said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Romans 13:3-4
For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

I Timothy 2:1-2
I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

Gentrification and the Homeless

2008-12-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

Gentrification doesn't have to mean kicking the homeless out of their outdoor homes, but it almost always does. After all, the name of the game is "beautification" and "improving the real estate value" and the homeless are unwitting enemies of those shining values.

When my apartment building in Rockwood was being "cleaned up" on the first day the new owner took ownership, he gave me and my family a thirty day notice, because the homeless people we had visiting us in our apartment (not sleeping around our apartment, mind you) wasn't good for the "work I am doing" as he put it.

The fact is, the homeless are seen as non-enitities, non-existant, or persona-non-gratia by property owners and developers. And those who work with or defend the homeless are simple nuisances.

What a wonderful day it will be when the poor of the world can kick the developers out of their homes for being compassionless!

Culture War: A Case Study

2008-12-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

The Bovine Brouhaha

Found in "Mental Floss", here:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20663

Grab a fork and a knife (and a rifle, if you’ve got one). First up on the menu is The Grattan Massacre, a bloody clash between American Indians and U.S. troops that played out in 1854 in the Nebraska Territory, just east of what is now Laramie, Wyoming.

If you thought Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was bad news, consider what the cow that wandered away from a Mormon pioneer train on the Oregon Trail started. The rabble-rousing bovine clomped its way into a camp inhabited by the Lakota Indians, one of seven tribes that made up the Great Sioux Nation. Not being ones to turn down a free lunch, the Lakota promptly killed the presumably abandoned cow and ate it.

That might not seem like a big deal, but in the mid-1800s, few peace pipes were being passed between American Indians and new settlers. So, when the cattle owner realized the fate his cow had met, he immediately went to tattle his tale at the Territory’s nearest outpost of officialdom, Fort Laramie. In response to the incident, U.S. officials dispatched an eager young second lieutenant and recent West Point graduate named John L. Grattan to bring the cow thieves to justice.

What happened next underscores the downside of history’s insistence on naming events only after they happen. Had John L. Grattan known he was riding off to The Grattan Massacre, it seems likely he might have conducted himself more civilly with the Sioux. Instead, Grattan’s approach would later prompt a fellow Fort Laramie officer to comment, “There is no doubt that Lt. Grattan left this post with a desire to have a fight with the Indians, and that he had determined to take the man at all hazards.”
With nearly 30 men in tow, Grattan met with the Brule Lakota chief, Conquering Bear, and demanded the surrender of the guilty parties. By most accounts, Conquering Bear was open and reasonable during the negotiations, and it was Grattan’s behavior that escalated tensions. At some point, Conquering Bear stood up, and nervous U.S. soldiers—thinking the chief was making a move—opened fire, killing Bear and his brother. Warfare quickly broke out on both sides, and Grattan’s entire party perished.

When news of the event reached the U.S. War Department, officials sought swift revenge on the Sioux. A little more than a year after the Grattan Massacre, on September 3, 1855, General William S. Harney and roughly 600 soldiers caught up with the Lakota tribe. Harney ordered his men to open fire, and nearly 100 Lakota men, women, and children were shot dead in what became known as the Battle of Ash Hollow. (Apparently, 30 Army men being killed equals a massacre, while 100 Sioux being killed equals a battle. Ain’t history grand?)

Character and Success

2008-11-20T10:01:00.001-08:00

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."
-Lily Tomlin

Church Arrests Homeless

2008-11-16T23:25:00.000-08:00

An article from the Associated Press:

November 11, 2008

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Even a church cannot be a home to the homeless.

Police were called to First Christian Church in Corvallis recently to cite homeless men for drinking in public and camping on the property.

Although church officials have been tolerant of homeless men in the area for months, their patience had worn thin by Friday night, when a homeless man became combative.

Assistant City Manager Ellen Volmert said Monday the church requested targeted police enforcement in an Oct. 28 letter.

The church has attracted homeless people because it provides free meals, and because it gave permission for a few disabled transients to sleep there temporarily during the summer.

But Pastor John Evans said the property can't become a homeless camp.

It is true that most churches can't be a homeless camp. Most churches aren't prepared to deal with the arguments from the neighbors, and they wouldn't want to be responsible for the homeless who have substance abuse problems.

But is the answer calling the police? Can't the church deal with the problems that they invited themselves? Honestly, if you invite some responsible homeless to be security, many of the problems would be resolved.

When you get the police involved, you can actually be inviting more problems. See this story on http://www.nowheretolayhishead.org/fearofthehomeless.html

The Recyclable and the Trash: A Translation of Matthew 25:31-46

2008-11-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

When the Emperor of God descends from heaven displaying his power, having all the angels of heaven surrounding him, then he will rule from his throne and every person on earth will be collected and will stand before His throne. He will judge them all and will divide them up as a rag picker will separate the useful from the trash. And the recyclable he will stand at his right, and the trash he will stand at his left.

The King will proclaim to the right, “I welcome you, those whom my Father speaks well of. You may now possess the Kingdom—my Kingdom—which has been made ready for you, the righteous of humanity, from the creation of the world. You are worthy of this, because of your assistance to me. I was hungry in your neighborhood, and you gave me food. I was parched, passing by your dwelling, and you offered me some water. I was an immigrant and outcast and you let me in your house for the night. I was walking around freezing, and you give me your coat. I was sick and you nursed me to health. I was in prison and you came and met my needs. You listened to me when I was lonely. You kept me safe when I was fearful. You gave me work when I was in need and paid me at the end of the day.”

These righteous will answer the Emperor thus, “Our Lord, we thank you. But are you sure you are speaking of us? Did we really see you hungry and feed you? Did we see you needing a drink and gave you something? When did we see you—you of all people-- an outcast and bring you into our house? When were you freezing and we gave you clothes or a blanket? And when, my Lord, when were you in prison and we had opportunity to visit you?”

And the Emperor will answer them, “Listen carefully—whatever you did it to these disciples of mine—even these lowly ones— you did the same to me.”

Then the Emperor will turn to his other side. “You will leave me, you whom the Father curses with his every breath. You will be cast into the punishment which was created for Satan and his messengers. Because I came to your town, hungry, and you told me to get a job. I came to your street, parched with thirst, and you wouldn’t talk to me. I was an immigrant, a homeless person, a mentally ill person on the street, a traveler and you refused me entrance at your doorstep. I was shivering in the cold and you passed by me, although you had closets full of coats, shelves full of extra blankets you weren’t using. I became bed-ridden and disabled and you were too busy with your own life to assist me, or even check in on me. I was in prison, through no fault of my own, and in a locked mental health facility and in the state hospital and you didn’t even write to me, let alone visit me. You cannot live with me in my kingdom, since you did not share your life with me when I was with you.”

They will respond, “But Great Lord, I’m sure you weren’t hungry or thirsty! And you couldn’t have been an outcast or freezing. You were never in our neighborhood—I would remember! And you, being sick—I don’t think so. And you would never have been in prison or a mental health hospital. And if you were, we would have been there for you, serving you, Lord!”

The Emperor answers, “Listen carefully, inasmuch as you did not serve these lowly ones, you did not serve me. I was there, through my disciples, as crazy as they seemed, as insignificant as they seemed, and you didn’t let them in your life. Even so, I don’t want you in mine.”

And they will leave the Lord and go to eternal punishment. But those who acted with justice lived with the Lord eternally.

Developmentally Disabled Taxed

2008-11-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

Whoo hoo! That's the way to do it, Ontario! Tax those who most need a break but can't do anything about it! That's oppression in action! -SK

Taxing the earnings of the developmentally disabled
The province of Ontario has been working on ways to elevate poverty despite tough economic times. But government admits it may slow down the work.

In looking into ways that government policies can be changed to eliminate poverty. A group has decried a government policy to tax the earnings of the developmentally disabled who find work. Also, half of the unemployed benefits are taken back.

As the Canadian Press reports, Liberal party leaders say these taxes condemn the developmentally disabled to a life of poverty.

The government takes back half the earnings of disabled people who find a job while collecting up to $999 a month under Ontario's disability support program, said NDP critic Michael Prue. The disabled have a hard enough time finding work that pays a decent wage without being punished for trying to better their lives, he said.

"We find this heinous," Prue said.

"What in effect it does, is it said that if you are born with a developmental disability, you for all times are destined to poverty - there's no way out."

Those who receive the benefit actually receive an additional $100 a month if they find work, said Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews.

But the province deducts 50 cents from the monthly benefit for every dollar the recipient earns, she said.

"It's not a pension, like if you have a disability, you'll get it," Matthews said.

"It's a needs-based program, so there are asset tests and so on."

[..]

Of the nearly 250,000 people receiving assistance under the Ontario Disability Support Program, about 28,000, or 11 per cent, had employment earnings, up from eight per cent, or 16,273, in 2003, said Thomas Chanzy. About 41,500 recipients have a developmental disability.

Fleeing War into Death

2008-11-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

Sixty corpses wash onto Yemen beach
Some people trying to flee the war and poverty in Somalia and Ethiopia did not make it out with their lives. The aid agency Medicins Sans Frontieres say 60 corpses have washed onto a Yemen beach in recent days.

The people who try to flee, sell all they have to smugglers to give them passage out of the country. If the smugglers fear that they are about to get caught, they spill the people overboard.

As this Reuters story from News Australia reports, the smuggling route across the gulf of Arden is a very dangerous one.

November 3rd, News Australia

In one of two incidents that caused the deaths, smugglers tipped the refugees into the sea at night after noticing lights on land and fearing they would be spotted by the coastguard, MSF quoted survivors as saying.

"They forced us into the sea, even if the water was too deep. Several people did not know how to swim and they drowned," one survivor said. An eight-months pregnant woman was injured by the boat's propeller after being forced overboard, survivors said.

In a second incident, MSF workers discovered a group who had made it to shore after their boat capsized. They said they had buried 23 fellow passengers.

"The boat was stuck almost upside down in the sand, not far from the beach. The fishermen were trying to find survivors underneath but they could not," said MSF worker Said.

"So I had to dive under. I managed to get in the hull and with God's help, we got two women and a man out safe."

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, about 32,000 people got safely to Yemen from Somalia between the start of the year and October. At least 230 people had died, and 365 were missing.

Again, Stealing One's Home

2008-10-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

This man lost his home and all his property without prior notice. He came back and wowzer! his life was gone, and all he got was this stupid piece of paper.

To read more, check out this article by Portland Mercury reporter, Matt Davis:
http://www.portlandmercury.com/news/without-notice/Content?oid=837161

Government Stealing Her Home

2008-10-30T06:57:00.000-07:00

This woman lost her home-- her car-- to the police and to a towing company. To read how a beuracracy can take a person's livelihood, read Matt Davis' article:

http://www.portlandmercury.com/news/towing-the-line/Content?oid=899984

Dorothy Day

2008-10-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

Dorothy Day was so cool.

She, with Peter Maurin, were the originators of the Catholic Worker movement, which spawned a hundred newspapers and at least a thousand hospitality houses, all over North America.

She was a single mom, who suddenly needed to connect with God.
She had no regular income, but she knew that she needed to help the poor. And this during the Depression.
She had a passion to write about the poor and so she started her own newspaper. And because she didn’t want money to get in the way of people reading it, she sold it for a penny.

Many American Catholics are trying to get her to become an officially recognized Catholic saint. Whether she ever does or not, she is a saint before the throne of God, loving Him and His people.

For more info on Dorothy Day, check out:

http://www.catholicworker.org/Dorothyday/ddbiographytext.cfm?Number=72

Stuff I Learned From the Homeless

2008-10-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

1. God will provide to anyone who asks Him for help

2. Money isn’t necessary, meeting our needs are—and these two things are almost never the same

3. We all have mental weaknesses, and to be a benefit to others, we have to recognize those weaknesses and find ways to sidestep them.

4. We ignore social rules when we feel we need something. Thus, it is better to determine to lessen our list of “needs”

5. When we are too busy, we don’t have time to do what God wants of us

6. Our society requires too much of us for basic necessities. On minimum wage, 40 hours of work a week isn’t enough for a place to live, food and toiletries. For some, it is better to live on the street rather than be enslaved to impoverished employment.

7. There are basic needs we should provide for everyone, no matter how bad they are: food, water, clothing, basic hygiene, a place to go to the bathroom, basic shelter, protection from extreme weather. If we have the ability to provide these needs, yet fail in this, whether the one in need is good or evil, lazy or hard-working, crazy or sane, loving or bitter, then we, who are in authority, are the worst people who have ever lived.

8. We can make excuses to torture people, if we think they are “bad” enough. We will think it is okay to steal people’s possessions, to take away their sleep, to starve them, to take away their meager shelter, to deprive them of their sanity, to make them fear for their lives, simply because they live a lifestyle that we consider inappropriate.

9. An authoritative moral cop with the ability to punish is bad for any society. They end up punishing not only criminals, but anyone who is feared, even if there is nothing to fear.

10. No one is an island—we all need others. Those without others go insane. (Not enough just to read John Donne and Thomas Merton-- got to experience it, too)

11. Everyone works to meet their needs. Some work in a job. Some recycle cans. Some walk long distances and stand in lines for disability or a free meal. Some hold a sign in poor weather conditions for handouts. The real question is: what work does God have in store for us?

12. Shelter or food or clothing is not the most basic need. Faithful companionship is.

13. How to dumpster dive. Important life skill everyone should know.

Reverse Prejudice

2008-10-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

We just had a guest speaker a few weeks ago. And frankly, I didn’t like what he said, and especially how he said it. It was just so “Christianese” – lingo that has long since become cliché. He made a couple good points, and they were good, important, even. He was sincere, and lived out what he was teaching. But the form made it difficult for me to listen to.

I spoke to a new guy on the scene—he’s pretty young—and he told me what I thought: that the message wasn’t very good, that it was in a form he couldn’t hear. Then I was debating within myself as to whether I should let him back to speak again.

But God spoke to me and said, “It takes all types to minister to different people.” So I asked more folks about their opinion of our guest. The folks on the street really appreciated his message and thought it was great. It really ministered the gospel to them. I was shocked, and I realized my own limitation.

Many of us in “on the edge” ministries have a reverse prejudice. We feel the prejudice against the outcast so readily, that we often forget that there’s nothing wrong with mainstream ministry as well. It’s all style, all culture. The question is not right or wrong—it is whether people are communicating the gospel.

I have had people so limited by one denomination or one style of ministry that they think that ministry cannot be done in any other way. I am often decrying that. But I have to warn myself against the same attitude. I cannot reject any ministry based on cultural presuppositions. Jesus crosses all culture. And—dare I say it—Jesus can even be found in stereotypical Christian lingo.

God save me from my unknown prejudices.

New Website

2008-10-22T23:19:00.001-07:00

Check out Anawim's new website!

It has a new look. And most important for this blog, it has a new section about the dehumanization of the homeless. Are the homeless really tortured like prisoners in a certain infamous prison? Find out!

www.nowheretolayhishead.org

That's "No Where To Lay His Head Dot Org"

If The Housed Were Treated Like The Homeless

2008-10-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have known about the surveys of the homeless to discover their needs for a while now. People are hired to interview the homeless, and ask them what services they would like the city (or the state) to provide for them. I think the idea is wonderful, for then service providers aren’t just assuming themselves what the homeless need, but they are asking directly those with the needs.

But today, I discovered a new angle on this survey: There are teams of three that go out asking questions: a social worker, a medical provider and… well, some other professional type person, I don’t remember who. And the team of three goes out very early in the morning, so they can make sure to find the homeless folks, and they wake them up to ask them the questions. (It’s always good to wake up the sleep deprived to see what services they need…)

Maybe you aren’t as stunned (read: appalled) as I am about this, but perhaps this Pythonesque skit will give you the sense:

Scene: A small, suburban bedroom. There is a large bed in the middle, with George sleeping on one side and Carol on the other. George is wearing striped pajamas, while Carol is wearing a short nightgown, but both are covered by a comforter. A dresser with a filthy mirror is on one side of the bed, with clothes scattered about the floor. The remains of a hurried dinner rests on the dresser as well as a digital alarm clock. The two are in restful slumber, when suddenly there is a knock on the window, on George’s side of the bed.

Mr. Pierce: (Peering in) Hello? (Opens the window and sticks his head in.) Hello?

George: (Groggy) Huh? What… who?

Mr Pierce proceeds to climb in through the window and then falls. He is a tall, professional-looking man with a brown suit coat and a red tie. He holds a clipboard and a pen.

Carol: (Waking suddenly, then screaming, pulling the bedclothes around her) George, who is this?

Mr Pierce stands up and begins to brush himself off.

George: (Angry for Carol’s sake) Well, there, hey! What do you think you’re doing? Get out of my house!

Mr. Pierce: (Standing formally, with a clipboard, addresses himself to George) Hello, there, sir. Sorry to disturb you at this early hour…

George: (Looking at the clock on the dresser) Oh, my… It’s 4am! Who in the hell do you think you are? What are you doing in my house?

Mr. Pierce: As I said, I AM sorry to disturb you, but I am taking a survey of the neighborhood to discover what kind of services you might need.

George stares for a moment, stunned.

Carol: (Still in a panic) Who are these people, George? Is this your idea of a joke?

George: (Upset, but a bit of a pansy) I still don’t understand what you are doing in my house.

Mr. Pierce: As I said, I’m taking a survey of the neighborhood and just need to ask you a few questions.

George: Why didn’t you just knock on the door?

Mr. Pierce: I’m sure you wouldn’t have answered the door this early, Mr. … excuse me, what is your name?

George: Mr. Thomson. George Thomson.

Mr. Pierce: (Writing on his clipboard) Thomson… George. Fine.

Carol: (Upset, poking George) George, why don’t you get rid of these people!

George: See here. Why don’t you just come back during the day, not at this ungodly hour?

Mr. Pierce: Mr. Thomson, surely you understand our position. Do you not work during the day?

George: Well, of course.

Mr. Pierce: Well, then, we couldn’t really come during the day, could we?

George: (Pacified) Oh, I suppose not.

Carol: Well, then, why couldn’t they come see you at work?

George: Yes, why couldn’t you see me at work?

Mr. Pierce: Then we wouldn’t be sure you lived here.

George: Oh, I see. But it IS rather inconvenient…

Mr. Pierce: I appreciate your position, Mr. Thomson, but you see, it’s the only way.

George: (Pacified again) Well, if nothing could be done about it…

Carol: Yes, something could be done about it, you could throw them out!

Mr. Pierce: Are you disturbed, ma’am?

Carol: Yes, I am.

Mr. Pierce: Of course, you don’t have to participate in the survey. You may leave, if you like.

Carol: Leave! I can’t leave! I’m not even dressed!

Mr. Pierce: I would be happy to avert my eyes…

Carol: Get out!

Mr. Pierce: Just as soon as I finish the survey. Now then… (looking at clipboard) Mr. Thomson, how old are you?

George: 35.

Mr. Pierce: (Writing on clip board) Fine. And what is your ID number?

George: 491…

Carol: Don’t you think that’s a bit personal?

Mr. Pierce: It is just a basic question, ma’am. Sir?

George: 491, 327, 45, 49

Mr. Pierce: And could I see your ID, please?

George: Actually, I lost it last week.

Mr. Pierce: Oh, did you? That’s fine. We can help you with that. (Calls out the window) Officer MacDonnal? Could you please come in? (A police officer in full uniform climbs in. He wears dark glasses, speaks in a “Sgt. Friday” voice, and has a pair of handcuffs at his hip.) This is Officer MacDonnal and he’ll help you with your ID issue.

Officer: (Takes out notebook) Sir, ma’am. I just have a few questions to ask you.

Carol: And who let you in? What right do you have? Who said you could come into our bedroom?

Officer: Well, Mr. Pierce did, ma’am.

Carol: And who let Mr. Pierce in?

Officer: It’s all official business, ma’am. We are just here to help.

Carol: What kind of officials are you?

Mr. Pierce: This is all according to city policy, ma’am. Now, while Officer MacDonnel assists Mr. Thomson with the forms, would it be alright if I asked you some questions?

Carol: Why not? Might as well. Not going to get any sleep anyway.

Mr. Pierce: Fine, then. (He flips a page on his clipboard) Could I have your name, then, please?

Carol: Carol Drew.

Mr. Pierce: And your last name is spelled?

Carol: D-R-E-W.

Mr. Pierce: And are you a Miss or a Mrs?

Carol: A Miss.

Mr. Pierce: (Looking up from his clipboard, with eyebrow raised) So you are not married to Mr. Thomson, then?

Carol: (Voice raising) No. And what business is it of yours?

Mr. Pierce: I’m not judging, ma’am, just saying. But this kind of situation might require a health professional. You wouldn’t mind having a doctor ask you a few questions, do you?

Carol: I suppose not. It would be better if the doctor came over at the daytime, however.

Mr. Pierce: No need. (Calling out the window) Dr. Zook, could you please come in? (A woman in a white doctor’s coat with a stethoscope hanging out of the pocket climbs in through the window) Dr. Zook, it seems that we have an issue here.

Dr. Zook: (Looking at Carol) What seems to be the problem?

Carol: There’s no problem! Except I am having trouble sleeping!

Mr. Pierce: Well, you see, Mr. Thomson and Miss Drew…

Dr. Zook: (Nodding) Ah, I see. (Pulls out a clipboard) Miss Drew, if I could ask you a few questions…

Carol: (Flustered) I don’t think so…

Dr. Zook: Please, it will only take a few moments.

Carol: I suppose.

Dr. Zook: First of all, please tell me if you have ever experienced the following: Herpes?

Carol: Which kind? I mean, sometimes I have cold sores…

Dr. Zook: Mm hmm. (writing on clipboard) Positive. What about genital herpes?

Carol: I don’t think so…

Dr. Zook: Have you ever been tested for it?

Carol: No…

Dr. Zook: Well, we can work on that later. What about gonorrhea?

Carol: No.

Dr. Zook: (Looking at the clipboard) Ever been tested for it?

Carol: No.

Dr. Zook: Unknown. Have you ever been raped?

Carol: No!

Dr. Zook: Fine. What about date rape?

Carol: What do you mean?

Dr. Zook: I mean, has ANYONE (she glances at George still speaking to Officer) ever put you in a position where you felt you were sexually compromised?

Carol: I… I don’t think so.

Dr. Zook: Let’s be careful about this, now. Are you sure? I mean, for instance, has Mr. Thomson ever asked you to do something sexually you weren’t comfortable with?

Carol: Well, like what?

Dr. Zook: Anything.

Carol: Well, he brought out this book tonight and wanted me to try these positions and I wasn’t comfortable….

Dr. Zook: Did you tell him you were uncomfortable?

Carol: Well, yes, but…

Dr. Zook: And did he make you perform anyway?

Carol: Well, he didn’t MAKE me…

Dr. Zook: Did you feel coerced?

Carol: Perhaps a bit manipulated…

Dr. Zook
Officer: (together) I think we have a problem.

Mr. Pierce: Officer MacDonnal, you first, please.

Officer: We just discovered that Mr. Thomson is living in this dwelling under false pretenses.

George: That’s not true! I told you, I am staying here while my Uncle is at the coast. He invited me to stay here.

Officer: So this isn’t your house?

George: Right, I told you that. But I have permission.

Officer: I’m not sure about that. I just called your “uncle” and we couldn’t get an answer.

George: Of course not—it’s 4 in the morning!

Officer: That is no excuse under the law. The fact is: you are in a house that doesn’t belong to you. Let me ask you, do you have any place to live?

George: I moved out of my apartment in Maryland. I have moved into town just last week. My uncle is giving me a hand until I settle in.

Officer: So you are a homeless transient, eh? I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave immediately.

George: What do you mean? All my stuff is here!

Officer: What stuff is that?

George: Well, the dresser, the bed… all the furniture in the house.

Officer: Uh huh. Okay, just a second. (Calls out the window) Joe! Yeah, go ahead and get the dump truck over here. We’ll have to trash the whole place.

Joe: (Outside the window) Right away!

Officer: Mr. Thomson, I’m afraid you will have to vacate the premises…

Dr. Zook: Um, officer. I’m afraid there’s another issue…. (Dr. Zook goes over and whispers in the officer’s ear).

Officer: (Facial expression becomes angry and eyes grow large) Is that right? (He walks over to George and throws him against the dresser, knees him in the kidneys, and spins him around. He pulls off the handcuffs off of his hip and cuffs George) You have the right to remain silent, you…

George: (Voice groaning a bit from the pain) Wait! What am I being arrested for?

Officer: Sexual assault 3.

George: Carol, what did you tell them?

Carol: (To Mr. Pierce) Of course, I don’t live here. He seemed so nice at first. I actually live with my parents on the other side of town.

Mr. Pierce: You need to take care who your friends are in the future. Could I arrange a ride for you back to your parents?

Carol: Oh, that would be wonderful.

Mr. Pierce: Here, let me get you a coat to cover you. (He goes to the closet and takes out one of George’s coats and wraps it around Carol) There you are.

Carol: Thank you. I don’t even know what I saw in him really…

Dr. Zook: I was thinking that we could give you a pelvic exam right here in the living room. I have a rape kit right here…

(Dr. Zook leads Carol out of the room)

Officer: Come with me, Thomson. I’ve got a lot of paperwork to fill out now because of you…

George and officer walk out of the room.

Mr. Pierce: (Writing in notebook, reading his text) We found Mr. Thomson city-sponsored housing and Miss Drew received rape counseling and a physical exam. (Looks up from his clipboard) Hmm. I didn’t arrange for Miss Drew to get tested for her sleep disorder. Ah, well, we can’t help everything…

The Beggar Song

2008-10-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

Don't turn your eyes from me
Don't turn away
I see the wealth you hide within
Share it, I pray
You don't have to squeeze my hand
You know I am poor
I only want a little
I don't ask you for more
My clothes tattered, my flesh torn
Flies fill my face
You reason I'm unworthy of you
But I need your grace
Your wealth abounds and begs release
Please heal my sore
Your pockets full yet sown with greed
Do you need it more?

Don't give me pictures from your cameras
Movies nor magazines
You have the life that I need to live
Give me bread, don't give me jeans
You turn away from my saddness
But what would Jesus do?
Would He give me dust and say "go away"?
Or heal me and say, "Be true"?

How To End Poverty

2008-10-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

I.
Yesterday was Blog Action day and so many of us were all writing about poverty, in the hopes that it might be ended. I think this is a wonderful idea and I really support it.

However, I must say, that yesterday morning I was feeling particularly cynical and upset. So in approaching the idea of how to end poverty, these are the ideas I came up with first:

1. Every politician, judge, lawyer, clergy, CEO, bank manager and doctor, before taking on their profession, must live with the destitute poor—the homeless, a hospital for the mentally ill, a village in Africa, Darfur, etc— for a month before taking office.

2. Create a drug that increases the effect of mirror-neurons, thus causing a super-empathetic reaction, and then put it in the drinking water.

3. Force the top two percent of wealthy people in the world to live among colonies of the sickest in the world—colonies of lepers, of AIDS sufferers, of malaria patients.

4. As a result of any lawmaker who writes or supports a law which harms the poor—for every act of war, for every unfair tariff, for every legislation aimed against the homeless—they are instantly killed by God or by an assassin’s bullet, without trial, without recourse.

II.
I suppose I could have come up with ideas that would be a little less cruel to those in power, but I am tired of the rich elite ruling the world without any idea of what it means to be poor, or what their laws imply to those who have no resources. I am tired of this world where those in North America are so far removed from the poor that they dehumanize their own poor and distantly allow the poor of the world be killed, enslaved, have what little they have taken from them, all for the sake of that distant elite. I am sick of politicians rallying behind finance corporations to save the jobs of financiers, while allowing the needy be starved out due to forced debt and petty charges targeted against them.

I know God is angry at this too. He is saying now to the politicians and bankers and the wealthy elite of the world:
"How long will you judge unjustly
And show favor to the wicked?
Vindicate the needy and fatherless;
Give justice to the lowly and poor.
Rescue the weak and needy
Deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They do not know nor do they understand;
They walk about in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.”

Then He turns to them, in their smugness, and screams in their face:
“You had thought yourselves to be gods
And all of you to be sons of the Most High
But you will all die like mortals
And fall like any prince."

If we are honest about the world and the calamities that fall upon the poor and destitute, then we can but answer,
Arise, O God, bring justice to the earth!
Bring justice to the homeless who have been kicked out of their camps.
Bring justice to the AIDS sufferers who have been degraded by their own people
Bring justice to war victims, whose lives have been destroyed because of ideologies of distant rulers
Bring justice to the mentally ill, who are imprisoned in hospitals because they do not act “normal”
Bring justice to the elderly, who are commanded by their children to do that which they do not want to do
Bring justice to the falsely accused, who languish apart from their family and friends.
Bring justice to those beaten and lit on fire, just because they are too helpless to fight back.
Bring justice to the poor of the nations in such debt because of the greed of their politicians.

Yet, O God, have mercy on us who have failed the poor. Fill us with the compassion we lack.

III.
Okay, let’s get serious about this. How DO we deal with poverty?

First of all, we need to understand what poverty is. There are two main categories of poverty, which greatly overlap. There is the poverty that is being physically destitute. This is the common kind of poverty we think of: people who are hungry, who have no where to live, who have no warmth, who have no safe drinking water, who are wracked by disease. Those who are destroyed because of their lack of physical needs.

The second is like the first: social poverty. This is a state of separation, of rejection, of outcastness. These are the poor who the mainstream culture of one’s society rejects, for one reason or another. Usually, however, they are rejected because they do not accept some major, unwritten law of the mainstream culture. They are too loud or too quiet. They don’t participate fully in the mainstream’s economic system. They don’t look like or dress like the mainstream. They have different cultural presuppositions.

This second class of the poor soon become the first class. They become destitute due to their social standing. And the mainstream feels good about these poor because, “They deserved it. If only they would…” (fill in cultural prejudice here) “… then they could live better.” So the mainstream convinces themselves that the poor are worthy to be poor and they deserve their benefits and judgments.

Another result of this cycle is fear. When one culture separates from another, then they tend to fear each other. The mainstream begins to see the outcast as the root of many of the evils of their society and the outcast sees in the face of every mainstream person the last mainstream person who abused them. This fear becomes prejudice and that prejudice becomes a cycle of mutual destruction.

How do we end this cycle?

First of all, the mainstream culture needs to associate with the outcast culture. If this happens, then the mainstream culture will realize, over time, that the outcast culture aren’t so bad after all. Perhaps they act differently, and hold some different opinions, but that doesn’t make them bad people. That even if they may not be as “good” as those of their own culture, then at least they shouldn’t be feared. Once we get past the fear, then we can perhaps get to the point where representatives of the two cultures could actually assist each other and support each other.

The difficulty is, how to get the two sides to overcome their fear? They need two things: 1. A neutral ground where they both feel safe to meet. And 2. A mediator that understands the cultural presuppositions of both sides and is willing to teach both sides about the social needs of the other without putting down either side.

If we end cultural superiority, then we will end most poverty. If the mainstream and the ruling elite understand the life and worldview of the poor outcast, then we are ready to welcome each person as they are.

IV.
This ideal of mine will never happen. Now my cynicism comes out fully. Yes, I think I see how poverty can be ended and I have a plan to do that—heck, I spend many of my waking hours doing just that! But, in my heart of hearts, I don’t think it will work.

The rich elite will still rule, and they don’t give a crap about the poor—at least not as much as their banker friends—and they never will.

The mainstream (read: middle class) will still act according to their own blind prejudices and will still deride and reject anyone who doesn’t live up to their standards.

The poor are so fearful of what little livelihood they have, they will not want to endanger it all by trying to communicate their point of view to the mainstream.

Oh, sure, some will do this. Some will try to change. Some will try to understand the other. But all of history speaks against it happening on a large scale. Even if the outcast DO get a voice and they get heard, they just become the new mainstream, ready to create the new outcast.

So what needs to happen? Honestly, and I say this without any closed-mindedness or humor: We need Jesus.

Jesus isn’t who we think of. We might see Jesus as representing the Christianity that has ruled the West for 1500 years, but he’s not. We might see Jesus as some ancient prophet who said some radical things and then died, but he’s more than that. We might see Jesus as a teacher who healed people and spoke a wonderful message of sappy love. But that’s not him, either.

Jesus is a hard boiled advocate for the outcast. And He’s aiming to be ruler of the world.

He said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the coming nation of God. But woe to you who are rich, because you will get nothing when it comes.”

Jesus looks to create a new utopia, supported by the power of God to assist the outcast who are merciful, and destroying the system of elitism that exists currently.

Jesus is a revolutionary that will destroy all the current governments, corporations, financial institutions and legal systems. Then he will establish a government in which the cream of the crop of the oppressed and outcast will be put in charge of the world, with himself at the head. This new government will not just represent a single form of the outcast, creating a new elite. Rather, it will represent ALL the poor, and the poor of the world will finally get justice.

This is the ideal that Isaiah spoke of, 2800 years ago:
Then a descendent of David will appear and God's Spirit of power will be on him: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and power a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. He will not judge by appearance, or determine laws by rumor. But he will be just to the poor and will be fair to the oppressed. And the oppressors will be destroyed by his authority.

Perhaps this approach to ending poverty seems extreme. It certainly is. It means no more second chances for the rulers. No more opportunities to make right. No more mercy for the elite that have been destroying the poor from the beginning of the world. They will all die.

But for the poor, it is the day that they have been waiting for. It is the day when they finally get their say. When they can finally get their due. It is a day when the elite can be told exactly how they have created the poor through their laws, policies and prejudices. It is a day when the poor can live their life in the way it was meant to be lived: at peace, without fear, without rejection.

This is my real hope. I work for the poor in this age. But I really expect nothing to change until Jesus returns.

This is why I pray, along with almost all the church “Thy kingdom come”. I pray this many times a day, as do so many millions of other Christians.

But I know what most of them don’t. That “thy kingdom come” means the destruction of the institutions they depend on. It means the economy failing. It means the governments collapsing. It means all of our sins against those weaker than us being exposed. And I long for that day. As much as it hurts me, I pray for it with all my heart.

Tutu Insight

2008-10-13T20:24:00.000-07:00

Desmond Tutu is one of our greatest living saints. You can read my take on him in The Faithful, another of my blogspot publications:

followingthefaithful.blogspot.com

Homeless Man Burned To Death

2008-10-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

This article was found on The Homeless Guy blog, here:
http://thehomelessguy.blogspot.com/

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A homeless man died after being doused with gasoline and set on fire on a street where he had lived for many years and was a familiar face to residents of Koreatown, police and local merchants said Friday.

Police were called to Third Street west of downtown Thursday evening and found the man, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

A man in his 20s was seen throwing gasoline on the man, chasing him, throwing more on him and running from the scene, said Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz. Scorch marks stained a wall Friday where the man was burned.

The burning horrified even officers who routinely witness violent crimes, Diaz said.

"To murder somebody who's probably suffering from mental illness issues and not bothering anyone — just a poor wretch on the street — you've got to be a soulless nitwit to do something like this," he said.

The victim remained unidentified, and coroner's investigators might have to rely on fingerprints, Diaz said. Investigators canvassed the neighborhood Friday looking for evidence, witnesses and information about the victim.

Shopkeepers said the man was a fixture in the dense residential neighborhood at the northern edge of Koreatown, and residents were shocked to hear about his violent death.

Every day, the man drank a Dr Pepper, ate a bag of chips and smoked cigarettes, said Young Kim, who owns a nearby dry cleaner.

The homeless man had been in the area for at least 20 years but never bothered anyone or begged for money, Kim said. People gave him food, clothes and spare change.

"This is a terrible shame. He didn't deserve this. It's so cruel," said Jose Antonio Gonzalez, who owns a vitamin shop near where the man was found.

Gonzalez said some longtime residents called the man Johnny and believed he had fought in the Vietnam War and had a wealthy family somewhere. Gonzalez didn't know whether the stories were true.

"He didn't seem to have mental problems. He understood and spoke well. I don't know why he lived on the street," Kim said.

A witness, Thomas Lopez, told KCAL-TV he saw a teenager walk by the homeless man and pour something on him. Moments later the man was on fire.

"To actually see this guy on fire, it was unbelievable. Who would do such a thing?" Lopez said. "I took my shirt off and started putting him out."

The man, who paramedics thought was about 50 years old, had burns over 90 percent of his body, Fire Department spokeswoman d'Lisa Davies said.

Andy Bales, chief executive of the Union Rescue Mission on downtown's Skid Row, said the incident was "part of a long history of people attacking vulnerable homeless individuals in Los Angeles."

"They think the person is less than human because they happen to be homeless. I don't know how you could do that to another human being," Bales said.

The Eyes Have It, but they better give it away

2008-10-09T15:57:00.002-07:00

And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; or again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
I Corinthians 12:21-26
The church has the responsibility to give greater respect to those of the body who are less honored by the world, and those who are weaker. The members of Christ who suffer should be assisted by those who do not.

Honoring the Poor

2008-10-09T15:57:00.001-07:00

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, "You sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool," have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man.
James 2:1-6
The church who honors the rich but does not honor the poor has broken Christ’s law. The church who honors the poor honors the ones who live in faith.

Lazarus Arisen

2008-10-09T15:56:00.001-07:00

"Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.
Luke 16:19-25
The rich man suffers because he refused to give. The homeless man is rewarded because he suffered.

The Real Church Is The Church In Poverty

2008-10-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
"Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
"Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets.
"But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full.
"Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
"Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”
Luke 6:20-26
Jesus was saying this to his disciples—“You of my disciples who become poor, you will possess God’s kingdom… but you who remain rich, you will gain nothing.”

Heartless Rulers-- Your Time Has Come

2008-10-09T15:54:00.002-07:00

God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.
How long will you judge unjustly And show partiality to the wicked? Selah.
Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
They do not know nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness; All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I said, "You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you will die like men And fall like any one of the princes."
Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is You who possesses all the nations.
Psalm 82
The rulers of the world—whether spiritual or earthly or religious—will be destroyed unless they assist the poor as God commands them.

Reciprocity

2008-10-09T15:54:00.001-07:00

How blessed is he who makes plans for the poor; The LORD will deliver him in a day of trouble.
The LORD will protect him and keep him alive, And he shall be called blessed upon the earth; And do not give him over to the desire of his enemies.
The LORD will sustain him upon his sickbed; In his illness, You restore him to health.
Psalm 41:1-3
Just as we do to others in need, the Lord will do to us in our time of need.

Love and Peace Or Else...

2008-10-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

"You shall not wrong an immigrant or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you afflict him at all, and if he does cry out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; and My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest. If you ever take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets, for that is his only covering; it is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? And it shall come about that when he cries out to Me, I will hear him, for I am gracious.”
Exodus 22:21-27
The widows and orphans are those who have no ability to bring their matter to court because they had no social or legal standing, just as a felon or the very poor do not in our society, because they cannot sue.

Response to "Harlem and This American Life"

2008-10-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Originally posted by Steve Kimes on the Mennonite Poverty Forum:
Interestingly enough, I am an avid listener of This American Life, but
I listen to it via podcast, at my own speed. This week has been
crazy, so I didn't get around to the program until just now.

That is an amazing program. I was uncomfortable with it at first,
because it is cultural highjacking-- but as long as it is done with
the parent's permission, that's great.

I guess what we need to realize is that no social class values are
perfect, or even completely moral. The lower class, as stated in the
program, tends to see violence as a solution. The middle class, on
the other hand, tends to see money as a solution. Both of these are
stereotype statements and is not true for everyone, but we can see the
tendancy in both classes.

When we talk about transfering kids to the middle class, on the one
hand, we are making them more successful in our society. This is
great, because it gives them more opportunity to have resources to do
good. But this does not benefit society unless they have the ethical
training to use the resources for others and not for themselves.

When I talk about middle class and poverty cultures, I am really
speaking of adults whose worldview and cultural outlook are already
formed. Not everyone on the street has a lower class cultural
outlook, but most people do. This means that we cannot expect to take
a fully formed adult and ask them to change their worldview when it
doesn't pertain to discipleship. Rather, discipleship should look
differently in different cultural contexts.

If you change the cultural perspective of children from the get-go,
then you are no longer dealing with people who are culturally middle
class. And that's no problem.

But no matter what, we will still have to deal with the lower classes,
even if we reduce them. Even under this program, 95% were up to their
grade in reading. That means that 5% were not. And it would be
difficult to measure how many of them learn self control or
gentleness.

There will still be a percentage of people who will grow up poor and
who have the values of the lower classes. And the church needs to be
prepared to meet their needs, in a way that it is not now.

Harlem in This American Life

2008-10-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Posted by Todd Lehman on the Mennonite Poverty Forum:

I am a frequent listener of NPR. Last night I heard a story on "This American Life" by Ira Glass that intreged me so much that I thought I might share it with you.

It is about a fellow in Harleem who does community organizing and who "escaped" the neighborhood he grew up in, got an education, and then decided to work with the community where he gre up. What intreaged me was the philosophy behind the way that he worked. I won't tell all, since the story is best listened to so that you get a first hand account. But I will say this much, his philosophy is that the poor need to learn middle class skills in order to make fundamental changes in their lives.

Steve, you have often written about middle class values being different from those who are poor. That is one reason that I bring this here to you. I am curious to know if what is happening in Harleem with this program really isn't applicable to what you are doing, or if there might be some wisdom to gain from it. I eagerly await your response.

The program is: 364: Going Big (only listen to the first part)
Here is the website introduction for it:

Stories about people who take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts.

Prologue.
Host Ira Glass introduces a story on the most ambitious and hopeful solution to urban poverty in the country—the Harlem Children’s Zone. The project’s goal is nothing less than changing the lives of thousands of children in Harlem, starting at birth and continuing until they go to college. (2 minutes)

Act One. Harlem Renaissance.

Paul Tough reports on the Harlem Children’s Zone, and its CEO and president, Geoffrey Canada. Among the project’s many facets is Baby College, an 8-week program where young parents and parents-to-be learn how to help their children get the education they need to be successful. Tough’s just-published book about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem's Children Zone is called Whatever It Takes. You can see a slideshow of more photographs from the project here. (30 and 1⁄2 minutes)
You can listen to the story using the following link:

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx#9

Shalom,

Todd Lehman
Zion Mennonite Church

TV Has Made Us All Monsters

2008-09-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

This picture shows a religious family (drawn in Norman Rockwell Style) praying at the table, ignoring the starving African child. While one of the points of the drawing is about how we in our comfortable settings can easily ignore poverty, even in prayer, yet the commentary is deeper still.

The title of this picture is: TV has Made Us All Monsters. It isn't just that we can ignore poverty, but that because poverty, war and famine have been displayed in the same context as our most trite entertainment, that we have found it easy to ignore. When everything is presented in 15 second sound bites, we cannot become compassionate about anything. We ignore the face of poverty because the medium is commanding us to look at the very next thing.

For more sad commentary on how television has influenced our society, go to my blog "Radical Teachings for the 21st Century" and look up the posts labeled "Entertainment Revolution"

Capitalism As an Idol

2008-09-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

My friend, Craig Morton, has challenged me to make a comment on the Wall Street crisis and the bail out. I don't usually comment directly on newspaper headlines, prefering the news that isn't so obvious and sticking to the Bible, but since he wants to hear my opinion, I'll give it.

Frankly, the whole thing is stupid.

Republicans are supposed to be all about capitalism. I just listened to a debate about national health care and how much "better" a free market system is for health care than socialized medicine. But this debate focuses on an ideal of capitalism, not how it really works.

The ideal of capitalism is this: That a businessman wants to make money. He or she will only make money if he provides what the consumer needs or wants. If the consumer obtains what he or she needs or wants at a price that seems equitable, then the businessman, in the end, will make money. Then both the consumer and the businessman have benefited.

This is the ideal situation as described by the moral and economic philosopher, Adam Smith. What most people don't realize, however, is that Adam Smith was operating on the assumption of a common misperception in the eighteenth century: the noble noble. That the person with money feels a moral obligation to assist those under him and act in their benefit. Smith, before he wrote his book on the Wealth of the Nation, wrote a moral philosophy about empathy, and how it is the foundation of moral action. Smith assumed that the wealthy who had power would have empathy with those under them, and so act for them. It is a basic underlying principle of Smith's capitalism. (Jefferson and other framers of the Constitution had the same false assumption. It is from this assumption that the electoral college was created, causing much consternation in modern American politics.)

But the reality of capitalism is different: The businessman wants to make money. If the businessman can trick the consumer into wanting what he or she doesn't really need or to lie to them to say that they are providing what isn't really there, then the businessman can make money and the consumer is defrauded.

The fact is, in modern capitalism, the bottom line is the bottom line. It is all about profit, no matter who gets harmed.

What does the Bible say? When talking about economics it has much to say to the rich who take advantage of those under them. For example, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted and their rust will be a testimony against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you hve stored up your treasure!" (James 5:1-3)

Jesus said, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor, then you will have treasure in heaven... for where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also."

If Bush and McCain and the rest of Congress were really as "Christian" as they say they are, they wouldn't be interested in "bailing out" corporations who acted on greed, trying to get something for nothing, when they knew there was no real capital behind it. They wouldn't be trying to support the corporations, who in their greed, undermined the economy and caused people to lose their homes.

Rather, they would assist the poor and needy who are suffering the most. The enormous amount of money could be given to corporations who didn't break the law or who recognized the obvious fact that giving loans to people without capital is idiotic and damaging to the consumer.

But no. As much as the pro-capitalists talk about a "free market" and "letting the market balance itself out", in reality, all they want is to use government money to support the people they see as the "good guys"-- the wealthy who are interested in making more money for themselves.

So for all you prayers of the Lord's prayer-- I just want to let you know that each time you pray "Your kingdom come" you are asking God to destroy this system of capitalism in which everyone is the slave of the wealthy corporation and to replace it with a system in which the poor who seeks the benefit of others who are poor will receive the greatest "bail out" of all-- all the wealth of the nations.

Relationships With The Poor

2008-09-08T17:25:00.001-07:00

This article is adapted by Amigos MCUSA from a book review by IsaacV
on the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog, available at:
http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2008/07/08/book-review-simple-spirituality-by-christopher-heuertz/#comments

Relationships that open us to God

Christopher L. Heuertz doesn't claim to offer any secrets to spiritual
success. Instead, he shares what God is teaching him through his
friends, who happen to be the poorest of the poor.

In Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World (InterVarsity
Press, 2008), Heuertz's spirituality isn't a call to close your eyes
and think about God; instead, friendships with the poor make
friendship with God possible.

Our parents were right: we are who we hang out with. Our friends shape
who we are. That's not something to run from. Humans are relational
animals. There's no such thing as autonomy; it's a delusion. The
fibers of our being, Heuertz notes, "are made for relationships" (54).
But we can choose with whom we form these friendships. Our hope is
that the church may be a place where those friendships can happen. But
what does it mean when our churches don't welcome the poor?

Are we on the side of the poor?

Or, to put it more strongly, what does it mean when we aren't begging
the beggars to worship with us? Heuertz doesn't mince words: "If our
community makes no room for those who are poor, our community loses
all credibility" (58). While Jim Wallis is trying to fight for justice
on the national scale, Heuertz offers a much more intimate vision, one
that transforms our daily lives: "We work not for justice for everyone
but instead to ensure that we're on the 'right' side of the poverty
line" (58). Are we on the side of the poor?

That's his question. This isn't a political platform for a lobby
group. Rather, it's about what side of town we live on. Who are our
neighbors, who are our friends, who sits next to us when we worship,
who eats at our table? These questions mess with our lives. They haunt
our everyday decisions. But these questions also send us to the poor,
who offer us intimacy with God. And typically God shakes up our lives
so God can offer us an unimaginably better one.

Overflowing abundance gets messy

Jesus: "I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly."
But overflowing abundance gets really messy. "We want to let God in,"
writes Heuertz, "but usually on our terms. We want to make room for
Christ to reign on the thrones of our hearts, but only a clean Christ
who doesn't make a mess of our lives" (63).

Heuertz writes, "Jesus' ministry was not to the upper class, the
educated, the elite or the most influential social figures. Jesus came
and ministered among those who were poor, with the poor and as a poor
man. His ministry was to the children, those who were begging, victims
of leprosy, the woman at the well, the woman caught in the act of
adultery, the tax collectors, the fishermen communities and those on
the margins.

Following Jesus alongside common people

"Jesus came to the common people and lived alongside them. As a
church, we must learn new ways to celebrate our faith inclusively so
that those on the margins of society will feel welcome – and so that
our love and acceptance of the other will aid in our paths to
holiness. Jesus' ministry was marked with a distinctive compassion for
the oppressed poor" (69).

I am grateful to Heuertz and his friends for showing me that such an
abundant life is possible. I can't begin to do justice to Heuertz's
storytelling; that's what makes the book a must read. Read it for the
stories of real life, of real friendship, of people we can never meet
because they are dead now. And also read it for the joy of abundant
life, the joy of Christ's resurrected life, a life broken open for
us..

The American Dream

2008-09-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Ultimately, all of the great American heroes were after one thing: The American Dream. George Washington sought freedom. Benjamin Franklin sought independence. Thomas Jefferson sought security. Alexander Hamilton sought financial freedom. Abraham Lincoln sought unity. Martin Luther King, Jr. sought equality. They all had a vision that together we can call the American Dream. The American dream was broad in its vision, and they all saw the United States as being a beacon for the whole world, an ideal for all the oppressed to hold to.
However, over time, the American dream evolved. It has been taken up by advertisers, real estate agents, television shows, and cigarette manufacturers. Rather than being a quality of life, it has taken on the characteristics of a particular kind of life—a life of a certain economic level, a certain kind of work, a certain level of materialism.

Freedom
The freedom of the enlightenment idealists was originally an opportunity for everyone to reach to their highest moral and spiritual self. But our society has taken this freedom to be to partake in the lowest common denominator of pornography, greed, violence, covetousness and gluttony, while causing only a limited amount of harm to others.

Equality
The ideal of the American dream is that of equality, so that all are treated with fairness and justice, no matter what society or culture or race they are in. Now equality is meant to limit one’s choices to hundreds of channels on television, but if someone wants to live a different lifestyle, they are punished by having their children taken away from them.

Financial security
The financial security envisioned is that of living according to one’s own means, at whatever level that means. But this has been transformed to greed, with even the poor wondering what they have done wrong to fail to obtain the riches promised them. The wealthy, meanwhile, must keep a serving class of minimum-wage workers (or below minimum wage) in order to maintain their wealth. The greed of the ruling culture is based on the poverty of the lower class.

Luxury
The comfort of the idealists was equally realized in Thomas Jefferson, the inventor and (writer of Walden), the creator of the simple life. There was a variety of lifestyles which kept one at peace with one’s environment and society. But our society has taken comfort to be that of material comfort, with a minimum of physical effort for that life. This has turned into a culture of entitlement, where we don’t just hope for a materialist lifestyle, but expect it and think that we all deserve it.

Freedom of employment
To have work is to be able to be self-sustaining, to pay for one’s own life and family, whatever lifestyle that might be. But now, in order to obtain the lifestyle of greed, we must go the avenue of seeking the patronage and goals of one whose purpose in life is to make money, which he promises to share some sparse percentage of with the one whom he employs. We are trapped in a job ethic that we hate, but we cannot escape.

Democratic ideal
The democratic ideal that was originally held is rule by the people for the sake of the people. But somehow this has been translated to a plutocratic republic—where the only “people” who rule are the wealthy, for the sake of the wealthy. Then this ideal of government is imported to other nations when the “people” there don’t want this form of democracy, but a religious republic.

Security
The Constitution says that the United States must “provide for the common defense”. Yet this “defense” has become a military complex and society that shapes the rest of the country in support of it’s world-wide mission to promote American welfare. The result of this is a constant fear of those who want to limit American influence to its own country, even if they have no violent intent.

Happiness
Ideally, Thomas Jefferson wrote, the American dream is the freedom to pursue happiness. But the American dream today is not the pursuit of happiness, but the direct injection of it. All we want for our children is that they be “happy”. But happiness is found so much easier in an injection, mental health meds, alcohol, television or escapist novels. The harder to obtain, but more content-producing happiness of service, charity, peacemaking and working for God isn’t sought first or even primarily. They are small parts of our life that we gladly surrender when more direct happiness appears or is offered by our cable companies, drug dealers or health care specialists.

Our salvation is limited to what our society can give us. Our opportunities are limited to what we think we should have. Our choices are limited by what everyone thinks is best for us.

Yet there is another option, we are not limited to what our society offers us. Because Jesus offers us a different lifestyle.

Freedom in Jesus
Jesus offers us freedom from our own limitations. He offers us freedom from our own limited morality. He offers us freedom from a pointless existence of self-pleasuring, self-serving, self-pandering. Jesus offers us the power of God and the lifestyle that He himself lived in order to make a powerful change for good in this country, in the world. Jesus calls us to be more than human, to live according to the Spirit instead of the flesh.

Security in Jesus
Jesus offers us all the resources of God, without typical employment, without serving a society of greed. Rather, we can trust in God’s provision, trust in unseen defenses, trust in God’s ways to make a road of security for us and our family in the midst of that which the world fears.

Peace in Jesus
Jesus offers us a peace that is borne by the Spirit, not by a false security of missiles, diplomacy and economic sanctions. He offers us a peace that comes from within, a peace that we can transfer to others and help others live in.

Community in Jesus
Jesus offers us a people who is in the midst of creating a society based on the revolutionary ideals of Jesus, instead of the lowest common denominator. Jesus offers us people to live with, to share with, to work with, to pray with, to rejoice with and to support and minister to. Jesus offers us a full life, instead of the half-life of the American Dream.

Joy in Jesus
Jesus offers us joy—not just entertainment. Yes, this is joy in persecution, happiness amidst suffering. But this is the life of richness, the life of fullness, the life of God.

Why is the American Dream what the church seek, when Jesus says the kingdom of God is found through the loss of the American Dream?
Why is the American Dream the primary option offered to our children, when it fails us in so many ways?
Why is the American Dream the only real option offered to the poor, as if that is the true salvation offered by Jesus?
Where are the saints who sacrificed themselves for the poor?
Where are the godly who knew that one could either have God’s kingdom or the world’s?

Ultimately, it is because our church has accepted the American Dream as the true salvation.

Let’s not go the way of the standard church. Let’s not be content with half-lives any more.

Seek the community of Jesus

Teach A Man To Fish?

2008-06-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

Following is an excellent commentary on the famous proverb. I have always been uncomfortable with the proverb, because it de-emphasizes the immediate need. But now I have nine other reasons to hesitate using it!

Teaching fishing and other myths
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day….
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
On an international scale, this poignant proverb has moved hearts, opened wallets and enjoyed widespread
popularity in relief and development literature. It correctly identifies the temporal quality of much aid
work and demonstrates the need for development beyond the limits of most projects in relief situations.
However, this little proverb carries with it inherent assumptions that need to be examined more closely:1

1. It assumes that education is the solution to the problem.
On 17th August 1999, tens of thousands of people lost their lives in Western Turkey as the result of a
devastating earthquake. The devastation was not caused so much by the physical impact as it was by poor
building construction in the earthquake area. The fact that San Francisco suffered an earthquake of a
similar magnitude during the same time period and without loss of life was a painful contrast.
Once the initial stage of relief ended, development organisations and foreign governments rushed to
provide seminars and training on how to build earthquake proof buildings. These were poorly attended
and met with lethargy and even scorn. Why? Turkish contractors know how to build earthquake-proof
buildings. A glance at the provincial building code in the earthquake region reveals a set of rules and
regulations equal to that of California's strict codes. The problem is not lack of education - the problem is
one of corruption. Profit has became a stronger value than safety.

2. It assumes that it is the outsider who knows the solution to the problem.
Servants in Asia is an organisation born out of a dream that the gospel could truly become good news to
the poor. They are brutally honest in their report of their medical work in Manila, Philippines:
"The poor asked us to stop our mercy ministries. They argued that much of what we
were doing for them was in fact causing relational and communal breakdown. In
other words, the social effect of all our programmes was proving harmful. Our individual
approach to health care, in choosing one person over another, was creating
jealousy and misunderstandings in the community. Our top down approach was alienating
the poor. They did not feel an active part of the health care in the community.
They were simply beneficiaries of the process, not managers of the process. They
had little to do with its implementation. This demeaned their spirit. So in healing
some aspects of the body we made their spirits sick." (Nicholls&Wood 1996:183)

3. It assumes that the man can't live in his environment.
Obviously in this proverb, the fishing teacher has observed a body of water that houses fish and with it the
possibility of fishing. By deciding that the man must be taught fishing, the fishing teacher has made the
assumption that the man has been unwilling to adapt to his environment.
A similar situation happened in Kenya, where the Masai love to tell the story of Lord Delamare. While
visiting in Kenya, he observed the rich grasslands north of Nakuru but couldn't understand why the Masai
didn't graze their cattle there. Deciding to kindly provide an example, rather than patronisingly teach
them, he spent a significant sum importing English cattle and turning them loose on those grasslands. It
was only then that he discovered that the grass in that part of the Rift Valley lacks a key nutrient that
results in poor milk production, resulting in the death of most of the calves. This, of course, was
something that every Masai boy knew but was never asked. (Myers 1999:144)

4. It assumes that the supply of fish is sustainable.
There was a time in South America when nearly every family grew its own food. If a family went hungry,
it was usually due to laziness or carelessness or possibly social evils such as alcoholism. But with the
arrival of Western capitalism, the lure of possible wealth has drawn many of these families into growing
cash crops such as coffee, cocoa or tea. When the international price of their crop goes down, these
people go hungry. Much starvation in parts of the nonwestern world today is due to this phenomenon.
Even though this example comes courtesy of multinational corporations, aid workers can produce the
same result by the introduction of non-sustainable forms of economic projects.

5. It assumes that those who will be taught fishing (probably already the most poor and
disadvantaged of society) will have fishing rights.
As we have seen in the earthquake example above, corruption is likely a stronger force in a society than
justice. And in an even more general sense, powerlessness is a key root of poverty. In urban situations in
particular, the poor suffer not so much for lack of cash or goods but from marginalisation and economic
exploitation. Because there is only a finite amount of wealth in any country, the powerful can monopolize
a majority of it only by denying it to the poor. (Linthicum 1991:37) Development workers cannot assume
that providing skills to the disadvantaged opens a door to economic freedom.

6. It assumes that the new fishers have enough economic power to be able to sell their surplus fish.
After all, man does not live by fish alone. Clothing, housing and utility bills, medical costs and other nonperishable
goods and services must be obtained, even by those in the most rural of environments. Before
teaching fishing, has a market for fish been analysed? If a fisher cannot sell, trade or barter for the other
services and goods that he requires, skill in fishing is only a partial solution to his economic problems.

7. It assumes that the environmental condition of the lake will remain constant.
For fishers to keep fishing, there need to be fish! A community whose survival strategy is dependent on a
body of water to provide fish in the quanitites to which they have become accustomed is threatened when
that body of water can no longer endure the demands placed on it. And when survival is threatened,
people generally compromise their values to ensure their survival. One example of this is child
prostitution. It is not a value for most parents to sell their daughters into prostitution. However, "when
their very survival is threatened, they succumb to this practice as a way of navigating through the moral
dilemmas which with survival confronts them." (Bradshaw 1998:68)
Shortsighted development work moving into a situation such as this can pinpoint child prostitution as a
community value that needs to be changed when the "value" can actually be the effect of the
compromising of survival strategies or of poor development work in the first place.

8. It assumes that their traditions allow them to fish.. AIDS workers are learning in many cultures the
power of tradition within a society. Is the continent of Africa dying of the AIDS virus because of
immorality? Yes and no. In reality, in many places they are dying because of tradition. For example, the
people in the Rakai district in northern Uganda believe that a woman is married to a clan, rather than to
one man. Therefore, a bride in this culture has sexual intercourse with all of her husband's brothers before
she appears in public as a married woman. Development workers who try to discourage this practice have
been accused of imperialism and the attempted destruction of the Rakai culture. Unnecessarily so because
everyone between the ages of 15 and 50 in the Rakai culture is now dead.
Tradition has also preserved famine, discouraged well and dam building and encouraged the starvation of
infants in many cultures around the world. Tradition and culture are powerful forces that must be
considered before the implementation of any development programme.

9. It assumes that the male in the society is the one who provides food.
The story of the Yir Yoront is a classic example of Westerners ignoring the effect of gender and social
hierarchy on culture. In the 1950's, a group of well-meaning Western missionaries introduced steel axes to
the Yir Yoront, an Australian aboriginal society. As often happens, it was the powerless of the society -
the women and the youth - who had made friends with the missionaries and so they were the initial
beneficiaries of these choice tools.
However, in Yir Yoront culture, it had not previously been the women and youth who were empowered.
It was the elders who kept the stone axes for the communal use of the tribe. There were well-defined
social patterns defining the process of requesting the use of the ax. The authority structuring of the tribe
was based on this tradition and this began to break down because of the good intentions of the
missionaries. Not only was respect and social structuring affected, but the increased amount of free time
resulted in an increase in promiscuity and alcoholism.

10. It assumes that participation is not an important goal.
"Without vision, the people perish." (Prov 29:18) The Hebrew word 'para' translated here as 'perish'
means also to be set at naught, to be refused, to be uncovered. And without participation, training and
development is hollow, short-lived and lacking in sustainability. What kind of participation? Certainly
there is the kind of participation that involves listening to someone present their plan and syllabus for
Fishing 101. Real participation, in contrast, begins within a community identifying its own needs,
analyzing its own risks and resources and running their own programmes.
--Pam Wilson
Operation Mercy
International Relief Coordinator

Notes:
1Many thanks to Bruce Bradshaw of World Vision and Starbucks for good conversation on this topic,
accompanied by good coffee. Much of this article is an augmentation of Bruce's ideas.
Bibliography:
Bradshaw, Bruce. "Empowering Communities to Enhance Survival Strategies." Taken from Sexually
Exploited Children: Working to Protect and Heal. Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1998.
Linthicum, Robert. Empowering the Poor. Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1991
Myers, Bryant. Walking With the Poor. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999
Nicholls, Bruce J. and Wood, Beulah R. Sharing Good News with the Poor. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Book House and Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1996

What's the Real Issue?

2008-05-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Racism is not the issue in immigration. The real issue is economic forces.
-- Summary of post by Somasoul on Young Anabaptist Radicals

I agree that racism is sometimes a non sequitor. Yes, there are still real race issues that need to be dealt with, but if all we see is one issue, then we are not going to get to the full truth of the source-- or solution-- to any of the complex issues we have.

Yes, economics is certainly an issue. So is blatant prejudice. But, more often than not, what people are complaining about is a difference in culture, in worldview, in how we see reality.

Economics is one issue. Group A wants to maintain a certain lifestyle, while Group B wants to get just a taste of the lifestyle of the other. These two goals cannot both be reached. Since Group A has the power, they want to take the opportunity away from Group B to reach their goals.

But I think that English isn't a problem with economics, but culture. Group A wants to maintain the culture they grew up with, while some of Group B cannot learn the culture of Group A (and they probably wouldn't want to even if they could).

This is always the problem of the poor and outcast. They either have to surrender their culture and worldview and overcome their limitations or they will be denied a new and better life.

How is it that we can get Group A and B to talk instead of throwing stones at each other?

Steve K

Review of "Myth of Poverty Culture"

2008-04-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

Here's an article I was sent about poverty. Thought you might be interested.

http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653fb85516f762108a0c/?javax.portlet.tpst=d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_journaltypeheaderimage=%2FASCD%2Fimages%2Fmultifiles%2Fpublications%2Felmast.gif&javax.portlet.prp_d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_viewID=article_view&javax.portlet.prp_d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_journalmoid=4284eb69f6a29110VgnVCM1000003d01a8c0RCRD&javax.portlet.prp_d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_articlemoid=0de4eb69f6a29110VgnVCM1000003d01a8c0RCRD&javax.portlet.prp_d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_journalTypePersonalization=ASCD_EL&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=token

Jeff Long

The article is good, although I note that he give a revrse sterotype by answering each myth with "poor people do..." this. The point of stereotype is to characterize individuals by group, rather than seeing them as individuals. This is an unfortunate tendancy in U.S. politics and education.

We need to recognize that there IS, to a certain degree, a culture of the poor. It is not so much a matter of values as of priorities. Ruth Payne has an excellent chart distinguishing different cultural values of dfferent classes. I attached it. Again, this is not a matter of stereotype, but of tendancies. And those who have the lower class outlook are given reason to believe that their values are insignigicant or immoral in the broader culture of the U.S. because the ruling class is the middle class.

Certainly there is classism. But it is less experienced in public education than in the church, in politics, and in higher and private education. How many poor people are invited to be a pastor, an elder, a representative in denominational meetings? How many poor people are given the opportunity to run for any office on any level of government? How many poor people are given the opportunity to experience the better educational opportunities?

It seems to me that the focus should be put on other institutions for a while, rather than public education, to provide equity for the lower classes.

Steve

Judgment of the Gods-- Psalm 82

2008-04-11T09:55:00.001-07:00

An Asaphic Psalm.
No one knows when this psalm was written, but it is ascribed to Asaph, David’s choir director.

God stands in the Divine Council
He judges among the gods.
These two verses claim that this psalm is being written from the perspective of Heaven. This is an image of God that is used many times. God is in the center of heaven and all the other gods are around him, taking their instruction from Him and He is determining whether their work is good or bad. This image is also found in Job 1, Isaiah 6, I Kings 22, Zechariah 3 and Revelation 4.
Many people have a hard time accepting the term “gods” in the Bible, unless one is speaking of idols. But the Bible often uses the term “gods” to mean the spiritual powers that are in submission to God Most High. God is not the only powerful spiritual being in heaven, there are also angels, demons, archangels, cherubim, seraphim and national gods. Sometimes these are called “the sons of God” (such as in Job) and sometimes just “gods” (as in Deuteronomy). This does not take away from God’s glory, for God is the one called “God Most High.” What is He most high over? Over the other gods, of course. Yahweh is always the ruler over the gods.
Satan is one of the lesser gods, as well as Michael and Gabriel. So is Marduk (a national god) and possibly Baal/Zeus (warrior gods, really the same god), as well as Venus (goddess of erotic love) and Mars (god of war). There are gods over each nation in the world—Britain, the U.S., Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, France and Russia. Each god actually partly determines the character of each nation. There are also gods over churches. All of these gods are powerful and can effect the world in powerful ways. Their movements are the politics behind politics and the power behind the powers. And God is in charge of them all.

"How long will you judge unjustly
And show favor to the wicked?
Vindicate the needy and fatherless;
Give justice to the lowly and poor.
Rescue the weak and needy
Deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They do not know nor do they understand;
They walk about in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.”
How does the Most High judge the gods? How does He determine if they are acting well on earth or not? This is a surprise to many involved in theology. It is not based on their show of worship, nor on how they respond to Zion. Rather, God is looking at one thing, especially for the gods of nations—how do they treat their poor? Do the poor get justice in their lands? Are the needy oppressed, abused, blamed for their poverty? Are the poor forced to cry out to God Most High for the only real justice they will receive?
From the perspective of God Most High, the gods are there to make sure that the human rulers treat the poor with equity and justice. That they are given opportunities for charity and love. That they are saved from oppression when oppression overtakes them.
God rebukes the gods because that is not the situation. And it never has been. Never has there been a nation that treated the poor with the same justice and mercy that they treat the wealthy and important. Never has there been a nation that would give the poor the benefit of the doubt. Never has there been a time in which the poor did not need to depend on God Most High for justice.

“I had thought you to be gods
And all of you to be sons of the Most High
But you will all die like mortals
And fall like any prince."
Arise, O God, bring justice to the earth!
For all the nations are Your possession.
So what happens to the gods? How can God punish them? Frankly, his punishment is harsh. Because they refuse to help the poor, because they allow the governments of the earth to oppress the poor and treat them inequitably, then God will kill them. He says, “You think you are immortal. You think nothing can happen to you. But I can kill you, and I will. Your days are numbered, because you refuse to fulfill my most basic command of all leaders—help the poor, support the needy.” The final cry is for God to bring his justice to earth—to take over the justice system.
To be truly divine is to assist those who are needy. If the gods do not act divine, then God Most High will raise up people who do act with divinity and justice.

If this is true for the gods on high, it is certainly true for the nations of the earth, the leaders of the nations and the leaders of the church. If the leaders of any group refuse to assist the poor, they will be taken from their lofty position and destroyed. Every single leader will be judged according to this standard.
• “Did you use your wealth for frivolous living or for the needy?”
• “Did you give more leniency to the wealthy and popular than you did for the poor?”
• “In your warfare, did you harm the innocent poor because they were expendable?”
• “In your church, did you treat the homeless and mentally ill and poor as second-class citizens? Were they excluded because you considered money to be the means of entrance to fellowship? Were people unable to fellowship in restaurants and movies with you because they couldn’t afford it? Were the poor not welcome because they weren’t the same as the rest of you?”
• “In your schools, did you give fewer opportunities to have knowledge to the poor than to the wealthy of society?”
• “In your employment, do you give the poor equal opportunities for employment, even if they haven’t showered, don’t have experience or can’t work a full time job? Are they given short term employment by the wealthy who need clean up or help in their homes?”
• “In your charity distribution, did you give the poor good, nutritious food, good clothing to help them in the weather, or did you give them the items that weren’t good enough for those who could afford it?”
• “In your stores, was the cheapest food the garbage that no one could live off of, or the staples that everyone needs to live?”
• “In cheap housing, is that offered to the poorest of the poor, or only to those who could afford the medium-range prices?”
• “In the value system of your society, are the poor assumed to be immoral, simply because they were poor? Are the poor questioned and doubted when no one else would be? Is there theology that teaches that the poor are less spiritual? Is the poor of one’s family shunted aside and rejected? Does no one want to see them, simply because everyone feels so guilty just looking at them?”
If the poor are treated badly, then it is God himself that will judge. He alone defends them and will support them. And God will question each one of us according to how we treated those poorer than us. Let us pray we have a good answer. (Exodus 23:23; Matt 25:31-46; Proverbs 19:17)

Biblical Commands For the Privileged

2008-04-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

Who are the privileged?
Those who have greater resources than anyone around them, whether through birth or fate or labor. Resources could include opportunities in wealth, education, prestige, relationship, and esteem through race, sex, social class, or any other level of status as determined by society. We should remember that we are all privileged in some way, so these commands apply to all of us in some areas of our lives.

a. Do not boast about your privilege.
“Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:23-24

b. Do not use your privilege for your own benefit.
But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. Luke 6:24-26
"The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?' So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Luke 12:16-21

c. Use what privilege and resources you have to benefit the oppressed.We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. I John 3:16-18

d. Surrender your material resources to benefit those who are needy.Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:33-34

e. Set aside some of your privilege, so that God might raise you up.
When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this man,' and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 14:8-11

f. Use your privilege to make friends with the oppressed, God’s chosen, so that they might welcome you into God’s dwelling.
And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings. Luke 16:9

g. Welcome the oppressed into the benefits of your privilege.
And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." Luke 14:12-14

h. Create a context of justice for the needy and oppressed.
Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82:3-4

i. Pay your workers their full wages on time.
Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. James 5:4

j. Do not cause those who are under your authority to be angry, but be at peace with all in as much as you are able.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Ephesians 6:4

k. Cheat no one, nor work for a company that cheats anyone of their wages. If you do cheat anyone of their meager resources, pay them back four times as much.Do not defraud. Mark 10:19
Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. Luke 19:8-9

l. Repent of your sins—especially your misuse of your privilege— with tears.
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! James 5:1-3

m. Welcome the opportunity to be oppressed yourself, for then you will be of God’s people.Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:11-12

n. Don’t worry if you become needy through obedience to God’s commands, for God will provide for all your needs if you seek His righteousness first.Do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing…. And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life's span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters? But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Luke 12:22-23, 25-26, 31

o. If you have taken advantage of all of your privilege for your own benefit, then God will give you a second life in order to punish you.
And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.’ Luke 16:20-25

Hidden Values In Classes

2008-02-06T10:42:00.001-08:00

POSSESSIONS
Poor:People.
Middle: Things.
Wealthy: One-of -a-kind objects, legacies, pedigrees.

MONEY
Poor: To be used, spent.
Middle: To be managed.
Wealthy: To be conserved, invested.

PERSONALITY
Poor: Is for entertainment. Sense of humor is highly valued.
Middle: Is for acquisition and stability. Achievement is highly valued.
Wealthy: Is for connections. Financial, political, social connections are highly valued.

SOCIAL EMPHASIS
Poor: Social inclusion of people he/she likes.
Middle: Emphasis is on self-governance and self-sufficiency.
Wealthy: Emphasis is on social exclusion.

FOOD
Poor: Key question: Did you have enough? Quantity important.
Middle: Key question: Did you like it? Quality Important.
Wealthy: Key question: Was it presented well? Presentation important.

CLOTHING
Poor: Clothing valued for individual style and expression of personality.
Middle: Clothing valued for its quality and acceptance into norm of middle class. Label important.
Wealthy: Clothing valued for its artistic sense and expression. Designer important.

TIME
Poor: Present most important. Decisions made for moment based on feelings or survival.
Middle: Future most important. Decisions made against future ramifications;
Wealthy: Traditions and history, most important. Decisions mode partially on basis of tradition and decorum.

EDUCATION
Poor: Valued and revered as abstract but not as reality.
Middle: Crucial for climbing success ladder and making money.
Wealthy: Necessary tradition for making and maintaining connections.

DESTINY
Poor: Believes in fate. Cannot do much to mitigate chance.
Middle: Believes in choice. Can change future with good choices now.
Wealthy: Noblesse oblige.

LANGUAGE
Poor: Casual register. Language is about survival.
Middle: Formal register. Language is about negotiation.
Wealthy: Formal register. Language is about networking.

FAMILY STRUCTURE
Poor: Tends to be matriarchal.
Middle: Tends to be patriarchal.
Wealthy: Depends on who has money.

WORLD VIEW
Poor:Sees world in terms of local setting
Middle: Sees world in terms of notional setting.
Wealthy: Sees world in terms of international view.

LOVE
Poor: Love and acceptance conditional based upon whether individual is liked.
Middle: Love and acceptance conditional and based largely upon achievement.
Wealthy: Love and acceptance conditional and related to social standing and connections.

DRIVING FORCES
Poor: Survival, relationships, entertainment.
Middle: Work, achievement.
Wealthy: Financial, political, social connections.

HUMOR
Poor: About people and sex.
Middle: About situations.
Wealthy: About social faux pas.

Source: Ruby Payne, A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc., 1996, pp. 42 - 43

The Star Market

2008-01-30T10:41:00.000-08:00

This is a poem published in the New Yorker:

The Star Market
by Marie Howe
January 14, 2008

The people Jesus loved were shopping at the Star Market yesterday.

An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout

breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps.

Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and

hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them:

shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if the Star Market

had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in

with the rest of them—sour milk, bad meat—

looking for cereal and spring water.

Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself, looking for my lost car

in the parking lot later, stumbling among the people who would have

been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept

out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands

and knees begging for mercy.

If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought,

could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?

Better If We Just Don't See Them

2008-01-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

Statistcs About Homelessness

2008-01-11T08:46:00.001-08:00

The number of people in the U.S. who were in poverty in 2005:
38,231,521

The percentage of those people who were children:
36%

The estimated number of people in the U.S. who are homeless for any period of time in a given year:
3.5 million

The number of people who were homeless in a night in October 1996:
444,000

The number of people who were homeless in a night in February 1996:
842,000

Percentage of homeless that have been homeless for less than two years:
70%

Percentage of homeless that have been homeless for less than six months:
40%

Percentage of homeless that live in vehicles:
59.2%

That live in makeshift housing (tents, cardboard boxes, etc):
24.6%

Percentage of homeless that live in the same city in which they became homeless:
75%

Percentage of homeless people that are employed:
13%

Estimated percentage of homeless diagnosed with a mental illness:
16-22%

Percentage of the overall U.S. population diagnosed with a mental illness sometime in their lives:
40%

Estimated percentage of homeless that are substance abusers:
26-40%

Percentage of homeless men that are veterans:
40%

Percentage of U.S. cities whose estimated homeless population is much greater than number of beds in emergency shelters:
100%

Percentage of homeless who are single men:
51%

Families with children:
30%

Single women:
17%

Likelihood to have a personal or property crime committed by a homeless person than by a housed person:
10% less likely

Percentage of homeless people that receive Social Security or General Assistance (food stamps):
20%

Percentage of homeless that report having no health insurance:
55%

Percentage of the general U.S. population that reports having no health insurance:
16%

Average amount a homeless person receives in income a month:
300 dollars

Resources: The National Coillition for the Homeless; National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, Homelessness in the United States, Wikipedia.

The Cold Within

2007-12-20T19:34:00.001-08:00

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood–
Or so the story’s told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back,
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next one looked cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain,
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game,

Their sticks held tight in death’s stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without–
They died from cold within.

- James Patrick Kinney

What Does It Mean To Be Homeless?

2007-10-24T10:02:00.001-07:00

Below are descriptions of the experience of many people in homelessness. This is not everyone’s experience, but these are very common experiences of the homeless.

Homelessness means that you walk miles to every meal.
It means regularly being asked by the police for your identification and being questioned about your activities, at least once a week.
It means that you need to hide your living space.
It means moving every couple of months so you don’t get harassed by the police or others who invade your camp.
It means hanging out with people who don’t care about you, and who do dangerous things or just act crazy.
It means dealing daily with people who are addicted and/or mentally ill.
It means you have little or no privacy.
It means that you are separated from your children
It means that you receive rejection and hostility from most people. People assume that you should be able to help yourself get out of your situation, and although you have tried, you just can’t.
It means to have your possessions stolen or ruined on a regular basis.
It means that you spend more time giving up than hoping.
It means constantly wanting money for your needs, but when you get money, you use it poorly.

2007-08-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

It is almost impossbile for a minority culture group to express their opinion so that it might be heard.

As the racially and sexually segregated can attest, it is an uphill battle. Sometimes a minority cultural group has to insist upon expressing themselves, at which point they might be called "uppity" or a witch with a captial B. But they persevere, because they recognize that their opinion counts and that they are an important participant in the process of communication and decison-making.

However, just as most women and blacks a half a century ago had learned that it is a more peaceful life to just keep quiet and stay in one's place, so most of the lower class has realized this as well. And there is more at stake for the lower class than the racially and sexually oppressed, because almost without exception they are physically and mentally weakened by their poverty, which makes expressing a differing opinion almost impossible. If they do express an opinion, half the time they are ignored, assuming they are having a "mental breakdown". Of course, sometimes they are having a mental breakdown, and sometimes they are just being socially inappropriate (as determined by the ruling class) but it is still humiliating to be ignored. It is stressful to share a rejected point of view. It pushes ones buttons to speak what you think to be clearly true and to be treated as if your point of view just doesn't matter.

So the lower classes just don't say anything.

This is where the ruling class must step in to welcome the lower classes to express themselves.
Who is the ruling class? Well, in North America, it is the middle class, the ones who have mortgages on their homes and make payments on their cars. To themselves they are simply the "normal", the average folks.

Let me tell you a secret, folks-- If anyone consider themselves "normal" or "average" then they are a part of the ruling class. Because only the ruling class gets to determine what is "normal." This is why the lower classes-- the working poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the immigrants-- don't speak up. They DON'T consider themselves "normal". They consider themselves less than "normal". And because they still have to "work" at being "normal" they feel that they don't have a full opinion, that, really, they just don't count.

So what can the ruling class do?

1. If you consider yourself "normal" then seek out those who don't and ask them their opinion. And treat their opinion as if it matters.

2. In congregations, the lower classes need to be invited into membership. They need to be asked to express their opinions on certain matters and they need to be carefully listened to. And they should be sought out in matters that really apply to them-- for instance in matters of benevolance, or in helping those they consider to be like them.

3. Also, those who consider themselves to be "less than normal" should be given space to allow themselves to feel normal. This may mean allowing them to be "socially unacceptable". It may mean that some folks in the congregation will dress down to the level they can afford (homeless fashion IS in fashion!). It may mean that someone will create a space where a lower class group can be with their own. It may be that some lower class who have leadership gifts would be invited to take places "up front" in worship.

Whatever. Be creative. But let's welcome the lower classes to be a part of us.

Or, if failing that, let's have some of us give up our "normalcy" to be a part of them.
Steve K

American Salvation

2007-06-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

We don’t need Jesus as much as our ancient forbears did.

That’s not to say that we don’t need the forgiveness of our sins. Absolutely, we desperately need that. And we need a relationship with God. It is a wonderful feeling to know that, if we ever need God, we can pray to him and He’s there for us. It’s good to have that security blanket, if we ever need Him. And, of course, we need Him everyday. That’s why we need to pray daily. Because we need Him.

So why don’t we pray?

Well, sure, we prayed for Aunt Marge just last week. She was going into surgery. But she’s okay, because the doctors fixed her right up. And we prayed for Tim, from our church, because he was going to Africa to visit some people who needed help. We prayed for his protection. He got back okay. Of course, we knew that air travel is the safest way to go. And there weren’t any wars where he was going. But we’re glad we prayed, just in case.

And, of course, we worship God. Some of us do it just on Sundays, and some every day. But we recognize that its our responsibility to worship Him because He gave us life and created the world and provided us with the basics of every living thing. So we thank him for our food, although we know that it came from stores after being processed after being grown in farms. But somewhere back there, God did something to get us the food, so we thank Him. It’s only respectful.

It’s not like we believe that God doesn’t work today. We certainly recognize God’s power in our lives. It’s not like God is just some clockworker who put in the rechargeable battery and let it go. So why do we often practically act like deists? Why does it seem as if our lives wouldn’t really be any different if we were just trying to be “good people”?

Isn’t Christianity supposed to be something more intense? What are we missing?

Honestly, what we are missing is salvation.

“No, no,” you interrupt, “you don’t understand. We HAVE salvation. We have it in Jesus. Jesus died on the cross. We believe. So we have forgiveness and a relationship with God. We already have it.”

The problem is that forgiveness is only one part of salvation. It’s important, that’s true, but its not the whole ball of wax. Jesus offered us a lot more than just forgiveness. He offers us the kingdom of God. That’s quite a package. It’s just that so few people really know what it all entails.

When Jesus offered us the kingdom, he offered us a nation of justice. He offered us a nation that acts on the principle of caring for everyone, without exception, so that everyone will be cared for. Justice is in Jesus’ hands, and he offers it to us.

But we already have justice, don’t we? That’s what we are told. We live in a great nation of equality, where no one receives special treatment because of who they are. Everyone is treated the same, no matter what their sex or their race or their social class or their wealth. Everyone receives the same justice, the same opportunities… or, at least, that’s how it is supposed to work.

I guess perhaps we don’t all have justice. I guess there is still people of color who don’t receive equal treatment. There are still women and even men who are refused jobs because of their sex. There are immigrants and the homeless who aren’t treated with fairness. There are still the mentally ill who are not given a fair shake. So maybe we still need Jesus’ offer of justice after all.

When Jesus offered the kingdom of God, he was offering the outcast and lowly the opportunity to be rulers over the world. He proclaimed good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners and a new start to sinners. Anyone could have the opportunity to lead in Jesus’ kingdom—they didn’t have to be rich or popular or part of a ruling class or a certain educational level. Anyone could be powerful or have authority through the Holy Spirit, and rule with Jesus.

But in our society, we already have that, don’t we. After all, any kid in America could be whatever they want to be. If a kid wants to be part of the police or an astronaut or even President of the whole country all they have to do is work hard and nothing will stop them from achieving their goal, right?

But, actually, I wanted to be an astronaut until I found out that very few people could be in the few slots available for the position. And I wasn’t good enough at science anyway. Maybe, they said, I could be a social worker. And as far as president? When was the last time a homeless person became president? Or a woman? Or a person of color? When was the last time an uneducated person become president? No, the presidency is for a very few. I guess we need Jesus’ salvation for the outcast after all.

When Jesus offered us the kingdom of God, he offered us God’s knowledge and wisdom in all things. He offered us the opportunity to know God’s righteousness and to know the hidden things of God. We can have the Holy Spirit who will guide us in our lives and give us wisdom in every circumstance.

But maybe we don’t need that knowledge anymore. After all, we have great colleges and universities where we can learn anything of importance. We have the internet to pick up any other kind of fact that we need. And we have counselors and psychologists to offer us wisdom and counsel in our lives.

On the other hand, I never really learned that much in college. I mean it was helpful, but it really only pointed the way. And the ethics courses were pretty sketchy. And though I can get a lot of facts in our society, I can’t tell the difference between Truth and the various forms of untruth that are floating around out there. It’s so hard to tell the difference. And I’ve got a friend, who is at least as sane as me, and the counselor keeps telling her that she’s got multiple personality disorder. How many of those counselors and psychiatrists really understand us, who we really are, as individuals? Perhaps we need Jesus’ salvation for wisdom after all.

When Jesus offered us the kingdom of God, he said that God would provide everything we need. He said that we wouldn’t need to worry about food and clothing—God has got us covered (so to speak). He said that he would heal our diseases and care for our wounds. All of our basic needs would be provided for.

But we don’t need God for that anymore. I’m sure that the ancients needed God for their daily bread and health, but, frankly, us Americans are doing pretty well. After all, I’ve never missed a meal in my life. And I’ve eaten pretty well, if I can judge by my waistline. We’ve got clean water and hot water and running water and sanitary water—that’s something! And we have a better health system than ever seen in history. More people are healed in a city hospital in one day than Jesus did in a year of ministry.

Of course, people are mostly healed. There is very little joy in healing, like with Jesus. People sometimes seem sicker after their “healing” than before. And I eat well and live well, it is true. But why do I feel so guilty? Why is there no satisfaction, not even any contentment, with my prosperity? And why are there so many in the U.S. that don’t experience that prosperity? Why are there children who are hungry, families who are homeless and strong men crippled by work? Perhaps we need Jesus’ salvation of prosperity after all.

When Jesus offered us the kingdom of God, he promised us a society of God. He said that we would have a society which would be our family, and we would have tight-knit bonds. If any person was in need, the others would help them out. Everyone would be supported and helped.

But our society seems fine. It offers a lot of variety, a lot of opportunity. There are support groups everywhere, for every kind of issue. There are churches and clubs and societies. And if anyone is really in need, they could ask for it. Or get welfare.

On the other hand, our society seems full of violence. And full of hatreds. And there isn’t much forgiveness. And I don’t know if I remember the name of anyone in my support group. And I think I lied. There’s no one who will really help us in need. And welfare is humiliating.

When Jesus offered us the kingdom of God, he promised us a secure future. We would be resurrected from the dead, and we would have eternal life. We would be completely defended by God and there would be no more sorrows. All the future would be ours, if only we would trust in Him.

But our future seems fine. We have the possibility of a comfortable retirement. We have insurance to cover the worst of disasters—fire, flood, death, disease. And we are secure in the hands of the U.S. military and the local police. They keep things pretty secure.

But, actually, we are pretty nervous. We depended on Social Security, and we aren’t confident in it anymore. We depended on insurance, and they said they wouldn’t pay for our disaster. We had to take them to court to get the money we were promised. And I would feel secure with the military and police, if only I could trust them. If only I wasn’t afraid of what they would do. As well as all the criminals and terrorists they miss. I suppose that we still need Jesus salvation for the future.

When Jesus offered the kingdom of God, he was speaking about God’s rule. God would be our Lord and Master and King. No one would take us from his hand. No one would rule over us, only God through Jesus.

But, frankly, we don’t really want to be ruled by anyone. I am the master of my own destiny, and I don’t really want anyone telling me what to do. I have my own principles to live by. I have my own ambitions. It is enough for me to make my own decisions. It is enough that I am in charge of my own life and I am independent of all rule. Even God’s.

I think I understand now why we are practical deists. Because we are content with what we already have. We have made our own decisions and we have obtained the salvation the world offers, and why do we need any thing else?

Except… that I made a mess of my life already. I am depressed, sometimes forsaken, often sick. My life is miserable, and I can’t blame anyone but myself. I don’t know if I want to be independent. I’m just not strong enough, not wise enough, not secure enough, not happy enough. Maybe—just maybe—I really need Jesus to take over my life.

There is a salvation that America offers us. It is often called the American dream. We could fit into our society and live out this dream. We could be consumers, and have whatever material things we want. We could gain a high position socially. We could live in a society of mutual respect and opportunity. We could have security for our family and our children’s children.

That’s the promise. There’s only two problems with this promise.

First of all, it’s a lie. America cannot deliver it to us. It never has, and it never will. The government and society is inadequate for what the American dream promises.

Also, Jesus’ offer is much better. The kingdom of God is a more complete version of the salvation America offers.

Some of our greatest heroes, we have been told, offered us salvation. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Abraham Lincoln. Franklin Roosevelt. Martin Luther King, Jr. They offered us equality. They offered us prosperity. They offered us a glorious destiny. It was an empty promise. It was an offer without any substance.

Only Jesus’ promise is the real thing. The real salvation.

My Relation With The Middle Class

2007-06-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

What bugs me about the middle class:
Their arrogance—Just because they are successful within themselves in this life—the life that they themselves had the power to establish— they think they can tell everyone else how to live. (This is what really bugs me above all else).
Their paternalism—They always assume the one-up position, especially for someone they are “helping”; They also assume that they know what help another needs, without even asking them.
Their cultural blindness—They don’t have any idea what others are going through or how there are other standards that are different than their own, but equally significant.
Their work—They only recognize someone as “working” if they have a job, and that if it is full time. They don’t recognize people as working if they scrape a living twenty hours a week by walking and recycling. They don’t recognize anyone as working if they do not live up to their minimum standards of living.
Their standard of living—Their salvation is to own a house, have personal entertainment systems, have a car, have a family, have and have and have, as if material things make up for their lost souls.
Their economics—To succeed is to sell; to make a profit is the bottom line; the bottom line—whatever it is—is most significant, as if importance can be boiled down to a single power point. “Money is the root of all salvation.”
Their charity—They want to give, but only if they will obtain certain goals, one of which usually is a payback of some kind (a tax break; a sense of accomplishment).
Their irrationalities—Like most who have a power base, their greatest fear is losing what power they have. And so they react harshly against the poor and the helpless because they do not understand them. That which we do not understand, we fear, that which we fear, we attack.
Their wars—All fear usually is responded to with anger and often violence. And so they react with violence against those whom they irrationally fear, but when others react against them in their fears—often founded—then they react with violence against them. One-sided, even when bi-partisan.
Their hopes—Their future is secure because of insurance, retirement, savings and more.
Their evangelism—They spread their message of salvation, their “good news for the poor” as one of materialism, hatred, and spiritual impoverishment. And should anyone not accept their gospel of the American Dream via capitalism, they treat them as ignorant, outcasts, uneducated, hopeless.

Are these sins worse than the sins of the homeless, poor, the mentally ill? Of course not. But there remains one difference—The middle class doesn’t recognize these things as sin. They think they are “normal”. And what is worse, their evangelism campaign is so successful that everyone else calls them “normal” as well, and the poor and mentally ill are considered, not different, but sub-normal, outcast, needing to catch up—even by themselves, because they have adopted middle class standards.

Why should I connect with the Middle class?
Because I see this about them and they desperately need to be saved.
Because the outcast need to have some positive connections with the middle class.
Because they need to give their money to the poor, not just to wealthy organizations that “help the poor”
Because, dammit, I AM a part of the Middle class, or was and I know how they think, as much as I hate it.
Because, in the end, I come from the Middle class and I need to gather at least some of my support from it, because no one else will actually understand my perspective.

What I will not do with the middle class:
I will not represent them
I will not claim to be a part of them.
I will not look like them.
I will not feed their sins—I WILL NOT ENABLE THEM!
This means that I need to go out of my way to minister to them, but I must set boundaries so as not to let them think that I am in agreement with their sins. I must challenge their sins, but, somehow, I must find a way to communicate to them without compromising who God has called me to be.
Because if Anawim is going to survive, there must be some converted middle class people—converted to be the Anawim—who will help me sustain this community.

How To Defeat Poverty Pimps

2007-06-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Don’t use their services, if at all possible
This action is not to “boycott” a group, but just to not take part in their injustice. If we pay or utilize the services or invest in organizations that are making more people poor, then WE are making more people poor. Let us not support the unjust.

Don’t give to charities that take advantage of the poor
Instead of just finding a charity that sounds good, or has a good reputation, visit it. See how the people and volunteers treat the poor and what they really offer them. Don’t believe brochures and ads—go and check it out for yourself to see if it is a charity that treats the poor as people instead of opportunities for themselves.

Write letters to those involved in poverty pimping
Often organizations who are perpetuating poverty don’t even know that they are doing it. If the leaders of an organization can receive a letter—or a number of letters—from community leaders, then they might see what they would never understand, that they are digging people in their own graves. Perhaps the leaders of such organizations and community leaders could get together to come up with creative solutions to meet both the goals of the organization and not cause harm to the poor.

Pray for justice for the poor
The one who will give justice is God alone. He alone knows what justice is and who can receive it. Pray for the poor and so allow God to do the work that He alone can do with full justice.

Get involved with the poor
You will never be able to assist the poor in reality unless you have a relationship with the poor. If one quarter of the members of middle class churches had a relationship with one homeless person, then the entire world would be a different place. Go to a mission or soup kitchen and meet people. See if there is someone there you can connect with. Don’t look to “help” them right off. Rather, just get to know them and care for them as people, not projects.

Give opportunities for the poor to escape the poverty pimps
If you know of some poor people in serious debt, see if the church could pay off the debt and then have the poor person pay it back at no interest. Yes, you are taking a chance that the poor person might take advantage of you, but can the church afford it if they do?

Give to the poor what will certainly be helpful
When you help the poor, do not give in a vacuum, not really knowing their needs, assuming you do know. Rather, ask, and seek God’s wisdom. Don’t refuse to give, for this is not loving, but seek the real need of people. Be creative—maybe they need socks, a shower, some food, a safe place to sleep, a temporary job.

Provide permanent solutions for the poor, especially those who are committed to Jesus
As you get to know the poor, you will see their needs more clearly. As time goes on, seek permanent solutions for them through the Christian community. Over time, perhaps God will lead you to do things that you might otherwise never do—help the addict overcome their addiction; help the single mom raise her child; help a prostitute find a way out of the lifestyle. Allow God to lead you into what you can handle, who you can really help as a Christian community.

Why My Generation Can't Help The Poor

2007-04-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

Why My Generation Can't Help the Poor
Who are the poor? Different people have different ideas, and I'm not disagreeing with anyone, here, but I do want to clarify what I mean. My context is the West, especially the United States. The poor that I mean in this context are those who are marginalized in this country, especially the homeless, imprisoned, and the mentally ill. There are other poor-- the working poor, the elderly, the severely disabled, and they have particular needs. But the focus of this essay is that the homeless, imprisoned and the mentally ill cannot be helped with the system that has been developed.
The chonically poor are those who are constantly dishonored by the majority of the populace. They see these poor as being in their evil circumstances due to their own fault. Or others see them as pitiable. But they do not treat them as people, and so whether one has compassion or anger for these poor, they are not treated as equals, as people whose opinion really matters.
The majority think that the poor's problems can be solved by imitation-- they need to be like us, like the middle class. The standard by which the homeless and the mentally ill are judged is not whether they are good people or doing what they can with what they have. The standard is that which they would never judge those able to maintain their own homes:
Do they use alcohol or drugs (note, that if a homeless or mentally ill person drinks, they are automatically an "addict" but if a housed person drinks it is acceptable).
Are they clean, do they keep a clean living space? A person from the Gresham police just recently told me that they judge the homeless in their community based on whether the camps are clean or not. If they aren't, then they feel justified to knock down their camps and throw away all their possessions (although they provide the same service for the homeless who are clean). The mentally ill are also "inspected" by officials to make sure that their space is clean and tidy. If it is not, then they are threatened with the loss of their housing. How would you like your room or home inspected and if it was found to be "unclean" then you are exiled from your community?
Do they dress like us? Do they talk like us? Do they act like us? Do they work like us? If the poor do not, then they are rejected as a real part of our society, our churches, our entertainments, our hopes, our social salvation.
The chronically poor have need of flexible work, but the majority of our society insist that unless they work 9 to 5, five days a week jobs, according to the schedule of an employer, then they are unacceptable to society. And one of the major characteristics of the chronically poor is that they are in great need of flexible work. I have a number of people living with me and their main issue is that they cannot hold down a job. Why? Because when they wake up, they do not know if they will be able to work that day or not. It cannot be scheduled ahead of time. They don't know if that day they will be in severe depression, unable to focus, in a manic state, in severe anxiety or what. In our society, if you are scheduled to work, you work no matter how you feel. So our folks just never get jobs because they cannot know whether they can work when scheduled.
Do they work? Oh, yes, very hard. Many of the homeless wake up at 5AM so they can climb in and out of dumpsters all morning, seeing what they can sell or recycle. This may not be "acceptable" work, but it is hard work, for little pay. For hours of work, one may-- or may not-- make fifteen bucks.
How did these folks get in this position in the first place? What did they do to be poor like this? Were they always this way? Not most of them. Most of the chronically poor had once held down jobs and their own apartments. What made them chonically poor is that when they fell into trouble, people blamed them instead of assisting them. They did not have the kind of social network that most of us have. If we lose our jobs or our homes, we know of people who will help us. They didn't. Their families hate them, their freinds rejected them or couldn't help them. There was no where to go.

There are the three basic problems of the chonically poor-- The need of honor, the need of flexible work and the need of a support network. So why aren't they helped? Why can't we just get past this and help the poor in the way they need to be helped?

Because this generation of church leadership will never be able to help the poor. It is already too late for us, as a generation. We have been faced with the tests of the issues of our urban communities, and we have already failed.
This generation of church leaders see the lower class as a problem not as a seperate culture.
They see the ideals of the poor as something to work around, not to encourage or work with.
They see the poor as needing to be saved, not as a group of Christians that need to be listened to.
They treat the marginalized as the marginalized, and not as the heart of the church.
They see salvation as being a matter of politics, medicine and technology, rather than a result of God's power and Spirit.
They see our response to be a matter of doctrine and cultural acceptability, rather than compassion, truth and commitment.
They see ethics as either something being handed to us by our culture or as something that we create in a "Christian context" rather than someing Jesus gave us and holds us to.
They see capitalism and the corporate system as the means of economic salvation rather than loving charity.
Fundamentally, they see the church as something that Jesus never wanted, never needed, never asked for. Jesus said that the church was to BE the poor, not to help them. Jesus said that the church was to use their resources for those in need, not for buildings, schools with academic requirements and bloated salaries of self-important half-educated religious spokespersons. Jesus said that his leaders were to be humble and persecuted, not exalted and selling books and supporting all the teachings he spoke against.

It is time for a new generation of leadership in the church. A leadership that will help the poor.
We need a generation that will meet with the poor on their level and understand them as friends, not speak down to them as parents.
We need a generation who will establish churches OF the poor and not have the lower class as an addendum to their middle class churches.
We need a generation who will assist the poor to help and speak for themselves.
We need a generation who will know that faith is setting aside the affluent lifestyle that our generation seems to "need."
We need a generation who will sacrifice as Jesus asked us to sacrifice for the needs of others.
We need a generation who will assist the homeless and the mentally ill as MCC acts toward a community development project-- with resepect to their culture, with plans for the people to assist themselves, with hope that they can make their community better themselves.
We need a generation who will welcome and support the lower class to be leaders in the church.
This requires energy and youth. It requires a willingness to understand other cultures, and not just condemn them. It requires people to get out of themselves and look at others for who they really are, not just who they expect them to be. It requires listening, and careful compassionate action.

Is this generation of young believers ready for this? Will they pass the test my generation failed at and continues to fail at? Only time will tell.

Top Ten Characteristics of the Lower Class That Disgust The Middle Class

2006-05-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

1. Addiction to anything—smoking, overeating, or worse.

2. Foul language, even if God or Jesus are not mentioned.

3. Undiagnosed mental illness—impulsiveness, suicidal thoughts, paranoia, manic behavior.

4. Financial inadequacy—inability to keep a budget, make payments on time, pay off debts; on welfare.

5. Communication weaknesses—constantly interrupting, only talking about oneself, monologuing without a break.

6. Extreme emotion—persistent anger, weeping, even happiness.

7. Work difficulty—working, but not having a job; unable to work at all; able to work only part time; constantly changing jobs.

8. Criminal background—The worse the crime, the higher the wall.

9. Time apathy—Not keeping appointments, impulsiveness, making others wait for personal reasons.

10. Poor hygiene—Smells bad, bad complexion or teeth, dirty.

Poverty Pimps

2006-05-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

The toughest thing about conquering injustice is seeing it. Once it is seen, we may have to sacrifice much—even our own lives—to be rid of that injustice. However, the sacrifices pale in comparison with understanding that the system we live with daily, that we take advantage of, that we have learned to succeed in, that we even love and support is fundamentally warped. If we can accomplish this paradigm shift in our minds, then injustice won’t have a chance. Of course, there is getting to that place, achieving that paradigm shift.
In our society today there are many who are poor, as we well know. Children are hungry, families are homeless, men are unemployed, women work in a low-paying service industry. Poverty is there, but it is something we have grown used to. After all, Jesus said, the poor would always be among us, and that which we see daily, we learn to live with the existence of, no matter how wrong it is.
But there are some who not only see poverty, but they also see how that poverty can turn to their profit. There are some that feed off of other people’s need. They are vampires that not only suck out the poor’s life stream, but the very energy of the people who most desperately need assistance. These are what I call poverty pimps.
A poverty pimp is one who gains benefit from perpetuating other’s poverty. Listed below are some who keep the poor in poverty, while making a profit off of it. These listed are not necessarily those who cause poverty—the causes of poverty are complex and difficult to ascertain at times. But they take advantage of the poor, seducing them and then raping them economically, forcing them to remain in the shame and rejection of being economically needy.

Small loan companies
For those on social security or who survive on low wages, if any emergency happens between checks, then there is no economic assistance for them. Should such an emergency happen, they can go to a local loan company, that will give them a hundred dollars or so to help them make it to their next check. While this sounds like a reasonable service to those in economic need, in reality, these loan companies charge from 100 to 200% interest on every loan. In doing this, they perpetuate the economic emergency to last not weeks but months. Those in need then find that they are dependant on the loans, some taking out loans in order to pay off others. While this sounds somewhat similar to credit card companies, these small loan businesses particularly targets the poor. This is now a billion dollar industry, built on the backs of the poor.

Large businesses that pay low wages
There are many employers that treat their employees well. They pay them a livable wage, if not always high, and they do what they can to assist them if they are in need. However, with so many large corporations focusing on profit, they often give their employees the short end of the stick. Many businesses have made it an art to avoid giving their employees benefits such as health care or even paying workman’s comp. Many businesses force their employees to work until exhausted, and then they don’t provide them a wage to care for themselves or their families. Other businesses hire large numbers of employees for part of the year, and then lay them off for months out of the year. Other businesses pay low wages and then constantly change their employees hours, from one shift to another, guaranteeing that they would never have the energy to get a better job, better education or to give their children a better life. Other businesses hire many employees, but only part time, so to have a full wage they have to work more than one job. Other businesses hire employees and then fire them before they need to pay any benefits. Of course, some small businesses must do some of this, if only to survive from year to year. But the large million- or billion-dollar corporations that pay low wages in order to maintain their status as a huge profit-making corporation are making that profit due to their employee’s poverty.

Government lotteries
Gambling has become a national phenomenon, when it used to be illegal except for small pockets of "sin dens". This is due to the need of government to look like they are providing "tax cuts", while still increasing their budgets. One of the many solutions governments are looking to is state lotteries or games which offer money if you are the "lucky winner." Although some states have placed warnings on their ads, "This is for entertainment only, not for investment purposes," the warnings are as effective as cigarette carton labels. The reason is that the ones being taxed are those who have a genetic weakness toward gambling and get rich quick schemes. It has been proven that some have a genetic weakness toward addiction and gambling is one of these weaknesses. And the governments are taxing these individuals who, for the most part, are already struggling with poverty and addiction. The ads stir up their weakness and the fact that the machines are in every store and mall encourages their use. And more machines are being created that make them attractive to addicts—poker machines and some that look like slots. Yes, the governmentally-approved gambling is successful, as governments have more money to spend. But it has economically destroyed addicts and their families.

Banks
It is almost impossible to cash a paycheck or a government check without a bank account. And many banks offer accounts that are "free" or with a minimal monthly charge that are attractive to the poor with the idea in mind that they can cash their checks with no fee. However, for the poor, the ad of "free checking" is a seductive misnomer. Most of the poor have difficulty keeping track of money and numbers. How much one spends is difficult to gauge, and no matter how careful one is, eventually a slip will be made and one’s account will go into negative numbers. This is especially easy, as banks are making withdrawals easier to do with multiple ways of doing it—through checks, tellers and debit cards. Thus, one can overspend and not know it easily. And then the account-holder discovers that the account is far from free. Going into a negative balance will have a twenty to forty dollar fee. Any outstanding checks that attempt to be cashed against the account will be another twenty to forty dollar fee. And many banks have a policy of charging five dollars every day the account is overdrawn. Thus, before one even knows that the account is overdrawn, it is easy to owe the bank a hundred to a hundred fifty dollars. On top of this, the poor person will usually have to wait a week or two before their next check, by which the fees will have raised to two hundred or more dollars. Some would say, "Then they just need to take better care of their balance." However, most of the poor are not accountants, and, of course, we are all human and make mistakes sometimes. The banks, however, depend on these mistakes and take ultimate advantage of these mistakes as they are able.

Supermarkets
Our society depends on grocery stores and supermarkets. This is where we buy our staples and necessities. And, much to their credit, they often give fair prices to the staples we most need—flour, milk, cheese, chicken and more. But these staples is never what the stores emphasize. They have had studies done which tell them where to place the non-essentials, and how to lower the prices to make them look attractive so that more people would buy them. The poor walk into these stores with enough money to buy the essentials and little else. But when they see the prices of Little Debbie pastries—placed at the end of the aisles where no one can miss them—they decide to take some of their minimal cash and spend it on them. They seem so cheap, they are very tasty and they fill children’s stomachs and keep them from complaining about their hunger. Others will see the prices of ice cream, the sales on sugar cereals or other non-essentials. The grocery stores provide food that is healthy, at very high prices, and they provide the staples—but they push the items that destroy families’ health and increase health care for everyone.

Prosperity churches/ministries
Most churches try to do what is right for the poor, in as much as they know how. This makes sense, since their God tells them in many times and ways that they are to assist the poor. Some churches and ministries have the philosophy that poverty is a spirit that must be defeated, and, they say, it can be. They take passages out of context, and assume that if one wants to obtain money and wealth, that they need to give money to the church. In fact, they claim, that whatever money the poor gives to the church, they will gain ten times as much. What church should they give to? Of course, the church that is making the statement. Thus, the church claims, if you give to us ten dollars, God will give you a hundred. If you give us a hundred, you will get a thousand from God. And so on. Since they claim that they have a route out of poverty, many poor people clamor to the churches. The principle is easy to understand, and simple to implement. However, such a spiritual pyramid scheme is not found in the Bible, nor taught by any theologian of any denomination. Again, it is a simple way for certain churches and ministries to amass their own fortunes by taking advantage of the poor. Does this mean that God does not bless one who tithes? No, but God provides for everyone who surrenders all to Him. And the giving? Again, the giving is not to churches who take from the poor. Rather, according to Jesus, the giving is TO the poor. Such ministries will be judged by God.

Local governments
Governments usually do what people expect them to do—protect, license, legalize—and not much more than that. Of course, to do all of this, it requires money to pay for the workers and to pay for the bureaucracy. The minimum of what most governments do is require those who request a license to pay for it. However, when society requires a sixty plus dollar fee for a license to do what is considered minimal in our society—obtain a license for marriage or for driving a car, for example—it is difficult if not impossible for the poorest in our society to pay for such minimal requirements. If someone was going to try to better their life economically by selling something on the street, they must have a business license, which, if they could afford one they might take a different avenue of commerce. Even having an identification—which is required by law, required to have a job or to do almost anything in our society and which is becoming more and more difficult for the poorest of the poor to obtain—requires more than twenty dollars. But worse than all of that, often certain governments charge people to be helplessly in need. If a person is exhausted because they were unable to sleep the night before, they might be charged with sleeping on a bench waiting for a bus. If a person is unable to pay extra to clean debris from his yard, he is fined. If someone is camping—due to the fact that they have no place to live— out of sight of anyone, if found they are charged with camping illegally and in some places given a large fine. Since the poor and homeless do not have the energy or opportunity to participate in government, they end up being charged to live in the best way they can.

Justice System
Many people who are poor have had to deal with the law. Let’s say for instance that a homeless person was charged with trespassing because he did not know where he was in the dark. If he was close to a person’s house, he would be arrested and jailed until the court was able to make their case—perhaps two weeks. Of course, he would be declared guilty, because it would be his word against the middle class plaintiffs, and even if one of his buddies was with him, a court-appointed defense lawyer wouldn’t have the money to find him, nor would he be listened to by the court. At this point, the judge might want to show "leniency" on the defendant, so he would fine him, say, two hundred dollars, and require him to contact a probation officer once a week. This sentence, however, is no justice at all, for the guilty party would not be able to pay the fine, nor does he have access to a phone to call his p.o. After a few weeks of not hearing from him, the officer sets out a warrant for his arrest. It may take months, but eventually the homeless man will be requested by a police officer to show his identification. At this point, he is arrested again, taken to jail again, brought before the judge who gives him the same sentence as before. This cycle can go on for many years. Those who have places to live might be able to contact their p.o., but unable to pay their fines. These fines can accumulate until they are in the thousands, and as soon as that person gets a job that pays him above the table, the court then takes out more than half of his meager paycheck. So many who are in this situation just never plan on having a job unless they can be paid under the table. This system is even worse among those whom the government has taken away their children. Although they may have done nothing to their children—especially as some victims of child protection agencies have their children taken from them at birth—they still have a running tally of a government bill that they must pay. For most of the poor, they would rather spend a few months—or even years—in jail, rather than having this impossible economic requirement placed on them. And many of them are of the opinion that the jails and prisons purpose to keep them as long as possible in order to gain more money for their services.

This is injustice. It is in the very heart of our system. It is at the heart of our government, our corporations, our churches. Why do we put up with it? The toughest part of conquering injustice is knowing it is there—the second toughest is deciding that we ourselves are going to do something about it. "If you weaken in the day of injustice, you have no real strength. Rescue those who are seduced by the embrace of death—Grab back those who walk blindly into slaughter. If you say, "How were we to know?"—your Judge knows your motives, your every thought. He sees your mind, and He will give to everyone according to what they have done." Proverbs 24:10-12 (paraphrased by Steve Kimes). It is time to us to act upon what we know.

What Are The Needs of the Homeless?

2006-05-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

The heart of compassion in the United States sees the plight of the homeless. They know that God hears their cries, and feel that God is calling them to accomplish a work to assist these lowest of low, the poor and needy. What can we do? So many Christians have done so many works among the homeless, but the problem still remains. What can really be done to heal these people?

Who are the Homeless?
Before we can answer this question, we must first understand what homelessness is. Homelessness is not about not having a house. The real question is: what are the reasons the homeless can not obtain regular housing? Housing, of course, is not something one can solve in a short period of time. Housing is to be obtained on a monthly, daily basis—whether one pays rent or a mortgage. And so homelessness is not caused by any particular incident, such as the loss of a job. The basic issue of homelessness is not just poverty or addiction. Rather, it is an overall inability to function in our American economic system.
The requirements of an individual in the Western economic system is complex. One must have a variety of skills, including—multitasking, basic math, functional literacy, listening and communication abilities, control over one’s emotions, quick decision making, obedience to difficult employers and the energy to endure a forty-hour work week. Our ancestors were mostly subsistence farmers, and these skills, while helpful, were unnecessary for success in that agricultural system. However, if a person is born without ability in even one of these areas, that person is economically crippled for the rest of their lives. If someone has two or more of these areas missing in their lives, then they become economically destitute.
These are the homeless. At least one third of all homeless people have some sort of mental illness—whether diagnosed or not. Some are born with a mental illness, others have it developed over time. Many have been crippled from a young age because of experimenting with drugs or alcohol, which damaged not their intelligence, but their social and processing abilities. Many have experienced severe trauma—like child abuse or participation in a war—and so have been socially crippled.
But many have suffered such difficulties and yet pulled through economically. Some born with autism are functioning even on the professional level. Others with post traumatic stress syndrome have succeeded in amazing ways. Others who have abused themselves with drugs or alcohol have pulled through with economic success. Why have the homeless not pulled through to economic normalcy?
There are two other common characteristics of the homeless. One is that they have little or no support network. Their family rejected them, they have no real friends who are economically independent. Thus, when the many weaknesses in the floor of our economic system fell in on them, they had no one to pull them up. Without a social support network, we are all extremely vulnerable, and in some cases, helpless.
The other common characteristic of the homeless is shame. The homeless understand that, whether through their own fault or through some inner weakness, they have failed in their basic responsibility to society—to be productive. In our society, success is measured to what degree one achieved the American Dream—material security and plenty. But many may be considered full citizens without achieving such success. And citizenship—membership in our society—is determined by productivity. Having a full time job is productive. Raising children to adulthood is productive. Even doing volunteer work most of one’s week is productive, although not as productive as "real" work.
But the chronic homeless, due to their inability to function in our economic system, are disrespected. Our culture can approve of pornographers that make enough money to support themselves, but they cannot respect a persons whose only recourse is begging or dumpster diving—no matter how much work such occupations require. These are shamed in every measure possible. Not only are they dependent on others for their survival, they are given unreasonable demands in order to obtain the basics of their survival. They are mocked by the general populace and denigrated to their face by passersby. They are despised by their families and forgotten by their old friends. The more helpless are regularly beaten by suburban teenagers, looking for excitement. The homeless are the recipients of pity or scorn or a handout or apathy. But one thing they never receive is equality.
And so the homeless develop their own culture. A culture, it is true, that supports denial and false honor, but that is simply because they cannot endure more shame. It is a culture which is devoted to eradicating guilt and dishonor. Some chose the route of forgetting their lives and becoming an imaginary person through drugs or alcohol. Some pursue religion in their own individual, eccentric manner. Some bounce from community to community, attempting to find anyone who will accept them for who they are and not place too many demands on them. Some continually make attempts to re-enter the economic forces that they already failed in. Many of them fail again and again, causing their shame to deepen until unbearable. And so they return to their half-destroyed community, ready to escape their shame again, by any means possible.

What are the needs of the homeless?
In looking to minister to the homeless, one would naturally ask what their needs are. Of course, the best way to discover their needs is to ask them. Too often have ignorant but well-meaning middle class Christians have determined how they are going to "minister to the homeless", or equally ignorant politicians make sounds about "solving" the homeless "problem." However, these lay ministers and politicians don’t have the first idea of what homelessness is really about. They create in their minds an idea of homelessness, fueled by the equally ignorant, judgmental-then-pity-filled media, and then create in their minds the solution to the problem that actually only exists in their minds.
If I had my preference, it would be law that every congressperson, judge, state senator, mayor, principal of any school over elementary, and church leader, before they took their office, would spend a week being homeless, led around by a homeless man, wearing the clothes one receives on the street. It would only be a taste of poverty and lowliness, but it might give them an idea of what the homeless deal with on a day to day basis.
However, since such a law can never be passed in our present system, the next best thing would be to ask and listen to homeless people. What do they say they need? What help do they really look for? Should one spend years interviewing hundreds of homeless folks, one might know what they really are seeking. Below are the results of the responses I received over ten years. It does not replace speaking with and understanding the homeless oneself, but the few insights I have collected are a step in the right direction:
For the first few months, in asking the homeless what they need, we would probably only get an answer about their physical needs. No, these are not their deepest needs, but until one has relationship with the homeless, they cannot trust us with the real answers. They will tell us that they need open access to bathrooms, because most bathrooms are closed to them and in an urban setting urinating in public is illegal. Perhaps they might tell you that in their area they have no access to free clothing. Or perhaps they will tell you that they need food given them before they go to work. Perhaps they will tell you that they have difficulty getting a shower, even once a week. Maybe they will mention how important it is for them to have foot care and that clean socks and healing lotion for their feet are like gold. If it is rainy or cold, they will tell you how hard it is to keep themselves warm and dry out on the street. They may say they need blankets or sleeping bags or tarps or tents. Some will be so bold as to ask for a motel room. All this is true, and necessary. All this we are told by God to provide. But benevolence is insufficient to provide ministry, true spirituality to the homeless. It is an excellent place to begin, and it meets the "felt" needs of the homeless. But there are deeper needs than these.
I have been told that the homeless need an opportunity to work. But their need is not for a forty-hour a week job, nor is it really for a few hours work. Most homeless can work and greatly desire work—this is one way to overcome their shame. However, most homeless also are unable to work every day, or, depending, even every other day. Some can’t do just any job, but their work has to avoid their issues or problems. Some can’t work with other people. Some can’t do heavy labor. Others have difficulty functioning in an office setting. Others cannot endure harsh-sounding commands. It all depends. So the work that would need to be offered is flexible work. Ideally, flexible work that would be available many days of the week, but didn’t actually depend on them to be there every day. This is difficult to achieve, but perhaps we might better understand why the derisive comment, "Just get a job" is so false. One homeless brother thought of a job bank that would request Christians to offer the homeless temporary work and there would be a place with chairs, a phone and a receptionist who might mediate between employers and potential laborers. Somewhat like a flexible day labor service, but the employer pays the laborers directly.
Other homeless expressed the need of a place to stay when ill, even if it’s just a stomach flu. Some homeless will often catch pneumonia or have broken bones, and it is almost impossible to heal on the street, forced to walk miles from meal to meal. If there was a place of rest where the homeless could heal, that would be wonderful
We are still in the arena of standard "homeless ministry"-- benevolence. However, there is a whole realm of things that the homeless value, that they might never express, except to those they consider their true friends. The homeless desperately need honor and respect from those who care for them. They need friendly social interaction. They need people to not treat them as dogs or as projects, but as good human beings. They need to be able to be free to call someone up just to talk, if they want, or to show up at someone’s house and not feel like they are an intrusion. They need to know that someone cares enough to pray for them and to listen to their real hopes and desires and not judge them for it. The homeless need friends, not who will selfishly take advantage of them, nor who will use them to cover up their guilt for being suburban. They need people who show them that they really care. The glue between benevolence and spiritual ministry is encouraging relationship.
Even more than this, the homeless need a community. A community of people who will be there to help when they are in desperate need. A community who will keep them accountable to limits that make sense to them, but will not shame them if they fail. A community that makes them feel like they belong, really belong. People who will be truly happy to see them.
The homeless need a place to worship. They are a truly spiritual people, and some know God better than those who have attended church all their lives. About one third of the homeless truly seek God and see Jesus as an essential part of their lives. They haven’t gone to church, perhaps, because they were outsiders to the church. So they need a place to worship where they don’t feel inadequate because they wear the "wrong" clothes or speak at the wrong time or use the wrong language or smoke out back. They need a Christian community that accepts them as they are, and still loves them enough to assist them when they see that they need to be more. They need a Christian community who will pray for both their felt needs and their real needs. A people of God who will not shame them for their inadequacies, but praise them for their accomplishments, no matter how small.
This is not a job for one person, or one couple. I know. I have been trying for ten years, with many to help serve, but few to offer the community support that was absolutely necessary. Love like this with a group that is so needy, so desperate, will suck you dry if you are on your own. But if there is a group of people who will love without judgement, then they might succeed in bringing two spiritually crippled groups to run in the grace of God’s light and love—both the homeless and the middle class who serve them.
But such a community could only succeed if it is not a greater-to-lesser relationship. If the homeless are not given input on decisions, then the effort will fail. If any leader establishes a new rule for every problem, the effort will fail. If the leadership loses patience with the needy, throws up their hands and say, "Won’t they every get better?" the effort will fail. If some Christians use their own cultural standards to point at other brothers or sisters and say, "They aren’t a good enough Christian," then the effort will fail. If the community fails to listen to the needs of the least, the weakest, of the community, then the effort will fail. If brothers or sisters who fall into sin, but they turn back and repent each time, aren’t forgiven for simply repenting, then the effort will fail. God must have much mercy on such a community.

What can churches do?
Honestly, I must say that such a community is what I have been attempting to establish for seven years. Anawim Christian Community is still ministering by God’s grace. If I were seeking support for my congregation, I would ask for workers who love and serve and listen—which is what I pray to God for. But such a community is not the only way churches can support the homeless. A coalition of churches can also support the homeless in the following ways:

Provide a network of homeless-friendly congregations
Create a list of churches that have an open-door, no shame policy for the homeless. Perhaps a list of Christian recovery groups could also be made. The churches who would be on this list are not just those that have a "homeless ministry." There are many who do benevolent work for the homeless, but the homeless are not welcome to visit their service. Or if the homeless did visit the service, they would be made immediately uncomfortable by the dress (or the gazes) of the congregation. Rather, a list should be made of churches that specifically welcome the homeless and make allowances for them, such as, in Portland, Liberation Street Church and Peace Mennonite Church (not to mention Anawim Christian Community).

Establish prayer/counseling centers for the lower class
Perhaps a center can be developed downtown, or near downtown that offers prayer and counseling for the needy and poor. Some coffee can be offered, and maybe a pot of soup, but the focus of the ministry would be to welcome and to spiritually serve those on the street. It wouldn’t be a shelter, but a quiet place to focus on God and Jesus in the way the needy one can understand.

Outreach to the homeless that do not have centers near them right now
In the Portland area, there are homeless in Troutdale and in Forest Park that do not have ministries assisting them. Creative thinkers could establish small ministries that might assist these folks.

Encourage ministers to the homeless
Perhaps a multi-church coalition could find ways to support the ministers that already are there, giving their all for the needy. Many believers are already at their limit, giving all they can for the homeless, poor and mentally ill. But they have few to encourage them, to be their in their times of need, to understand their daily concerns, to pray for them at all times, to support them in spiritual warfare. A group that would support the ministers of the homeless would be supporting the homeless in a powerful way.

Welcoming the Lower Class to The Middle Class Church

2006-05-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I get angry, almost irrational, at times. And this is one of my most common triggers: As a pastor to the homeless and the mentally ill, I find myself working with many different Christian agencies that assist the homeless. What I am constantly met with—by both volunteers and regular staff— is the assumption that if we are working with the homeless, then they need to be "saved." That the homeless need evangelistic messages and altar calls. Of course, the assumption that is made, but not spoken, is that the homeless need it more than the middle class. The middle class is fine with Chuck Swindoll, but the homeless need hard-core salvation messages.
That really ticks me off. In my experience about 30% of the homeless are strong Christians—meaning that they speak about God and Jesus openly and are making serious attempts to change their lives in accordance with what they understand to be the Christian faith. This is a higher percentage than middle class Americans. Yet the stereotype of homeless-as-heathen persists.
Do these Christians who speak this false opinion not know homeless folk? Actually, many of those who see the homeless as spiritually inferior have spoken to many homeless and know how many of them are working on their relationship with God through Jesus. And so why does this opinion persist? I think for two reasons, primarily.
First of all, most middle class Christians believe that if the homeless were truly committed to the faith of Jesus that they would "get better", by which they mean they would stop being homeless and become middle class. Thus, if the homeless are still homeless, then they are not truly following the "faith of Jesus". This is not the gospel of Jesus, but the pervasive attitudes of AmericanDreamism. The idea behind this is that the morally and spiritually superior will obtain the material peace of this world. If this assumption is opened to public scrutiny, however, the illogic of it is obvious. Jesus himself was not middle-class American and the lifestyle he exemplified was a life of poverty and homelessness. This does not mean that the reverse is true—that a middle class person must become homeless to follow Jesus—however, I think that Jesus’ warnings communicate that the middle class must make more changes than the poor (for example, Luke 6:20-26).
The second reason for this Christian judgment of the homeless is because they do not see the homeless in their churches. And if one interviews the majority of homeless Christians, it is true that it would be found that most of them do not have a congregation that they would call "my church". Typical evangelicals do not see the homeless sitting in their pews, singing their hymns or choruses or participating in their Sunday schools. This is a mystery to them. If the homeless were truly Christian, wouldn’t they be attending a church—if not theirs, then another?
This fact seems inarguable. Scripture does speak about "not neglecting to gather together", and church-going seems so significant. And it is significant to the homeless as well. And almost every homeless person serious about following Jesus has attempted to attend church. Yet for most of them, once they attend, they never return to a church again.

Necessary Cultural Baggage
Most of us, when we think about church, we think of it as a non-cultural phenomenon, as if it is completely ethereal, without influence from the world. Of course, this is completely untrue. It is as if every church were a frozen banana of core doctrine, dipped in a cultural vat and then rolled in distinctives and specific practices unique to that church, until the core could no longer be seen. Those who are offered this frozen banana as a whole are told about the significance of the core—"it’s sweet and it has a lot of potassium" and they don’t understand that when the person rejects it, it isn’t the core that they are rejecting, but possibly the coconut one sprinkled on the outside, or—God forbid—they don’t care for chocolate.
The homeless almost unanimously rejects the church, not the core that the church represents, but the cultural stylings and trappings that become attached to it. And although probably not a one of them would express it in this way, what they really cannot handle is the middle class culture that almost all American churches are infused with. The way the homeless people express it is: "I just didn’t feel comfortable there." "I wasn’t wearing the right clothes." "People avoided me." "The music was weird." "I just couldn’t sit there any longer." "I was asked to leave." These statements are not communicating a rejection of Jesus or the core of what a church stands for. This is the language of cross-cultural breakdown.
Every culture has its own mores and rules by which they judge those within its own culture. They are the standards of "normalcy" by which the standard-bearers of the culture determine what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. In India, it is normal and acceptable to eat with one’s hands even what would be called a "sticky mess" in our culture. While at an American table the standard-bearer would slap a child’s hand for eating curry and rice with his hands, at the Indian table next door the standard-bearer would slap their child’s hand for eating with their left hand. Different standards, but the common practice is that the one who breaks the more is judged and punished.
In our American multi-culture, adults do not usually punish other adults so directly. Of course, the serious cultural standards are enforced by law and infractions are judged by the courts and punished by fines, imprisonment or some form of accountability. But most of the time, social infractions are punished by some form of social estrangement—being ignored, dirty looks, possibly a verbal rebuke.

Who Makes The Laws?
And who determines these standards, who are the standard-bearers? They are the leaders of the middle-class. Not the president, senators, judges, policemen, mayors and pastors of our society—they are but the cheerleaders, who follow what they are given by the dictates of polls, laws and current moral positioning. The heart of our moral society are the leaders of each family unit—the parents, grandparents and economically independent singles. To be significant, to dictate the conscience of the society, one must be economically independent and able to communicate the middle class culture.
This does not mean that there are not other cultures in the U.S. There are sub-cultures that are usually described by their differences from the middle class culture. This includes various kinds of youth culture, ethnic cultures (meaning non-Anglo cultures, which is itself an ethnic culture), and lower-class cultures, of which the homeless are one part.
The middle class culture and the lower class cultures are not at war. Both parties know who is in charge, who has the economic, political and social power in this society. For the most part, most people, even among the lower class, are content with the power structure as it stands, mostly because of the façade that "everyman"—no matter who they are or what kind of dissenting voice they have—actually has a share in the power of the whole. But the lower class accepts that middle class mores rule our society. Middle class mores, as a whole, are what is considered "normal" and every stray from those mores are prodigals. Both the middle and lower classes accept this fact. It is just that many of the lower classes feel no need to become unprodigalized.
So what is the problem? The middle-class standard-bearers determine the mores of society, both the lower and middle classes accept this fact, so why talk about it? To have one segment, one class of society determine the mores of the whole creates cracks in society that are problematic. It encourages stereotypes that create false judgments—"All homeless are lazy and need jobs." "The elderly need nursing care that the family can’t provide." "Multiple offenders can’t be reformed." "The mentally ill are dangerous." "Drug use indicates participation in more violent crimes." These stereotypes encourage separation, which is, in itself, the ultimate judgment. To judge as unfit for society is to displace from society, to find no way back in. To be judged by a stereotype or to be perpetually ignored because of a standard one cannot live up to is to place an unspoken wall of separation that the more-breaker cannot ever scale. Even if one wished to shed the scales of the lower class and become a full-fledged member of the middle class, the way is barred, because the judgment has already been made.
Not only does the "middle-class normalcy" create an American caste system, but it also invades the minds and emotional health of the lower class. Remember, the lower class, to a degree, accepts the mores of the middle class as "normal" and each individual within the lower class holds themselves up against that standard. Some of the lower class revel in their differences, glorying in their abnormality, laughing at the standard-bearers discomfort. Others of the lower-class, however, see themselves as perpetually inadequate, and for them the consequence is self-loathing. They hate who they are and their lives because they somehow, for some reason have missed the mark of "normal" in the society they see themselves a part of. Yes, they are Americans, but they will never be married, never be accomplished, never attain the white-picket-fence American Dream. Because for all of the proclamation of "diversity" (which has as much effect in the real world as the sound of one hand clapping), only certain kinds of diversity are really accepted. The rest are displaced, dishonored, unaccepted. The eternal outsiders. They are the cast-aways of "normal" society, receiving only the dregs of the prosperity the middle class takes for granted, yet the attitude of much of the middle class is, "they should be glad to receive that much."

Practicing What Was Preached
The worst difficulty is how this standard effects the Christian church. The Christian church is supposed to hold to the standard of Jesus, establishing the ethic of God above the mores of the world. But if there is an almost universally accepted (in our corner of the world) standard of "normalcy", then how can the church separate itself from the norm? There is no other standard to compare it to. But more importantly than that, how can the church be open to the sub-cultures that define themselves as being apart from the norm? How can the church be open to the lower class sub-cultures, when she is the embodiment of the standard culture? Perhaps the more open-minded churches wouldn’t openly rebuke a man with an unkempt beard, wearing filthy, wrinkled clothes and with a smell that could kill a canary at twenty paces. But these churches also wouldn’t be the place where he would feel comfortable and at home with their business suits, perfume and monologues. He wouldn’t be experiencing God. He would be choking on the middle class standards stuffed down his throat from the time he walked in the door. Perhaps he could endure the patronizing tones and misplaced sympathies. However, the sidelong glances and avoidance by others simply places the final brick in the wall of separation.
The church is to be a place where anyone of the family of God in Jesus should be a part of the family. The church should be the back door welcoming those who have been rejected by society as a whole. The church should have a single standard—the yoke of Jesus Christ—and let all else pass aside. But this isn’t the reality. Churches are primarily middle-class and uphold middle-class values. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But these middle-class values are unintentionally blocking out the very ones that the Spirit of Jesus commanded us to accept.
Jesus—"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven…. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort."
"For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea."
Paul—"Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly."
"On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect"
James—"The brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position."
"Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man."
Writer of Hebrews—"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body."
It is so easy to be disgusted by the different, the abnormal. And when we have people before us displaying actions or attitudes that our parents punished us for, it is easy to disregard them or consider them below par. Yet it is exactly this voice in our heads we need to smother. When we are looking for God’s people, we need to look for the poor in spirit, the mourning, those thirsting for justice, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted for Jesus’ sake. But if all we see before us is a Smoker, and this one aspect of their behavior disgusts us, we cannot see the virtues Jesus said we should be looking for. No where does Jesus say, "Woe to the sex offender, for they shall be excluded from God’s people," yet this is the Scripture we seem to be paying attention to rather than "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

What Must We Do To Be Saved?
Brothers and sisters, how far we have strayed! Yet the circumstances seem so difficult to overcome. What are we to do? How can a middle class church truly be welcoming to those of the lower class?
In determining a solution, I want to first of all dissent from my brothers and sisters who have been approaching the Middle Class Anglo Male monolith from a racial or feminist angle with hammers and chisels. While I agree that the whole structure of society has been, until very recently (and in many cases still is), bent toward the white-anglo-middle-class-male, I believe that it is a wrong approach for Christians to break open the power structure in order to obtain some of the power themselves. Power is in the hands of God, and He, in His own time, will raise up the humble and grant them great power, while the high and lofty—those who obtain power by their own will and determination— will come crashing down. From a Christian perspective, power is denied the revolutionarily resistant, but granted to the humble cross-bearing.
With this, I would plead to the middle class Christians to be more humble and more cross-bearing toward the lower class, as well as to others who have been socially weakened by the structure and mores of "normal" society. To be humble to the lower class is not just a matter of good form, but an essential of salvation. Jesus said that to be "raised" one must first be "humbled." Part of this humility is taking the lower place and allowing others lower than you to be socially honored above you. In other words, we need to honor those dishonored by the social mores we live in, when it dissents from God’s.
Below are a handful of ideas, any of which might make one’s church more open to the lower class, and so obtain the salvation of the middle class who rule the church.

Be aware of cultural standards which are not God’s standards
We desperately need to separate our culture from our spiritual life. This does not mean that our spirituality should not have cultural expression—it would be impossible and undesirable to separate that! But we need to look at what we consider to be the mores and standards that God desires for us and determine what really comes from God and what is our cultural context. For instance, it is a given that if a Christian adult does not have a "full-time" job, then they are in sin, for it says in Scripture, "If you do not work, you do not eat." But it is our cultural standard that equates "job"—meaning work under an employer—with "work." Scripture does not qualify the work with our modern concepts. Thus, if a person is dumpster diving three to four hours a day, who are we to say that they are not "working"? Even so, Scripture does not speak about smoking, card playing and the statements concerning dancing and drinking are unlike the modern middle class mores. So let’s not make determinations of someone’s spiritual and moral status until we have investigated to see what God has really said.

Ask questions of those who are different from you
The workers of the Missionaries of Charity in San Diego among the homeless and the poor have made the observation that the poor of the United States are not as physically needy as those in the third world, but they are socially destitute. The reason this whole impasse between the middle-class church and the lower class exists is because the two classes do not actually communicate. If the church wishes to welcome the lower class, they must understand the lower class and to understand, there must be communication. Not the communication of preaching—of telling others what they "need" to hear—but of listening. When my wife and I first began our ministry to the homeless, we spent two years welcoming the homeless into our apartment for dinner as guests, listening to their stories, trying to understand their life. This did not lead to the numbers our evangelical friends so desperately wanted to hear ("How many people got saved in your ministry?" "How many people did you help to get off of the street?"), but it did mean that our ministry would be directed to the real needs of our homeless friends, instead of our imagined ideas of their needs. Ministry begins with understanding, not assumptions.

Meet the needs of the lowly with love
Once we know what the needs of the lowly are, we will be ready to make an attempt to meet these needs. We have done this by offering free meals, providing showers, giving away new pairs of socks, a clothes exchange—"Clean clothes for dirty"—and more. Creatively approach the needs that you understand the people that you know have. So often, though, a "ministry to the needy" is nothing more than a social service. Helping meet physical needs is wonderful and often sacrificial, but giving to the poor, in and of itself, is not being Jesus to them. Paul said, "If I sell everything I have and give to the poor but I do not have love, then I have gained nothing from God." So often benevolent ministries fizzle out in churches because there isn’t a "spiritual" element that they can see. The glue that holds the spiritual ministry and the benevolent ministry is the social. No one can feel love unless there is relationship. Thus, to meet the needs of the lowly—to have any ministry at all—one must relate and love those whom we minister to.

Take opportunity to honor the socially lowly
In a society that offers honor with great reluctance, we are honor-starved. Respect is a basic need we all have, and the poor throughout the world are less impoverished in food as they are in honor. The lower class is even more desperate for honor, for they have done little that our society sees as honorable. Doing your job for a paycheck isn’t considered honorable, unless there is exceptional work, or they pursue a profession filled with honor—such as doctor or pastor. But the janitor of the church, the guy who mows the lawn, the single gal who cleans the bathrooms are ignored and so dishonored. We should look for ways to give extra respect to those who are lowly. Make much of them in a service. Give out certificates. Offer sincere gratitude. Go out of your way to make their work easier. Find a way, create a way to honor the lowly.

Give the lowly their own space to be culturally unique
Again, the lower class often just doesn’t feel comfortable in middle-class churches. And much of that discomfort isn’t the fault of the middle class. After all, if the middle class wants to wear suits and nice dresses to church, what is wrong with that? If they greet people with a loud, "Hello! How are you!" and a hug, there is nothing to blame there. But it does create discomfort for many. So perhaps the sub-culture of lower class your church is working with should have their own space to be their own culture. This is actually what the church has already done for the youth over the last century. Beginning with the Sunday school movement, the churches have realized that different sub-groups of their church has different needs. And so there are places for each age group, each ethnic group as well as other groups. But the lower class has been left out. Each splinter is just a sub-group of the middle class. Go ahead, be bold—have a "homeless" Sunday school, meeting where they want to meet. What about a single mothers small group? A "fast food employee" Bible study? Don’t laugh—the title may be funny, but everyone needs a space to be who they are, and to talk about their needs and what God has done to meet those needs.

Provide the opportunity to offer input to the power structure
Why is the church middle class? The main reason is because all of the leadership is middle class. It is the leadership in our churches that create the structure, the atmosphere and determine the cultural standards by which the church functions. It is good to have the middle class in leadership, because there is much that our society requires of legal organizations that the lower class might have difficulty providing—balanced account sheets, for one. However, there is a hole in the ministry to our society when the lower class is left out of leadership. Any church, conference, or denomination is only ministry to a portion of their community when the perspective of the lower class is left out. And to obtain the input of the lower class requires extra effort. Perhaps the church needs to pay for some of the lower class to attend regional or national conferences. Perhaps our churches need to look at people we otherwise would deem to be inadequate for leadership. But we must not lose out on the blessing that the lower class can give to our leadership.

Work to encourage the workers of the lowly
There is a huge opportunity to minister to the lowly. Ministers to the mentally ill are burning out. Ministers to the homeless move on to more "successful" ministries. Most trained seminary graduates have never even thought about giving themselves to low-paying, low-prestige position of minister to the lowly. Yet Jesus tells us to "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest." There is a harvest here, among the lower class. An unbelievably huge harvest in desperate need of culturally-relevant discipleship and service. Let us do all we can to send the ministers where they are needed most. Let Bible schools and seminaries have seminars and classes for ministering to the lowly. Let denominations offer scholarships for youth who will work among the lowly for at least two years. Get the ministers to the lowly out to speak to Christian schools of all kinds. And let us pray. Pray for the lowly, the special needs that they have and for workers to be sent among them. And if God decides to answer our prayer by sending us, then so be it.

Middle Class Assumptions

2006-04-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, thousands of people were stranded in the city, which was soon destroyed by wind and flood and filled with diseases. Because the great majority of people stranded in the city were black, it is assumed that latent racism underlying American society has taken its toll again. Racism is an easy card to play—it seems to be a problem everywhere from the LA Police to grandpa’s living room. There is the prejudice inherent in racism as well as the system in which groups are held back from positions of power.

Personally, however, I don’t think that the problem in New Orleans was racial prejudice. Yes, the far majority of folks trapped in the city, lied to and even shot at were black—but certainly not all. Nor do I actually think that the problem stemmed from authorities "not caring" about those who were stranded. Yes, I am sure that there are some who didn’t care about them, but I don’t think that is what created the situation.

I think, rather, that the horrors in the city were created from the assumptions those in power had about society in general.

The powers that be knew that there were many people who had no intention of leaving the city, no matter how many evacuation warnings were given. These were people who had ways of getting out of the city, but they chose not to. So, as many authorities were leaving the city, and they saw people staying behind, it was no surprise. After all, many people were foolish and decided to ride out the storm.

The real problem lay in what they didn’t think about. They didn’t think about the fact that there is a vibrant street culture in New Orleans who wouldn’t have the capacity to leave the city. They didn’t think about the many who were injured or elderly who were incapable of leaving, and without family to assist them. They didn’t think about the poor who rely on public transportation for their daily needs, and do not have money to pay to leave the city. They assumed that everyone could get out of the city if they wanted to. It was never a spoken assumption. If it had been spoken, it could have been questioned. But the assumption was still there, still and quiet in the minds of those in power.

And who could really blame them? They were under a tremendous amount of stress. They had to figure out how to take care of their families and property. They had extra responsibilities. They just never thought of those who wanted to be evacuated, but couldn’t be.

We mustn’t judge these authorities. It is easy to point fingers after the fact, "You should have done this!" Rather we should think about what we would have done in similar circumstances. Would we have thought of those who had no transportation? Would we have thought of those who had no reserve of cash to deal with an emergency? Would we have thought of those in nursing homes and mental health facilities and prisons, if we had no one that we personally knew in such circumstances? Would we have thought beyond ourselves to those who lack the resources we do on a daily basis?
These questions are easy to answer. First we need to ask, do we think of these folks now? This is not asking—WHAT do we think of them? If pressed on the point, I suppose that most of us would honestly say, "I never think badly about the poor and lowly." But the reason it is true is because the poor and lowly are so far out of our context, out of our lives, that we never actually think about them at all- either good or ill. If we don’t think of them now, how could we expect anyone else like us to think of them when they are facing a personal crisis? How can we expect anyone to assist the lowly in an emergency when they never thought of them on normal days?
The stranded in New Orleans weren’t put in a life-threatening position because of racism or even because of blatant prejudice of any kind. They were stranded because of middle-class assumptions.

What is a middle class assumption? It is what most of us who are middle class assume that "everyone" has in society, because everyone we know has them. It is what we assume is the minimum standard to live and function in our society. It is what goes thoughtless when dealing with large groups of people—from leading a church meeting to organizing a free concert to governing an entire population.

Having assumptions is not wrong. It is a part of the cultural baggage we all have. We learn it bit by bit beginning as infants, and our culture grows and is reshaped and is transformed as we get older. The assumptions, however, is just what we get used to—what we never see missing. If we have never (or have rarely) experienced a person speaking anything but Russian, then "normal" people speak Russian, and everyone who is not "normal" just doesn’t come to mind when we make plans. Sure, we can understand intellectually that other people speak other languages, that they are people who are just as important as us and that they have their own need that doesn’t include speaking Russian—perhaps they speak Bengali or use sign language. But in the normal course of day-to-day events, non-Russian-speakers don’t count because we have never experienced them.

And this is the case of the middle class with the lower class. Yes, most middle class people know—intellectually— that lower class people count as much as they do and have their own needs and issues that differ from middle class needs and issues. However, since the majority of the middle class do not "rub elbows" with those of the lower class, then the needs and issues of the lower class are unknown, not to mention the specific needs of individuals who find themselves in the lower class because they suddenly are lost without one of the things that they assumed was necessary to survive—but never really thought about it.

What are these assumptions?
Well, it is beyond my ability to list all of them. But below are a list of those that I and those whom I know experienced.

Ability to remain clean—The idea that everyone in our society has the capacity to a shower or bath with a change of clean clothes and proper hygiene items, such as soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. However, this is a huge assumption to make. To remain clean in this way requires many resources that people, especially those who live on the street, do not have. Think casually how much you pay for your cleanness—between water, a place to have privacy, all the various items to clean clothes and hygiene items. Even a quick overview can help us realize how expensive hygiene is. Now we can know that cleanliness is next to godliness because only the gods can afford such a standard!

Ability to gain identification—Most people assume that identification is simple to obtain. But if you had all of your identification stolen from you or lost in a fire, then you might find that you were in a grave situation. For legal state I.D. you need two pieces of identification. And you cannot obtain any other identification without identification. And without identification, you cannot even check out a library book, let alone get a job or cash a check.

Well spoken English with no or minor accent—This is an assumption that many immigrants face daily. It is assumed that because they learned English with a strong accent that they do not know English well at all. And this is a barrier to many avenues of our society, although bi-lingual services are being provided more and more frequently now.

Basic knowledge of national events—Most of the middle class assume that everyone has access to a newspaper or at least watch television news. However, for those who do not have televisions or who do not choose to pay attention to news, this limits conversation and the main source of knowledge of basic cultural information for the middle class.
Personal transportation—According to the middle class, "normal" people have access to an automobile, and thus can drive to places quickly as often as they like. However, the cost of an automobile is such that a large percentage of the lower class cannot afford to pay for the car, insurance, repairs and gas.

Ability to travel out of town—This is the assumption that stranded many people in New Orleans. It is assumed that if necessary, with some planning, anyone can leave to another county or state if they so desire. However, many people are limited to public transportation, which is limited to a metropolitan area. Or Greyhound, but if you can’t book two weeks in advance or have extra money, then you ain’t going anywhere.

Well dressed, (but not necessarily fancy)—This is the assumption that keeps many lower class folks from attending church services or weddings. It is assumed by most of the middle class that everyone has at least one set of "nice" clothes for special occasions. However, many people, especially those of the lower class, just do not have them.

Computer literate—It is an assumption being made more and more often that everyone has the ability to get on a computer and know what one is doing. Along with this assumption is the idea that we can send important information to people on the internet, or through email, and that is adequate for all who need it. However, not everyone can use a computer and a large percentage of people have difficulties accessing the internet.

Health insurance—Some assume that everyone has some kind of health insurance, although is it becoming widely recognized that most people’s insurance is extremely inadequate. Again, it is a large percentage of the lower class has no insurance whatsoever, and a growing group is being turned away from almost any medical care due to past unpaid bills.

No mental illness—This is the most widespread assumption and the one that is most wrong. Perhaps some 10 percent of people have a diagnosed mental illness. And perhaps another ten percent has a mental illness that has not been diagnosed. But every single one of us has a mental weakness that makes us inadequate in an area that most people are adequate in. Some of us are weak socially, some are weak in mathematics, some are weak in self-assessment. But more often than not, those of us who are strong in an area cannot understand or appreciate those who are inadequate in some area of mental ability. What we must remember however is that mental weakness is what is normal.

Disposable money—It is assumed and expected that everyone has some money, even if it is a small amount, that they can use for an occasional lunch out or for an emergency. However, those of low income, while they might have the occasional financial surplus, they cannot predict ahead of time when they will have disposable income. Thus, having a middle class friend ask if they want to do lunch together is just embarrassing.

Literacy—The education system of the United States has done a remarkable job of teaching most people to read. But there are many people—almost exclusively of the lower class, with some rare exceptions—who are not literate, except in some rudimentary ways. Yet our society is run on the presumption of being able to read warnings, street signs and newspapers. Hospitals and banks hand folks contracts and liabilities to sign that even us educated folks have a hard time reading. For the illiterate, or the functionally illiterate, they just sign what they need to sign, acting like they know what they are being handed and agreeing to things that they have no clue about.

Place to sleep—Most urban areas have some kind of anti-camping ordinance. This is to prevent people from just crashing in parks or benches, cluttering up our usually “beautiful” landscape. These ordinances and our assumption when we meet anyone is that they have had a decent night’s rest. If we knew that the person we were talking to didn’t sleep the night before, we might make allowances to their lethargy or their nodding head as we speak to them. But if we assume that they had sleep, and that they even had a place to sleep, then we don’t give them any allowance for hardship suffered. We all recognize that we need sleep. But we don’t all notice those who haven’t gotten any.

It is important for all of us to recognize these assumptions and to fight such ignorance, both in ourselves and in others. To know that many people do not have these culturally significant items for the middle class is important for all of us. It is especially important for those who organize events or lead large groups of people to recognize what assumptions are being made, for the more assumptions we make, the more people we are excluding. But most importantly, it is important for those in civil leadership to be aware of their assumptions, so that they could truly represent all of their people, and not just the middle class and above.

We also need to be aware of these issues when we establish ministries as churches. When we have a worship service, are we going to turn our noses up at those who don’t smell very good, or do we offer them an opportunity to clean up? When we have a benevolence ministry, do we demand that people give us their ID or Social Security number, or do we offer benevolence to everyone, without exception? When we see people nodding, do we assume they are strung out on heroin, or do we take into account that perhaps they haven’t slept that night? Are our worship services all based on people being able to read, or do we provide a way for the illiterate to participate?

In these and other subtle ways we make it clear that our churches are for “middle class only.” We may not have signs, but a white church in South Africa twenty years ago didn’t need a sign either—they expressed the policy through their actions. Even so, we can deny the welcome we offer to the lower class, homeless or mentally ill by insisting that they operate under the secret codes of the middle class.

Let us open our table to everyone, by making allowances for those who cannot be middle class.

Top Ten Acts of Oppression-- As Stated By the Ancient Hebrew Prophets

2006-04-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Refusing to defend the needy-- Isa 1:17, 23; Jeremiah 5:28
Stealing from the poor-- Isaiah 3:14-15
Unjust judgments against the poor-- Isa 10:1-2
Not assisting the needy-- Eze 16:49
Taking interest for loans-- Ezekiel 18:15-17
Enslaving a people-- Amos 1:6
Excessive violence in war, especially against innocents-- Amos 1:13
Excessive rent against the poor-- Amos 5:11
Accepting bribes-- Amos 5:12
Turning away those who need shelter for a night-- Amos 5:12

Bad News For The Rich: A Scripture Reading

2006-04-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Bible without doubt condemns the stingy. Those who look at the poor and say, "I’ve got my own needs." The one who refuses to give because they "just need a job." The one who looks at the poor in general and is disgusted with both their choice of lifestyle and the fact that they are receiving "so much" from others. In the same breath, the Bible condemns the rich. Those who live lifestyles filled with possessions. Those who are constantly concerned with increasing the already large wealth they have. Those who live lifestyles that are conspicuously higher than those around them. Why is this? Why should the Bible condemn the backbone of our society—frankly, the majority of our society? Because the Bible sees conspicuous wealth and excess of possessions to be a indication of rejection of the cries of the needy. Rather than helping those who are clearly in need, the wealthy spends on themselves. Even if they do nothing else wrong, the conspicuously rich are stingy. And this is a grave sin. It will condemn them to hell.

Proverbs 17:5-- The poor man pleads for mercy, but the rich answer harshly.
Proverbs 22:16-- Woe to those who oppress the poor, or who only gives to the wealthy-- they shall both end in poverty.
Proverbs 28:8-- The one who increases wealth by requiring interest on debts will have his wealth given to the one who is generous to the lowly.
Jeremiah 5:26-29
For wicked men are found among My people, They watch like fowlers lying in wait; They set a trap, They catch men. Like a cage full of birds, So their houses are full of deceit; Therefore they have become great and rich. They are fat, they are sleek, They also excel in deeds of wickedness; They do not plead the cause, The cause of the orphan, that they may prosper; And they do not defend the rights of the poor. Shall I not punish these people?' declares the LORD, 'On a nation such as this Shall I not avenge Myself?'
Habakkuk 2:6 Woe to him who increases what is not his and makes himself rich with loans.
Mark 10:17-27
As Jesus was going down the road, a man knelt before him and asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to gain God's blessing for eternity?"
Jesus suspected him and said, "Why do you call me good? Only God is good. And you already know what you should do-- Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie in court, don't cheat others, respect your father and mother. Why come to me to ask the obvious?"
The man replied, "Teacher, I have already obeyed these commands for as long as I remember. Isn't there something more?"
Jesus then had compassion for him and said, "Just one thing-- you need to sell every one of your possessions, give the proceeds to the poor and then you will have security for eternity. Once you have done that, come and follow me."
The man saddened at that, and left unhappy, for he owned many possessions.
Jesus turned from him and looked at his disciples, saying, "It is very difficult for the wealthy to enter God's kingdom, because it is difficult to give up one’s possessions." The disciples were shocked at this, so Jesus repeated, "Children, it is difficult for anyone to enter into God's kingdom, but especially the rich. Frankly, it is easier to have an elephant leap through a straw than for a rich person to enter God's kingdom." The disciples responded, "Who will enter God's kingdom, then?" Jesus replied, "Frankly, it is impossible. But God is in the business of doing the impossible.

Good News for the Generous
Proverbs 22:9-- Blessed are the generous, for they give food to the lowly.
Proverbs 14:21-- The one who holds the needy in contempt is a sinner, but the one who offers fortune to the anawim will receive fortune from on High.
Proverbs 28:8—The generous to the poor will receive the wealth of the greedy.
Proverbs 28:27-- The one who gives to the poor will have everything they need, but the one who ignores the poor will drown in curses.
Proverbs 31:20-- The virtuous woman assists the anawim and greatly helps the needy.

Oppression
Proverbs 14:31-- The oppressor of the lowly insults the Creator, but God is praised by him who has mercy on the needy.
Proverbs 21:13-- He who shuts his ear to the cry of the lowly will also cry out and not be heard.
Proverbs 22:16-- Woe to those who oppress the poor, or who only gives to the wealthy-- they shall both end in poverty.
Proverbs 22:22-23-- Do not take from the lowly due to their lowliness or use your power to crush the anawim; Yahweh himself will prosecute for them and take the life of those who oppose them.
Proverbs 28:3-- A poor man who oppresses the lowly is like a hurricane that destroys all food.
Proverbs 28:27-- The one who gives to the poor will have everything they need, but the one who ignores the poor will drown in curses.
Proverbs 29:7-- The righteous are concerned for justice for the poor; the wicked give this no regard.

Someone Took Away My Jesus and Replaced Him With a Revolutionary!

2006-04-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

Let’s look at the beatitudes again.
"Ahhh," everyone sighs. "The beatitudes. How lovely. How comforting."
How easy to ignore. How misunderstood.
We are all familiar with the words in Matthew. "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the merciful." And on and on. And we love them because they seem so poetic and so loving and so helpful to us who live quiet lives of desperation in the pursuit of just living normal lives without poverty, without hunger, with some levels of justice and peace. We will buy plaques of the phrases and place them upon our walls to remind us of how loving and gentle Jesus’ teaching is.
But those weren’t the beatitudes I was talking about.
There’s another set, equally spoken by Jesus, found in Luke. They are certainly the same set of sayings, but they seem… different. They seem harsher, more difficult to accept, not the kind of Jesus who would comfort us.
How fortunate are you, the poor, for you possess God’s kingdom.
How fortunate are you, the hungry, for God will give you satisfaction.
How fortunate are you, the weeping, for you will be laugh.
How fortunate are you when people despise you, and ignore you, and insult you and slander you for the sake of Jesus—
Be glad when it happens to you, and give a praise offering, for this is how people treated the prophets of God.
How unfortunate are you, the rich, for you have received all the comfort you’re going to get.
How unfortunate are you, the well-fed, for you will hunger and not receive from God.
How unfortunate are you, the laughing, for God will make you mourn and weep aloud.
How unfortunate are you when everyone honors you and speaks well of you, for this is how people treated the prophets who weren’t speaking for God.
Who is this guy? This isn’t my usual preacher! No… preachers nowadays don’t talk like this. They use words like "beseech" and "Almighty" and when they say "comfort" it sounds like they really mean it. This guy, though, he sounds tough, almost mean. I mean, who would go to a church that sounded like this? People who were desperate might—or people that had issues with wealth—but not people who could afford to build a nice church building and give a guy a good salary and a parsonage. No wonder Jesus had no place to lay his head! Who would listen to this drivel more than once? The adage makes sense—A prophet is someone who isn’t invited to dinner twice.
While we can critique the style or question Jesus’ propriety, we do need to remember the positive points. First of all, it is direct. And simple—no one can misunderstand it. And if it is true, then the message is significant. Oh, and one other point—Jesus is our Lord. And these are the words of Jesus.
These words aren’t just there as a jumping point for our understanding of spiritual matters. They aren’t supposed to be a cover page for our traditional values—whether conservative ("Life is tough and you’ve got to be tough back") or liberal ("We should really be nicer to the poor"). They aren’t there to be politely ignored in preference to other passages that we prefer. Nor does it help for us to retranslate them into something more palatable ("Maybe it could say, ‘Gosh, what a difficult position you rich people are in.’ ").
How significantly we treat these words is how significantly we treat Jesus. This teaching is at the core of what Jesus had to say, and all that he said and did flows from this core. If we are to accept Jesus, we need to accept this basic creed.
What is Jesus speaking of? What really is the point? If there is a creed, what would it look like, were it based on this text? Let’s break it down into pieces:
"We believe in an Almighty God who will judge everyone on the earth"
Judgment isn’t really popular to talk about. To speak of hell or eternal dishonor or lake of fire isn’t really a popular topic, so many Christians just avoid it. Honestly, many people have abused hellfire for their own agenda. So speaking about God’s judgement is kind of like an uncle who was convicted of child molestation, and though he hasn’t done anything like it since, no one talks about him and at Christmas he just finds a corner to sit in and watches the proceedings from a distance.
But Jesus firmly believed in a judgment of God that would paste "good" and "bad" on every single person on earth. Well, let me rephrase that a bit. The problem with saying "good" or it’s antonym is that we have such distinct notions in our head about what constitutes this "not-evil." The early twentieth century bases of judgment seem so trite now: no smoking, no drinking, no dancing, no playing cards, no skirts above the lower calf, no fraternizing with actors. It seems trite because the values have changed so much.
When Jesus speaks of "good", he really means "honorable." At the onset, it seems so subjective. To have honor among Nazis is to be dissed by the masses. But Jesus gives this qualifier—the only person who counts, in giving honor, is God. I mean, if Simon Cowell determines that you suck, who really cares? But if God makes the determination that you are cool, or that you just don’t make the cut, then it is a more serious judgment.
Thus, judgment is boiled down to this: God saying to one group, "You’re my kind of people" and saying to another group, "You don’t really make the cut for me." The first group, after the determination of the Judge, gains possession of a new nation, which is ruled directly by God, and becomes the central nation over it’s empire of the earth. The second group, certainly the larger, is exiled from that nation and they make up the outer fringes. Considering that almost all of the merciful are within the bounds of the Nation of God, the outer fringes just don’t sound like fun.
This kind of judgment isn’t comfortable to a group of Christians who believe that the term "mercy" and "judgement" cannot even date, let alone be married together. They claim that Jesus hung out with lowlifes (true) and so he, as God’s representative, refuse to judge them (almost true), and so Jesus’ mercy has nothing to do with judging people (wow, you need to read Matthew 23 again). The fact is that every sub group of Judaism of the first century (and after) determined that there must be a line drawn separating those on the "in" with God and those on the "outs". Jesus was no different.* (See "Jesus’ view on judging") What made Jesus so radical is not that he erased the line, but where he placed the line. Which is the rest of our creed.
"We believe that the disciples of Jesus who are poor and persecuted will, at God’s judgement, obtain the greatest blessings of God.
This is the central point of both sets of beatitudes—in Matthew and Luke. This is not to deny that those who act in a "pure and righteous" manner will not gain God’s blessings. This is indicated in Matthew’s list, by giving a special line to the "pure in heart". But for Matthew—as well as for Luke in the broader context—it isn’t enough to be "pure". Sure, keeping your legs closed until God approves and not bowing down before a moldy statue is good and all, but it doesn’t equate the life that God is looking for.
God is actually looking for the folks who are so pure, so loving, so bold about Jesus, that they get in trouble for it. This "trouble" looks differently in different cases. Perhaps the trouble is rejection by people—Jesus certainly said that his community should expect that. * (see Jesus’ words on persecution). But other kinds of trouble also pop up. There will be weeping in the Christian camp, and poverty. Some of this may be as a result of persecution, some of this will be due to the system set up to exclude Jesus people from the blessings of this world. The fact that Jesus’ people don’t collect possessions, but give them to the needy; that they aren’t cut-throat, but humble in their leadership; that they depend on God for their needs, even if those needs are just barely met; that they do good to those who hurt them, which may give their enemies cause to think that they can get away with anything—that might have something to do with it. Let’s face it, Jesus’ way isn’t easy, and he doesn’t put up well with compromise. God might as well put up a sign, "Kingdom of God: Fanatics need only apply."
3. "We believe that the anawim should be envied, and that if we are persecuted or obtain poverty for God’s sake, we should celebrate and feel honored."
Saints are cool—from a distance. Some of the stories are great. Sebastian who was pierced by a hundred arrows for speaking about Jesus. Michael Sattler who was tortured, had his tongue cut out and then was drowned for teaching the Bible. Peter and John who were brought to court and beaten for healing a man in Jesus’ name. Anthony who lived in graveyards and the desert to live a life of purity. The stories are inspiring, but, ultimately, not for us.
We are the people who pray, "Lord, teach us patience, but not if it hurts too much." We are the ones who want to live for God, as long as it fits into our overall plan of achieving the American Dream. We are the ones who cry out "All for Jesus I surrender", but in practice, we limit our surrender to that which accomidates our society’s limits and morality.
If someone falls into poverty or persecution because of their stand for Jesus, how do we respond? Most people in the church would recommend a compromise, a standing down. "You don’t have to suffer like that—God doesn’t want that for you." The church’s positions is: Stand for Jesus, but sit down if your feet get sore. Or, if there seems to be true injustice, there are the Jay Seculas and Ruthaford Institutes who will take the persecutors to court and make them feel economic pain for the injustice of persecuting others.
Of course, Jesus’ command is a little different. How do we respond to persecution and pain and anguish for the sake of our religion? Have a party. Crank up the dancing music. Set out the little food that you need little forks to eat it with. Jesus’ bumper sticker is: Celebrate Poverty.
To be obedient to Jesus, it isn’t enough to just grit our teeth in difficulties, we need to rejoice, be happy, throw a party, invite our friends over to get ecstatic with us, watch the Wizard of Oz with the dip in bowls the shape of ruby slippers. "It’s the happy day!" Jesus says. "The day you get beat up and killed for God, that’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. The day you get sick and die because you were handing out tracts in a blizzard—that’s the party day! The day your airplane crashes because you were going to share the gospel with people in the jungle—that’s the dancing day! The day you get kicked out of your apartment because you’ve been inviting the mentally ill to worship God with you there—Live it up! Get some horn blowers and fireworks and make it seem like New Year’s day, because it’s better than that! It’s the day you’re assured of being right before God!"
4. "We believe that the disciples of Jesus who are conspicuously wealthy and honored will, at God’s judgment, obtain sorrow and rejection."
The real question is not, however, what happens to those who suffer for God. That’s a no-brainer. We’re all pretty sure of that, God will take care of them. They’ve got a place with God. Okay, that’s fine. But what about all those who hang with God and do all the religious things, but they don’t suffer. Perhaps they are doing the… um… opposite of suffering. There are people in God who are doing really well.
And, let’s face it, these non-suffering folks, the ones who have an excellent bank account (for many years, frankly, and the accumulated interest is really very healthy and can’t be given away willy-nilly), and a really nice home (meant really for family and friends, it just wouldn’t be comfortable to have strangers stay there), and a car that almost never breaks down (but I couldn’t pick up hitchhikers, because, well, who knows what they would do) and a line of credit that doesn’t end (and we have to take care as to what we invest in, because otherwise we couldn’t be trusted financially)—these non-suffering folk are really the ones who pays the bills in the church. They do their part, right? They show up on Sunday, sing as loud as anyone else, head committees, pay for the new building, makes sure the pastor has a decent salary. So, God has his place for them, right?
Absolutely. God has a place for them. It’s called "the outer darkness."
Paul and Barnabas at one point set out to do some revival meetings. The churches they had planted were struggling spiritually, so the apostles had a powerful message to give to them. The summary we have received is one sentence, "We shall only enter God’s kingdom through much tribulation." In other words, the ONLY door to God’s ultimate blessing is difficulty, sacrifice, persecution and hardship. There isn’t any other way.
This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t bless people on earth. Oh, my, I have seen many people blessed. Many rich people today are blessed in their lifetimes beyond the dreams of those who had lived on earth for more than ten thousand years of history. I mean, indoor plumbing, a health care system that can actually cure more illness than it causes, the ability to fill rooms with such variety of entertainment as has never been seen, never without food, never thirsty, never homeless. Such a plenty has never been seen in the history of the world for so many people. This is God’s blessing. And for those who are content to accept this blessing, that is all they will get.
For those who have all their needs met, and never meet hunger—God has for them a place of hunger.
For those who surround themselves with pleasantries and joy—God has for them a place of tragedy.
For those who reward themselves for the simple act of living—God will strip away all trophies.
For those who secure themselves by assuring their own wealth and separation from the poor—God will make them poor and expose them to eternal insecurity.
No, this isn’t funny. This isn’t entertaining. It’s scary. This is worse than Alien, worse than the Exorcist. This is real life. And for those who have all the world has to give—they should be grabbing someone’s arm, because the music is getting ominous.
5. "We believe that Jesus’ disciples who are honored and wealthy should set these benefits aside for the sake of our needy counterparts, so they can receive true honor and wealth."
But Jesus’ beatitudes aren’t one of those horror movies that finishes with "The End?" They are more like an epic move—Laurence of Arabia, Gone With The Wind, Top Gun—the center of which you find yourself almost weeping and breathing hard in your empathy with the hero(ine). But in the end, through some terrible tragedies and sacrifices, the hero(ine) survives and achieves glorious honor. This is the story Jesus is telling as well.
And the story is the same for the poor and the wealthy: the way to God’s honor and blessing and kingdom is through becoming the anawim. That route is simpler for the poor and persecuted—they get handed their tribulation on a silver platter. They don’t have to exercise their will to suffer or sacrifice. For the rich, the famous, the good-looking, those who are granted all the best of the world, the route to God’s blessing is difficult—they have to give up all the blessing they have been granted.
Have you ever worked for the needy? Those who are really needy, those whom our society calls "the bottom of the barrel", for whom no real help exists? To be friends with the friendless, to offer yourself to the needy, it is a daily sacrifice. You constantly struggle with how much to give, are you being taken advantage of, what is the real need, who of all the worthies should you give to with the limited resources you have? Inevitably, you give more than you realistically can, and personal and social conflicts arise. Your health fails. Your family and friends whom you trusted no longer find you to be trustworthy. You become an alien to all those whom you have loved. You become the avoided, the dispossessed. The one who surrenders themselves to the needy becomes one with the needy. The one who sacrifices for the anawim becomes the anawim themselves.
This is the challenge to the wealthy, the well-loved, the sheltered. Expose yourself to those whom you most fear—those whose needs far outweigh your ability to help them. Perhaps you will gain great satisfaction doing the work. Perhaps you will obtain prizes and be Time’s Man of the Year.
But let me be brutally honest. Of the few of you who make the choice to sacrifice all you have for the needy, to obtain God’s glory instead of security and inner peace—you will be put under the bulldozer. You will go to doctors and they won’t be able to tell you what’s wrong. You will be disinherited by proper society. You will have friends who tell you "you’ve just got to stop, for your own sake" but God won’t let you. You will wonder why you are exhausted all the time. You will go to bed each night as if you had been beaten. You will walk the streets and cry out to God, "Just give me rest!" but the rest never seems to come. The needy themselves will blame you for not giving enough. You will rack your brain to find ways to really help them, to really meet their true needs, and find no solution. You will cry and weep and mourn and wonder why God put you in this place. To do this work. To have what seems to be a pointless life.
Now I’ll tell you a secret. If you sacrifice yourself and feel all this—you’ve made it. You’re in. It’s time to celebrate. It’s time to party. Yeah, it seems pointless. To Jeremiah speaking about the destruction of Jerusalem seems pointless because no one he could see would listen. To David it all seemed pointless because his theocratic monarchy came crashing around his ears. To the disciples of Jesus it all seemed pointless because their Lord, their Savior was dying on a cross. Yeah, it all seems worthless—without resurrection. Without God.
"Vanity, vanity, all it vanity—everything done under the sun is vanity." That’s Scripture. That’s God’s word. But, you see, if we embrace the vanity of God, the foolishness of God, the sacrifice of ourselves for the poor and needy, the life of the anawim—then we get all that exists above the sun. Under the sun? Screw under the sun. I’m looking for the best retirement plan that exists. Sure, the salary’s lousy. But the benefits—nothing can compare to them. And the only way to obtain them is to sacrifice one’s wealth and to stand with the anawim.

Poverty Pimps

2006-04-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

The toughest thing about conquering injustice is seeing it. Once it is seen, we may have to sacrifice much—even our own lives—to be rid of that injustice. However, the sacrifices pale in comparison with understanding that the system we live with daily, that we take advantage of, that we have learned to succeed in, that we even love and support is fundamentally warped. If we can accomplish this paradigm shift in our minds, then injustice won’t have a chance. Of course, there is getting to that place, achieving that paradigm shift.

In our society today there are many who are poor, as we well know. Children are hungry, families are homeless, men are unemployed, women work in a low-paying service industry. Poverty is there, but it is something we have grown used to. After all, Jesus said, the poor would always be among us, and that which we see daily, we learn to live with the existence of, no matter how wrong it is.

But there are some who not only see poverty, but they also see how that poverty can turn to their profit. There are some that feed off of other people’s need. They are vampires that not only suck out the poor’s life stream, but the very energy of the people who most desperately need assistance. These are what I call poverty pimps.
A poverty pimp is one who gains benefit from perpetuating other’s poverty. Listed below are some who keep the poor in poverty, while making a profit off of it. These listed are not necessarily those who cause poverty—the causes of poverty are complex and difficult to ascertain at times. But they take advantage of the poor, seducing them and then raping them economically, forcing them to remain in the shame and rejection of being economically needy.

Small loan companies
For those on social security or who survive on low wages, if any emergency happens between checks, then there is no economic assistance for them. Should such an emergency happen, they can go to a local loan company, that will give them a hundred dollars or so to help them make it to their next check. While this sounds like a reasonable service to those in economic need, in reality, these loan companies charge from 100 to 200% interest on every loan. In doing this, they perpetuate the economic emergency to last not weeks but months. Those in need then find that they are dependant on the loans, some taking out loans in order to pay off others. While this sounds somewhat similar to credit card companies, these small loan businesses particularly targets the poor. This is now a billion dollar industry, built on the backs of the poor.

Large businesses that pay low wages
There are many employers that treat their employees well. They pay them a livable wage, if not always high, and they do what they can to assist them if they are in need. However, with so many large corporations focusing on profit, they often give their employees the short end of the stick. Many businesses have made it an art to avoid giving their employees benefits such as health care or even paying workman’s comp. Many businesses force their employees to work until exhausted, and then they don’t provide them a wage to care for themselves or their families. Other businesses hire large numbers of employees for part of the year, and then lay them off for months out of the year. Other businesses pay low wages and then constantly change their employees hours, from one shift to another, guaranteeing that they would never have the energy to get a better job, better education or to give their children a better life. Other businesses hire many employees, but only part time, so to have a full wage they have to work more than one job. Other businesses hire employees and then fire them before they need to pay any benefits. Of course, some small businesses must do some of this, if only to survive from year to year. But the large million- or billion-dollar corporations that pay low wages in order to maintain their status as a huge profit-making corporation are making that profit due to their employee’s poverty.

Government lotteries
Gambling has become a national phenomenon, when it used to be illegal except for small pockets of "sin dens". This is due to the need of government to look like they are providing "tax cuts", while still increasing their budgets. One of the many solutions governments are looking to is state lotteries or games which offer money if you are the "lucky winner." Although some states have placed warnings on their ads, "This is for entertainment only, not for investment purposes," the warnings are as effective as cigarette carton labels. The reason is that the ones being taxed are those who have a genetic weakness toward gambling and get rich quick schemes. It has been proven that some have a genetic weakness toward addiction and gambling is one of these weaknesses. And the governments are taxing these individuals who, for the most part, are already struggling with poverty and addiction. The ads stir up their weakness and the fact that the machines are in every store and mall encourages their use. And more machines are being created that make them attractive to addicts—poker machines and some that look like slots. Yes, the governmentally-approved gambling is successful, as governments have more money to spend. But it has economically destroyed addicts and their families.

Banks
It is almost impossible to cash a paycheck or a government check without a bank account. And many banks offer accounts that are "free" or with a minimal monthly charge that are attractive to the poor with the idea in mind that they can cash their checks with no fee. However, for the poor, the ad of "free checking" is a seductive misnomer. Most of the poor have difficulty keeping track of money and numbers. How much one spends is difficult to gauge, and no matter how careful one is, eventually a slip will be made and one’s account will go into negative numbers. This is especially easy, as banks are making withdrawals easier to do with multiple ways of doing it—through checks, tellers and debit cards. Thus, one can overspend and not know it easily. And then the account-holder discovers that the account is far from free. Going into a negative balance will have a twenty to forty dollar fee. Any outstanding checks that attempt to be cashed against the account will be another twenty to forty dollar fee. And many banks have a policy of charging five dollars every day the account is overdrawn. Thus, before one even knows that the account is overdrawn, it is easy to owe the bank a hundred to a hundred fifty dollars. On top of this, the poor person will usually have to wait a week or two before their next check, by which the fees will have raised to two hundred or more dollars. Some would say, "Then they just need to take better care of their balance." However, most of the poor are not accountants, and, of course, we are all human and make mistakes sometimes. The banks, however, depend on these mistakes and take ultimate advantage of these mistakes as they are able.

Supermarkets
Our society depends on grocery stores and supermarkets. This is where we buy our staples and necessities. And, much to their credit, they often give fair prices to the staples we most need—flour, milk, cheese, chicken and more. But these staples is never what the stores emphasize. They have had studies done which tell them where to place the non-essentials, and how to lower the prices to make them look attractive so that more people would buy them. The poor walk into these stores with enough money to buy the essentials and little else. But when they see the prices of Little Debbie pastries—placed at the end of the aisles where no one can miss them—they decide to take some of their minimal cash and spend it on them. They seem so cheap, they are very tasty and they fill children’s stomachs and keep them from complaining about their hunger. Others will see the prices of ice cream, the sales on sugar cereals or other non-essentials. The grocery stores provide food that is healthy, at very high prices, and they provide the staples—but they push the items that destroy families’ health and increase health care for everyone.

Prosperity churches/ministries
Most churches try to do what is right for the poor, in as much as they know how. This makes sense, since their God tells them in many times and ways that they are to assist the poor. Some churches and ministries have the philosophy that poverty is a spirit that must be defeated, and, they say, it can be. They take passages out of context, and assume that if one wants to obtain money and wealth, that they need to give money to the church. In fact, they claim, that whatever money the poor gives to the church, they will gain ten times as much. What church should they give to? Of course, the church that is making the statement. Thus, the church claims, if you give to us ten dollars, God will give you a hundred. If you give us a hundred, you will get a thousand from God. And so on. Since they claim that they have a route out of poverty, many poor people clamor to the churches. The principle is easy to understand, and simple to implement. However, such a spiritual pyramid scheme is not found in the Bible, nor taught by any theologian of any denomination. Again, it is a simple way for certain churches and ministries to amass their own fortunes by taking advantage of the poor. Does this mean that God does not bless one who tithes? No, but God provides for everyone who surrenders all to Him. And the giving? Again, the giving is not to churches who take from the poor. Rather, according to Jesus, the giving is TO the poor. Such ministries will be judged by God.

Local governments
Governments usually do what people expect them to do—protect, license, legalize—and not much more than that. Of course, to do all of this, it requires money to pay for the workers and to pay for the bureaucracy. The minimum of what most governments do is require those who request a license to pay for it. However, when society requires a sixty plus dollar fee for a license to do what is considered minimal in our society—obtain a license for marriage or for driving a car, for example—it is difficult if not impossible for the poorest in our society to pay for such minimal requirements. If someone was going to try to better their life economically by selling something on the street, they must have a business license, which, if they could afford one they might take a different avenue of commerce. Even having an identification—which is required by law, required to have a job or to do almost anything in our society and which is becoming more and more difficult for the poorest of the poor to obtain—requires more than twenty dollars. But worse than all of that, often certain governments charge people to be helplessly in need. If a person is exhausted because they were unable to sleep the night before, they might be charged with sleeping on a bench waiting for a bus. If a person is unable to pay extra to clean debris from his yard, he is fined. If someone is camping—due to the fact that they have no place to live— out of sight of anyone, if found they are charged with camping illegally and in some places given a large fine. Since the poor and homeless do not have the energy or opportunity to participate in government, they end up being charged to live in the best way they can.

Justice System
Many people who are poor have had to deal with the law. Let’s say for instance that a homeless person was charged with trespassing because he did not know where he was in the dark. If he was close to a person’s house, he would be arrested and jailed until the court was able to make their case—perhaps two weeks. Of course, he would be declared guilty, because it would be his word against the middle class plaintiffs, and even if one of his buddies was with him, a court-appointed defense lawyer wouldn’t have the money to find him, nor would he be listened to by the court. At this point, the judge might want to show "leniency" on the defendant, so he would fine him, say, two hundred dollars, and require him to contact a probation officer once a week. This sentence, however, is no justice at all, for the guilty party would not be able to pay the fine, nor does he have access to a phone to call his p.o. After a few weeks of not hearing from him, the officer sets out a warrant for his arrest. It may take months, but eventually the homeless man will be requested by a police officer to show his identification. At this point, he is arrested again, taken to jail again, brought before the judge who gives him the same sentence as before. This cycle can go on for many years. Those who have places to live might be able to contact their p.o., but unable to pay their fines. These fines can accumulate until they are in the thousands, and as soon as that person gets a job that pays him above the table, the court then takes out more than half of his meager paycheck. So many who are in this situation just never plan on having a job unless they can be paid under the table. This system is even worse among those whom the government has taken away their children. Although they may have done nothing to their children—especially as some victims of child protection agencies have their children taken from them at birth—they still have a running tally of a government bill that they must pay. For most of the poor, they would rather spend a few months—or even years—in jail, rather than having this impossible economic requirement placed on them. And many of them are of the opinion that the jails and prisons purpose to keep them as long as possible in order to gain more money for their services.

This is injustice. It is in the very heart of our system. It is at the heart of our government, our corporations, our churches. Why do we put up with it? The toughest part of conquering injustice is knowing it is there—the second toughest is deciding that we ourselves are going to do something about it. "If you weaken in the day of injustice, you have no real strength. Rescue those who are seduced by the embrace of death—Grab back those who walk blindly into slaughter. If you say, "How were we to know?"—your Judge knows your motives, your every thought. He sees your mind, and He will give to everyone according to what they have done." Proverbs 24:10-12 (paraphrased by Steve Kimes). It is time to us to act upon what we know.

I Am Disturbed (in more ways than one)

2006-01-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

Hearing about three homeless folks beaten in Florida disturbs me. It doesn't disturb me that it happened so much-- frankly, it happens to homeless folks all the time, if they are passed out or so mentally ill that they are clearly helpless. I have known a number of homeless folks who have been raped, beaten while sleeping, mugged. Recently, two homeless folks have been murdered and left in the Sandy River. This is normal life, and most homeless folks are aware of it.

I guess I'm disturbed by the surprise. Why do folks think that the homeless WOULDN'T be beaten? The homeless, the mentally ill, they are the pariahs of our society, the "niggers" of the twenty first century. They are the rejects, the outcasts, the mocked. They are not taken seriously as human beings. And they are defenseless. They have no recourse, no options. If a grave injustice was done them, could they hire a lawyer and sue? Could they get the police-- who just recently raided their camps or openly harrased them on the open street-- to stand for them?

But what I'm really disturbed-- and angered-- by is the ignorance. The churches who are calling for racial and national harmony but ignore the class persecution that is happening in our backyard. We can pat ourselves on the backs because we have encouraged a process of equality, but we still neglect the least equal.

Why do you think these young, white teenagers attack the homeless and the mentally ill? Because they are easy targets? Surely this is true, but there are other targets just as easy, such as elderly widows who live alone. Because they live out of sight? Possibly, but that didn't stop the two teens from beating a man in light, in front of a camera.

The fullest cause is the disgust and fear the normal American has for the homeless and mentally ill. This comes from not understanding the truth of the situation. This comes from ignorance. I have had one person call me, supporting their prejudice against the homeless say, "It was right near a homeless camp that a friend of mine was raped!" Yes, and I have had my friends beaten and murdered by people who are middle class and live in houses-- does this mean that I have the right to limit the opportunities for all middle class homed people? It is just this kind of thinking that create prejudicial policies against the homeless.

It is time to stop the prejudice against the homeless and mentally ill. And we need to begin in our hearts. Then in our churches. Perhaps then, we can move on to society at large. But let's start now.

Prevent Schizo-phobia

2006-01-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

Give Honor, not fear, to Those with Mental Illnesses

What is mental illness?

For many, it is acting like a child, when one is an adult.
Many mentally ill people act oddly for an adult—but the same behavior in a child would be understood. In many ways, a mentally ill person acts like a child—with tantrums, threats, inappropriate questions or comments, or in just being unaware of other’s needs or concerns.

It is not being able to fulfill one’s social responsibilities for no medically discernable cause
Mentally ill people aren’t stupid. They are just as intelligent as anyone else. But they are unable to do some of the things others can do well. That isn’t any different from any of us, but the things the mentally ill are unable to do make them unable to hold down regular jobs, or to mingle appropriately in situations that most find easy to do. A mentally ill person among "normal" society is like a recent immigrant—they don’t know or are unable to act within appropriate norms.

It is consistently acting inappropriately to common stresses of life
None of us like to suffer or face difficulties, but those who are mentally ill often find themselves responding to the stresses of life in ways society or God finds unacceptable. They might scream at someone for a small infraction, or be self-destructive or hide in their room for days at a time. This doesn’t mean they are dangerous, or even unpredictable—they just are different than most of society. Mentally ill people are rarely violent to other people—as a group, the same percentage is violent as "normal" people.

It is having a chemical imbalance in one’s brain
Most doctors say that those with mental illnesses have a chemical imbalance in their brain, although this imbalance cannot be diagnosed by machinery of humanity. But those who have studied mental illness have seen some patterns of response and diagnose the illnesses these ways. If it is diagnosed, then for some, medication is available to assist those who are suffering. Such medication is not fool-proof and for some it is not the answer at all—but for many it has helped.

It is being open to spiritual attack
Most people with mental illnesses are not possessed by demons. However, because of their weaknesses, demons do like to attack them. Thus, the mentally ill need to be surrounded by prayer, but they should not be objects of derision. When approached by one who is oppressed by demons, then—if the oppressed one is ready to live for Jesus—the demons must be rebuked and sent away.

It is being weak in areas of sin
Like many of us, those with mental illnesses are vulnerable to certain sins. Perhaps their sins are more obvious because they do not have the social ability to hide their lusts and temptations. This just means that they need more gentleness and patience from those who would teach them.

How to respond to mental illness
The members of the church we consider worthy of less honor, we give more honor to, and those who are ugly we make beautiful. I Corinthians 12:23

If you dishonor those who have nothing, then you despise the church of God. I Corinthians 11:22

Did not God choose the needy of this world to be rich in faith? But you have dishonored the needy. James 2:3-4

Whoever causes one of these little ones to fall away will gain a terrible punishment. Mark 9:42

Be humble and recognize that we all have mental weaknesses in some areas
We are all mentally weak in some areas. Some cannot read, but we do not ostracize them. Some cannot speak publicly, but we are understanding of it. Those who are mentally ill are the same way, it is just that their weaknesses are socially unacceptable. Even so, we need to recognize that we could be mentally ill—and that perhaps we are mildly so, but we haven’t been diagnosed yet.

Do not fear, but try to understand
Most people respond to the mentally ill with fear, as if they might be attacked by them any minute. However, if one is understanding and patient, then you are not any more likely to be attacked by a mentally ill person than by anyone else you might meet on the street. Rather than instantly responding with fear, we should make an attempt to understand each person and what makes them tick. Perhaps you will have to stretch yourself to understand the mentally ill, but understanding is the first step to love.

Do not judge, but listen
We should not judge the mentally ill person, but we should listen to them (James 1:19). At first, what they say may not make much sense. But over time you will find that every mentally ill person has a logical consistency of their own. Perhaps you will feel that they are living in a different world than you, but soon you will understand why they act like they do.

Do not reject, but pray for deliverance
Just because someone acts in ways we do not understand, that doesn’t mean that we should reject them. Perhaps someone is overtaken by sin—they do not deserve our hatred or rejection, instead they deserve our prayers because they are oppressed by something stronger than themselves. This is the same for the mentally ill person—they are overtaken by something too powerful for them. In that circumstance, we should pray for their deliverance, and expect God to respond in their lives.

Do not separate, but welcome
Some want to protect their churches or meetings from those with mental illnesses, and so they give the mentally ill "special" groups or "special" homes. But if we want someone to cease from being a gossip, do we house them with a lot of other gossips? Won’t that reinforce the same behavior? Rather, we should welcome the mentally ill into our churches and Bible studies and prayer meetings (James 2:1). Perhaps we will have to spend extra time on the mentally ill, but that is only because they have more needs.

Do not teach "normalcy" but repentance, humility and love
In Christian discipleship, the goal is not to be a "normal citizen", but a person who is delivered and transformed into one who acts like Jesus. Perhaps that will mean that the mentally ill person will remain mentally ill—but transformed by Christ, nevertheless. The Lord can deliver people from self-destructive behavior and train them to love others, but he may or may not deliver them completely from depression or a social disorder. Our goal, as Christians, is to repent of our sins, to live in humility and to love all people— even so, these should be the goals of the mentally ill Christian.

What the Bible Says About Our Response To The Poor

2006-01-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

No matter how great you think you are, if you oppress the poor, God will crush you and make you die. (Psalm 82)

Those who oppress the poor will die at God’s hand, but the righteous poor will be given the wealth of the wicked. (Psalm 37)

The society that listens to God’s word and provides for the poor will have no poor among them. However, because of the disobedience of his people, the poor will always be among the people. (Deuteronomy 15:4-11)

While many love the rich, even the neighbor of the poor hates them. If you hate your neighbor in need, you sin, but if you help the poor, God blesses you. (Proverbs 14:20-21)

The Creator will punish the one who mocks the poor. (Proverbs 17:5)

Sell what you have and give to the poor. (Luke 12:33)

Invite the poor to your parties and events. (Luke 14:13)

Associate with the lowly, treating them as equals, and so love your neighbor as yourself. (James 2:1-8)

The one who is kind to the poor is giving a loan to God and God will repay in time. (Proverbs 19:17)

Until the poor are assisted, God will not listen to our prayers. But after we do justice to the oppressed, then the Lord will answer our cries. (Isaiah 58:6-11)

The economics of God is that those who have more than what they need give to those who have need, so that everyone’s need is met. At another time, one who was given to will give to those who gave, so all give and all receive in their need. (II Corinthians 8:12-15)

When you give, give out of compassion and care for the other person’s need, or it does you no good. (I Corinthians 13:3)

When you give to the poor, do it for God’s sake, not for your own benefit so others will be impressed or give you benefit for your giving. If you give to be rewarded by men, you will receive nothing from God for your work. (Matthew 6:1-3)

Stop HOBOphobia

2006-01-13T16:24:00.000-08:00

Countless times a day, homeless people are rejected, falsely accused, harassed, ticketed, and even beat up, all for the "crime" of not having a roof over their heads or of being dirty or of carrying all their possessions in a backpack. The homeless are treated as the outcast of society, as those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Yet the homeless are not the cause of the evils of our society. Nor are they necessarily the outcome of our evils. The homeless are people—people who want to live and love and hope and work, just like you do. Let us not continue to punish those who are lowly in our society, but help them.

Battle the cliches of the homeless

The homeless are "us", not "them"—Many of the homeless are good Christians or children of important citizens. Many of our neighbors and friends have been homeless at one time or another. Homelessness is not an evil, or even necessarily a tragedy—it is a stage of life that many of us have gone through.

The homeless DO work—While most do not have jobs, they do work hard, some harder than people who have "regular jobs". It is not easy to get up at 6am to get to dumpsters before anyone else and climb in many of them in order to get recycled cans. Other homeless volunteer at free hot meals and shelters.

Not all homeless are alcoholics—In general, about one third of the homeless have alcohol or drug abuse problems. Many more have mental health or social difficulties. Many have had tragedies that have overwhelmed them, such as a loss of a job or the suicide of a spouse or family member.

Not all homeless are criminals or violent—Most homeless abhor the crime and violence done by the few homeless who do because it gets them accused. The homeless have the same percentage of theft and violence as those who are housed.

Teach your children and the community not to hate the homeless.
The majority of violent crimes against the homeless are done by middle class youth who feel that they have the right to violently fulfill the prejudices of their parents and community. If our youth and community learn that the homeless are human—people like us—then such crimes will be reduced, even eliminated.

Meet and listen to homeless people
Find out the times and locations of local free meals and sit at the table with the homeless. Find out their real motivations and hopes and desires. You may find that they do not differ that much from your own. Be patient with a homeless person’s oddness—you seem just as odd to them.

Include the homeless in social events
Invite the homeless to community and church functions. However, because many of them do not believe that they would be welcome, certain assurances must be made:
It is not necessary to be well-dressed for the function.
It may be necessary to provide transportation to and from the event.
An announcement may be necessary to make sure that everyone is accepting of the homeless.

Support benevolence organizations that assist the homeless
Volunteer at a free meal, give to an organization that helps the homeless, give blankets and clothes to a shelter. Call a local church to find out where you can help the homeless. As you give and volunteer be a friend to those you are helping—seeing and meeting them— not a distant, nameless Benefactor.

Provide opportunities for the homeless
Provide what the homeless REALLY need—opportunities to shower, socks, clean clothes, an address, a chance to work for money, a chance to do volunteer work for others. Be a friend to the homeless and help them get the resources they need.

A Dangerous Medium

2005-12-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

Good morning, my brothers. I am honored that you have chosen me to speak to you, the All-Wealthy Fathers Under Liberty, for I have been concerned about our plight for some time. We have been subjected to oppression long enough! (Cheers in the crowd.) I was shocked last week to hear Brother Steven’s speech on hate crime in motion pictures. Up until this point, I have enjoyed the James Bond movies—but no more. Now I understand that they are simply anti-rich propaganda, intended to throw suspicion upon the good brothers who have worked hard to obtain their wealth. How dare they make Dr. No or the other villains wealthy? All of them? Clearly, just as our brother has pointed out, it is simple prejudice and jealousy! (More cheers.) I thank Brother Arnold for his insider’s view and especially for his work in banning these films, as well as any others which portray the wealthy according to stereotypes, instead of the truly honorable men we are. Let the media put the specter of suspicion where it belongs—on the government and the poor! (More cheers.) Let us bring back more wholesome programming, such as Schindler’s List and The Millionaire! (More cheers.)

As serious as the prejudice found in movies is, there is yet another, more insidious cultural influence that we must be concerned about. Movies and magazines, television and newspapers, and, of course, the internet—all have their various forms of prejudice and oppression against the rich and all need to be influenced, such as our Brother Rupert, Brother Ted and Brother Bill have done. But there is another, greater influence that has been all but overlooked. There is a medium that has been influential, not just for decades, a century or a century and a half, but for millennia! It has been used by the enemies of the rich, oppressing us and destroying us since time immemorial! It is the cause of many of the wars against the rich—The Lombard uprising of the 1400s in England, the Thirty Years War in Germany in the 1500s, and it is still used as a primary inspiration of the communists in Latin America today! And while you may think that these events are too out of touch with our current structure, I need to inform you that this medium—this dangerous piece of literature—is in the majority of homes in the United States. Right now. And many of you have read this book, yea, even quoted this book. By now, you have probably guessed what I am speaking about, but you dare not say its name, nor even think it. Yes, that’s right, I am speaking of the Bible—the New Testament in particular.

Perhaps some of you are ready to stand up and speak against me now, because I am speaking ill of a book that you hold so dear. Perhaps some are ready to walk out on me, because much of your wealth—the very reason you are here—has come in part because of your talent in speaking on this particular book. I do not begrudge your use of it, Brothers—especially our dear Brother Robert and Brother Benny. I appreciate your skill and tact in opening this book and carefully directing the thoughts of those who read it. You religious leaders have been essential to our cause, and our most important supporters! You have succeeded to make wealth popular and important among your people with greater success than any of us have! We thank you for your work! (Clapping throughout the hall.)

But we must also recognize how dangerous this book is. The Bible is a complex and multi-faceted piece of literature. It is sixty-six different books, written by a variety of authors over at least a thousand years. Their perspectives vary, as do the issues they discuss. With this, there is much for anyone to expound upon with safety. There are examples of wealthy people who are heroes in this collection of scrolls—Abraham, Jacob, Boaz, Job, Solomon and Esther. However, even these are marginal victories. Abraham and Job are seen as righteous, not because of their wealth, but because of their generosity, faith and sacrifice. Boaz is righteous for assisting a poor, illegal immigrant. Solomon is famous for his wisdom, but ultimately rejected for his disobedience of God’s law and idolatry. Esther is of an oppressed racial minority, which is the real focus of her story. And Jacob is displayed as obtaining his wealth through deceit and the power of God, and suffering greatly in his later life because of his trickery early in his life.

In the Old Testament, where all of these stories take place, there are dangerous themes that crop up now and again. We have a sympathetic woman, gaining a child after praying for so many years, saying, “The weapons of the powerful are cast down and the weak take up strength.” One of the many psalmists say, “Better is the little of the righteous than the wealth of the wicked.” In the book of Proverbs it says, “Give me neither poverty nor wealth, lest I become arrogant and say, ‘Who is God?’” Another psalmist says, “These are the wicked who have increased in wealth.”

In the prophets of the Old Testament, the danger to us increases. Ezekiel says that the sins of Sodom is that the city was wealthy and arrogant, refusing to help the poor and needy. Jeremiah says that the wealthy in his day became so because of deceit. Micah claims that the rich of his day were “full of violence”. Of course, this is blatant prejudice, painting all the wealthy with the same stroke. Nevertheless, the Old Testament is not problematic overall. None of these passages must be thought of as speaking of the rich in general. While there seems to be a theme—especially that of obtaining wealth through violence and deceit—it is not consistent, and we can avoid such pitfalls by our Bible-brokers speaking of these cases as being rare, while most wealthy are good and right before God.

The real problem comes in the New Testament. This is a revolutionary text, and I do not mean that positively. It is speaking from the perspective of the disorderly elements of society, those that disrupt the proper flow of economics and authority. As many of us well know, it is within this tome of subversive writers that we have a few passages that support the lower classes being in submission to the upper classes—and this is as it should be. However, it is always spoken of in the context of the upper classes oppressing and harming the lower classes. The New Testament has nothing good to say about us, brothers.

Let us take, for example, a brief letter to various churches, written by the brother or cousin of Jesus, James, or perhaps by his students. James was an important figure in the early church and his word was considered law by many groups of this fledgling— but revolutionary— religious movement. He had much to say about us, my brothers—and none of it was good. Listen to this: “The poor brother should be glad for his high position, and the wealthy should be glad for his lowly position, for even as a flower in bloom will soon fade and become ugly, so will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuit of wealth.” Again, listen to this: “God chose the poor of this world to be rich in faith… but it is the wealthy that drag you into court and oppress you.” (A few gasps in the midst of a shocked silence.) But this is not all. This so-called “just” James dares to make yet another, horrible, prejudicial remark. This is difficult for me to read, and it is extremely shocking, so please be prepared for it: “Weep and howl, you rich, for your miseries are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are destroyed. Your gold and silver have rusted, and it’s rust is a witness against you in God’s judgment. The laborers you have hired are crying out against you for you have withheld their wages and it will be heard by the Lord of the harvest. You have lived… luxuriously on earth…” I’m sorry, I’m trying… “and you have… fattened yourself for the day of slaughter.” (Stunned silence.)

I hope you are outraged as much as I am. This is blatant hate speech. It is more forthrightly prejudiced against us than almost anything I have ever heard or read, except perhaps that despicable song by Aerosmith. And if it was only in the letter of James—which our Brother Martin Luther called a “right straw epistle”—then perhaps it could be bearable. The book is small, it could be avoided.

But who can avoid Jesus? Yet Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. But woe to you who are rich for you have already received your comfort! Woe to you who are well fed, for you shall go hungry! Woe to you who are entertained now, for you shall weep!” It is Jesus who says, “No one can serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other. No one can serve both God and wealth.” It is Jesus who says, “Sell all your possessions and give to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven.” It is Jesus who says, “None of you can be my disciple unless you renounce all of your possessions.” It is Jesus who says, “You say ‘I am wealthy, I have need of nothing,’ but you do not see that you are poor and blind and wretched and miserable and naked.”

Do you not see? The real enemy of our cause in this so-called Holy Writ is not James, but Jesus himself. It is Jesus that enacted the change that turned the Bible from a humble critic of the excess of the unrighteous rich to an attack on all of us! These terrible, poor-loving, deceptive words, in blatant opposition to the equality of rich men everywhere were spoken by the founder of the Jesus movement himself! I know that many of you scholars might be saying, “Well, Jesus may not have said that,” or, “there are certianly other interpretations.” Of course there are. Of course there are doubts. But the clear reading of the text is impossible to deny when brought all together.

Allow me to repeat a couple main points. This book is dangerous. It works directly against our cause, and influences the simple minded to be prejudiced against the wealthy. Secondly, this book is in the majority of American homes! There are people who read from this book daily! Worst of all, there are many who actually believe this book to be God’s own Word and so might very well believe what it says. Now, we know, Brothers, that God supports us and our cause—let there be no question about that. God has granted us our wealth and so wants us to rule the world and influence the people with it. And so God has given us a commission—we must subvert the clear meaning of this book. It is a book filled with despicable lies that will tear down the fabric of our very society. And so we must continue the work accomplished so boldly by our forefather Thomas Jefferson.

We must discourage the reading of this book as much as possible. If the masses are to read anything, let them read the relatively safe Old Testament. Even better, we must follow in the ways of our Muslim brothers and claim through our media that both New and Old Testaments have been superseded by greater, better, teaching. The best, most popular teaching are the new ethics based upon scientific principles. This allows us to support an ethics that are based on positive, capitalistic principles. In this way, the hate speech may be muted, and we will regain our former glory and honor that we deserve to have.

I see my time is up. Thank you for your apt attention, brothers. (Wild applause breaks out.)

Reasons for Not Giving

2005-12-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

Top Ten Excuses for Not Giving to the Poor (aka, oppression)

1. "They are stealing from hard working people"— Keeping one’s possessions secure They just want to take advantage of me
2. "They need to get a job"— They are just lazy,
3. "I’m up to my eyeballs in debt."— I don’t have any extra
4. "My family comes first"—I need to care for my own first
5. "The poor will be with us always"—The need is so big, who can fix it?
6. "They’ll just use it for drugs and alcohol"—They will use what I give for evil purposes
7. "I worked for my money"—I can use my wealth as I please
8. "I need to be a good steward of God’s money"—Giving to the poor is a waste of resources
9. "Is it the right thing to do?" Money doesn’t really help them anyway

And the only real excuse that I've never heard:
10. It’s too much work to do it right

Wealth and the Revolution

2005-12-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

All institutions are based on wealth. The economics of the wealth—how the resources are moved and who controls them—change with the times and with each society. But wealth is instrumental to how institutions and powerful people operate. Ancient institutions we primarily about the collection of wealth and the distribution of it to the powerful. Nothing much has changed. As can be seen in any corporation or government, the bottom line is always about finances—who gets what wealth.
Revolution always promises to change the system of how wealth is distributed. And it always says that the lower classes will gain more wealth. And sometimes that is true. Until the lower classes become the upper classes and then suddenly they want to keep the newly-gained income they’ve achieved through their hard work. People are people, no matter which side of the tracks their on and they want to gain and keep as much wealth as they can.
Jesus is proposing a new system of distributing wealth.
The Revolution Jesus is proposing is prepared to punish anyone who uses their wealth strictly for their own gain and pleasure. In other words, anyone who has excess wealth—money or possessions that are not needed, possibly termed "disposable income"—and they use it for their own gain when there are those who have need, they will be punished. Those who keep resources for their own greed will not be accepted in a system that focuses on meeting the needs of everyone.
When the Revolution comes, they will first take all the "rich"—all those who used their disposable income for their own gain—and they will either punish or exile all of them. Then the Revolution will punish everyone who uses wealth in a way that harms those around them. These punishments will be quite severe, for the use of wealth and resources for everyone who has need is a basic tenant of the Revolution.
This does not mean that fun will not be had. Perhaps you think of the Revolution as a peasant revolution, where everyone is miserable and living on almost nothing. Just the opposite. The Revolution will be characterized by parties and feasts. The only difference between these parties and feasts and the ones you see now is that in the Revolution, the parties will not be exclusive. They are for everyone and all races, all languages, all kinds, all peoples will be involved in them.
And so, as an ethic in preparation for the coming Revolution, Jesus strongly recommends that you take any extra provision you have—any extra money or possession that you have—and use it for those who have need. Perhaps you will allow those who have need to use what you have through loans or shared use. Perhaps you will sell what you have and make the income available to those in need. Perhaps you will just give things away. But take care that you do not just collect and keep for yourself what is not necessary.
The Revolution is coming!

2005-12-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

Once there was a good Christian man who was wealthy. He would read his Bible daily, praise God every Sunday and he treated his family well. Every day he would walk to his office from his house. One day, as he was walking to his office, he saw a man in disheveled, dirty clothes, holding a sign which said, "Homeless—anything will help." The disheveled man looked, pleading with the Christian with his eyes. The Christian turned his head, saying to himself, "He needs to get a job instead of bothering good people on the street." The next day the Christian saw a filthy woman holding a sign which said, "Pregnant and homeless, please help." She asked him, "Could you spare a few dollars so I could get a motel room," he replied, "Isn’t there a shelter you could go to?" And he passed her by. The next day the Christian saw a man with brown skin sitting on the sidewalk with one leg missing. The man asked with a deep accent, "Could you please assist me in any way?" The Christian became upset with all of these interruptions of his pleasant morning meditation, and he yelled, "Can’t you people just leave me alone? Why don’t you just go back where you came from?"
As he walked into his office on that third day, the Christian had a heart attack and died. The angels picked him up and delivered him immediately (or so it seemed to him) to the Father for judgment. The Father looked down at him and said, "This week you have been tested. I sent you three of my angels, to see how you would respond to them. I have brought them here to witness to your action." The first angel, no longer disheveled, but wearing white robes said, "This Christian refused to help me." The second angel, no longer dirty, said, "He told me to find a shelter, but offered no help." The third angel, with his leg fully intact, said, "This Christian told me to go back where I came from. So I am here. He refused to help me." The Father looked at the man and judged: "You have done evil to your brothers and sisters. I gave you many blessings, and you refused to help those in need. You will be punished eternally."
As the enforcement officers came to take the Christian away, he called to the Father, "But Lord, Lord—what about my family? Shouldn’t they be given a chance? Please send one of these angels to them to explain to them their sin so they can repent." The Father replied, "Do they not read my Word daily? If they ignore the one who has been risen from the dead, they will not listen to an angel."