Good News for the Poor?
One evening, a group of my friends were gathered around the dinner table, discussing Denver's homelessness issue, when one friend recalled how he did an experiment in college in which he pretended to be homeless for a week. He slept on the streets, ate from shelters, and even panhandled for money just to see what it was like to be homeless. In jest, I leaned over to my friend Ike and said that he should try it. “Why would I ever do that?” he said, “I've been poor before and gone without food. I would never go back to being poor.” For Ike, poverty was real—the scars from nights without food still fresh. Poverty was not some social experiment he needed to practice, but an offender he wanted to leave. For someone who has never experienced poverty or homelessness, perhaps such an experiment is needed to learn empathy, but for someone like Ike who has been poor for much of his life, the experiment was the anti-gospel.
In some Christian circles, you're more likely to hear a four letter word than the words “prosperity,” “victory,” or “success.” This is because some Christians who have tried to sell Christianity like car insurance have misused the terms, and instead of redeeming them, many have opted to throw them away altogether. In reaction, some current trends elevate a spirituality of poverty as ideal. The ideal Christian, then, is a reincarnated hippie who lives off rice and ramen noodles, bikes to work every day, never buys Apple products (or only buys them), and tries to avoid squishing bugs when walking. There is much to admire about that expression of Christianity, since it confronts the idols of wealth and power that rule our culture. And one of the most tangible forms of repentance for the privileged is willfully sacrificing one's privilege so that it can be shared with others who have less. However, I've found a spirituality of poverty gravely inadequate, and even dangerous, if it's not tempered with a spirituality of victory, especially when directed towards those who are poor or recovering from poverty.
A spirituality of poverty can take form both socially and privately. Socially, the leading voice of the movement is Shane Claiborne, founder of the Simple Way. I remember the first time I saw Claiborne hovering a foot above the average person, gliding through a hotel lobby in his homemade clothes while his dreadlocks dangled on top of his head. I thought to myself, “he looks a lot like Jesus.” At least, he resembled the Jesus depicted in much of classical art. I don't know him personally, but by all accounts his character also resembles Jesus'. As I've heard the heart of Claiborne's message at different conferences and in various books (mainly The Irresistible Revolution), I've been encouraged by how he inspires the privileged to repentance by modeling simplicity. At the same time, there’s a great need for a message and model that contextualizes the gospel for the underprivileged who have been forced into poverty and simplicity by unfair circumstances rather than spiritual discipline.
I've encountered a similar phenomenon with authors and theologians who advocate spiritual poverty in the private sphere. A good friend of mine strongly suggested I read The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out by Brennan Manning because it transformed his self-perception as someone who was fighting a decade-long battle with a porn addiction. I read the book and appreciated Manning's relentless reminder that God loves his children in the middle of our addictions and failures. He helped me to further understand that I am a son who mustn't wait to be fixed to experience God's love. I had a good discussion with my friend about the book. All was well until he said to me, “I'll always be a recovering porn-addict.” That was his way of accepting his lowly Ragamuffin status. A mild debate arose between us. I told him that he was not “a porn-addict,” but a son of God who struggled with porn. He again insisted that he was merely an addict. I know it sounds like a petty correction, but the difference between the two statements is monumental—our very identity is at stake. That was when I first noticed a hole in Manning's book. Yes, we are as he says, “ragamuffins” but we are also so much more—we are sons, kings, queens, rulers, treasures.
The fundamental issue is that depending on one's social or psychological status, the gospel speaks a different message to different people—it brings the rich down but lifts the poor up (James 1:9, 10). Jesus establishes a great reversal of fortune in his kingdom where the first are last and the last are first. This great reversal means that those who are poor in this world are very rich in his kingdom, and vice versa. Which side of the gospel a person emphasizes depends on which side of the social stratum his or her audience is on. Nonetheless, a healthy view of the gospel will, over time, emphasize both sides. Theologian Jürgen Moltmann says that on the cross, Christ both “identifies God with the victims of violence” and identifies “the victims with God, so that they are put under God's protection and with him are given the rights of which they have been deprived” [1]. A spirituality of poverty gets the identification part but neglects the endowment of rights. A refreshing gospel for Ike—rather than the anti-gospel—reminds him of his incredible value, and promises a future where his needs are provided for. The good news is incomplete until we find tangible ways to free the poor from their plight—enduring poverty with them is merely a short-term solution. So, before you sell all your possessions to go live among the poor, maybe a better option is to keep them and invite the poor to live with you.
1. Miraslov Volf, Exclusion and Embrace (33)