Discussions about poverty and charity belie what we think about human nature, about the world, and about who and what causes problems.  The Edge of the American West quotes a chunk of dialogue from an old film called Sullivan’s Travels, and it reveals the two main views of poverty in a clear and compelling way.  Burrows is the butler character. 

Burrows: You see, sir, rich people and theorists, who are usually rich people, think of poverty in the negative, as the lack of riches, as disease might be called the lack of health, but it isn’t, sir. Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with Filth, Criminality, Vice and Despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned.

Sullivan: Well, you seem to have made quite a study of it.

Burrows: Quite unwillingly, sir.

So, let’s unpack that.  What’s Burrows saying, and what’s your reaction to it?

HT: Footnoted, the blog of The Chronicle of Higher Education

When I have eyes to survey the riches we often take for granted, I can’t help but recall this portion of the 30th chapter of Proverbs:

“Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion,
That I not be full and deny You and say,
‘Who is the Lord?’
Or that I not be in want and steal,
And profane the name of my God”

I’m used to praying that my family won’t be impoverished. I read this proverb and think that we needn’t worry about the other end of the spectrum, that we are a long way from riches. But it occurs to me that we enjoy a living standard that is wealthy, compared to the rest of the world, and certainly to the writer of this proverb. We are full, we are fat and happy, and we are surrounded by distractions that invite us to say, not with our mouths but with our actions and inactions, “Who is the Lord?”

Immanuel is no less God with us when we find ourselves amidst plenty, but our attention is naturally lured, most of us, to trinkets and comforts. It makes me wonder if, when I am praying that poverty never befalls my family, I ought to pray that we see more clearly through our abundant blessings. This is an especially compelling notion as I consider the trash bags crammed into and around our trash can outside, stuffed with wrapping paper and food packaging.

When it comes to Christmas, we needn’t adopt stern asceticism, any more than we should depend on good works to save our souls. We are liberated to rejoice in wealth or hardship, I think, when we have given over our hearts neither to possessions nor their absence, but to the author and perfecter of faith.

Recently my seven year-old, Stephen Caleb, read a letter we received from the Ronald McDonald House, and decided to give them all the money he’s been saving toward a robot. Caleb loves robots. He’s been talking about buying a robot for a year, and saving his dollars. But instead of buying a robot, he handed over his robot money to the woman running the local Ronald McDonald House, and smiled as he did it.

To forfeit something we hold dear, absent a heart of giving, is despicable piety. Not to be inclined to give, meanwhile, is hardheartedness. But to give so freely is, with reference to the proverb, not to be over-full at all. It is to say, to a world that wants to forget: This is the Lord. I hope one day I can shine as brightly as this seven year-old boy.

A Pew Research Center polls reveals that more African Americans are pessimistic about the future. Only one in five said life in the United States is better for blacks than it was five years ago, and the number of those optimistic that things will get better has gone down from 57% in 1986 to 44% today.

A new analysis of Census data shows some causes for the pessimism. The study finds that income has increased for both blacks and whites, but at different rates. The income gap between black and whites is gaping wider: In 1974, median black incomes were 63 percent of median white incomes, but by 2004, median black incomes had fallen to 58 percent of white incomes.

An intergenerational analysis identifies another troubling trend. In middle class black families, a majority of children eventually fall below their parent’s income, whereas a majority of children in middle class white families eventually exceed their parent’s income.

Marc Morial of the National Urban League blames the gap on “inadequate schools in black neighborhoods, workplace discrimination and too many black families with only one parent.” According to the Pew poll, the number of African Americans who blame discrimination has gone down since the 1990s. Today only three in ten blame discrimination for their struggles, and 53% say that blacks who don’t move ahead are responsible for their lack of success.

Christine Kim, domestic policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, told WoW she agrees that family structure contributes to the problem. A 2001 Heritage Foundation Study found that black and white children living in identical family circumstances had the same probability of living in poverty. The trend towards single-parent households is increasing for both races, she said: “It’s been going on for many decades and it’s been happening across the board for many different families, not just the black families.”

While older evangelicals tend to emphasize the problems of gay marriage, many younger evangelicals concentrate more on poverty-fighting and environmental issues – and that’s fine. But what happens when evangelicals understand that helping the poor and aggressively fighting global warming are at loggerheads?

I first became aware of the divide between concern for the poor and radical environmentalism in Austin a decade ago. The city went all out to protect a species of cave spiders but scrimped on police protection in poorer sections – and one result was that a deaf woman died in a gang shooting near my home. Sure, in theory we can protect both cave spiders and humans, but in reality needs and wants compete for a limited pool of money.

That’s the way it is at the intersection of poverty-fighting and environmental concerns. One of the many justifications Al Gore offers for the $150 billion annual price tag of the Kyoto accords is that global warming will increase the number of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg and others say that global warming will increase the number of people at risk for malaria by only three percent – and that with an annual expenditure of only $3 billion on health and economic measures, malaria infections could be cut by 50% over the next eight years.

Lomborg’s global priority list emphasizes reducing the incidence of disease, malnutrition, poor sanitation and bad water. He argues in Cool It (Knopf, 2007) that the high economic costs of emissions-cutting proposals will deliver meager global benefits compared to what such funds could accomplish elsewhere. Some might argue that money saved by not going to Kyoto extremes would not go to help the poor, but our goal then should be work harder politically and charitably, not to accede to waste.

“Creation care” is important. God calls us to be stewards and gardeners, caring for oxen in the ditch and relishing lilies. But the Bible also teaches that human beings, created in God’s image, are the most valuable resource on earth.

The first tide of report cards and grades and midterms is rolling, and one Chicago kid seems to be doing pretty well:

Nicholas Bounds is one of the top students in my Senior English class. He attends school every day, and often arrives to our first period class early. He works dutifully in class and faithfully completes his homework every night. He writes with honesty, intelligence and intensity. He scored a 23 in Math on the ACT. Nicholas is a shining star in the otherwise stormy night of black male education in the West Side of Chicago.

Oh, yes.  He’s also homeless: “Every day, he leaves the shelter at 7 a.m. for school and arrives back at 11 p.m. after his part-time job at U.P.S.”  This kid is a movie waiting to happen.  A great story.