Words'nTone

It is down to the wire and I am finishing up my paper on the Idolatry-Poverty Juxtaposition and the Gospel. Nov 19th is fast approaching, so I have left some fine tuning and then deciding what parts not to read--I only have 40 minutes and I am supposed to leave some room for Q&A. Here is the conclusion I have decided upon. Some of its a repeat from earlier posts, but better I think. In the next post, I just want to make some personal, concluding remarks.

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Conclusion: Social Action as Christian Apologetics
Simply—more affluent suburbanites, despite a claim to a higher work ethic or a more developed sense of responsibility, didn’t do it on their own; they had help along the way. On the one hand, the non-poor’s social construction of reality which they now experience as everyday life allows them to benefit from past actions of government, not just the market, that laid much of the groundwork for continued prosperity. On the other hand, the concentration of poverty in central-cities is not simply about laziness, slothfulness, or even personal sin. (I assume the non-poor who benefit from the current structure and mediating institutions are just as much “sinners” as those living in geographic areas of concentrated poverty.) Indeed, much of what is in place and experienced now as normal arose from various forms of racism and redlining practices, as well as “the concentration of subsidized housing projects [that] destabilized and isolated the poor, while federal home-loan programs, targeting new construction exclusively, encouraged the deterioration and abandonment of urban housing.” The fact of poverty and the reality of those affected by it in the central-cities couldn’t have happened any more affectively if it were actually planned and implemented with malice. Without the aid of government policies and subsidies, as well as municipally empowered zoning laws and discriminatory business policies (such as bank red-lining), the foundation for exurban wealth in America might not have happened. Rather than lamenting this inequitable state of affairs, participants, including many non-poor believers, have been encouraged to rejoice in the “prudence” of such strategies and the institutions—not the government (they say) but capitalism and the mythical market—that sustain them. The modern, non-poor suburban dweller is the heir of such socially constructed forces.

The present model for socio-economic progress and prosperity objectifies the non-poor Christian’s reality (i.e., “home world”) through habits and experiences of everyday life that are incorporated into his or her belief system—validating the plausibility of personal faith. The problem for the non-poor Christian living in such a history and current social-location, then, experiences only a partial reality, which is a defective social construction. The Bible warns of God’s judgment upon those who create or maintain economic structures that benefit some and exclude others (e.g., Ex 22-23; Lev 19, 24; Dt 15, 24; Jer 4-8, 16-17; 22; Ez 17-18, 22; Am 4:1ff; Mic 2:1-2; Zech 7; Isa 5:7ff), that pave the way to prosperity for some and prolonged, generational poverty for others. The non-poor accept a world that is duplicitous, limiting the historic and current benefits of a socio-economic system to those the “market blessed.”

In Man in Revolt, Emil Brunner famously remarked, “For every civiliation, for every period of history, it is true to say, ‘show me what kind of gods you have, and I will tell you what kind of humanity you possess.’” For the Christian and Christian community it is “show me what kind of gods do you worship and I will tell you what kind of relationship you have with those in poverty.” The reality of everyday life, the acceptance that Suburban life and its enablers, the free market and human acts of power, are often at odds with the Gospel, especially a Gospel that has been formed by the idolatry-poverty juxtaposition. For the non-poor Christian this is an idolatrous mode of living and does not offer a biblically defensible apologetic for the God revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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