Monthly Archives: August 2018

“THE DANGEROUS ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING CRITICISMS OF THE POOR”

On August 1, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

The following thought-provoking quote comes from a website that I find very stimulating, https://wordsmith.org/words/today.html.

“A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. -Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1 Aug 1819-1891)”

It is extremely easy to criticize the poor when we aren’t  . . .  aren’t poor, that is.  Of course, if we compare ourselves to the “right” people, we are all poor, aren’t we?  Whether such comparison is accurate or fair or right is another question.

I’ve been poor twice in my lifetime, once when I was a kid and once when I was in my early fifties.

I grew up on a farm.  We had plenty to eat and clothes, but not a lot besides.  But I didn’t really think of myself as poor.  In fact, I remember one year begging my mom to buy gifts for our neighbor’s children, because they were so poor.

And then, in my early fifties, I found myself out of a job, and down to my last phone call before I became officially homeless.  This close brush with homelessness was my own fault.

It is easy to criticize the poor, and to think “it’s their own durned fault”—unless, of course, you are the poor yourself.

Some people think that the Bible teaches that the poor have only themselves to blame for their poverty.  The best answer to such thinking is “Not so fast!”  Even in the book of Proverbs, which most certainly teaches personal responsibility for poverty (and almost everything else), this is not the only teaching.

Certainly, in some cases, poverty is a person’s own fault.  In particular, laziness (Proverbs 10:4; 6:10-11), drunkenness and gluttony (23:21), and an extravagant life style (21:17) causes poverty in some cases.

However, there are other causes that the book of Proverbs recognizes.  For example, Proverbs 13:23 states, “A poor person’s farm may produce much food, but injustice sweeps it all away.” (New Living Translation)

This kind of proverb brings attempts to blame the poor for their poverty to a screeching halt.

Of course, it seems to me that there is an even deeper problem with thinking we know that something is someone else’s fault.  If we have not struggled with very similar situations, we have no idea why they are as they are.  Even if we have struggled in similar ways, it is far too easy to forget just how much other people helped us with those struggles.

And even if it was our fault, it wasn’t those who reminded us that “it was our own fault” who really helped us, was it?  No!  It was those who asked, “How may I help?”

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