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BRINGING GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR
This text is part of the symposium on poverty and the poor, organised by the Institute for
Faith and Education of Baylor University and recently held on the University’s campus.
It may be quoted, but only with the express permission of the author, whose email
address can be found at the end.
Introduction
“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the
poor have good news brought to them” (Luke 7.22)
My task in this presentation is to offer a theoretical framework for considering a
practical Christian response to poverty as an integral part of the Church’s calling or
mission, an inescapable element of its very raison d’etre. From the outset, we should
remind ourselves that we are speaking of the poor, who are real people living in
concrete situations all over the globe, not just about poverty as an abstract concept.
Poverty is experienced by actual human beings, created in the image of God. Whether
they live close by or at a distance, they are our neighbours (Lk. 10.29-37). They belong
to families like us; their needs are the same as ours. However, unlike most of us, they
have been born into circumstances that have given them little or no opportunity to
escape from the humiliating cycle of poverty in which their community is trapped.
I will begin by highlighting three important aspects of this theme, which will set the
direction for all that follows. First, the reality of the poor is taken seriously in the whole
of the Bible. It might be an exaggeration to say that they appear on every page.
Nevertheless, as we shall see, their plight is seen as a major concern in every strand of
literature, 1
especially in the ministry of Jesus Christ (see, for example, Lk. 4.18; 6.20;
11.41; 12.33; 14.13).
Secondly, from its very beginning the Church has shown a special care for the poor.
Early in its life, the diaconal ministry was given prominence. The main task of the
deacons was to attend to the sick and aid the poor. In the second and third centuries,
churches cared for the sick during plagues that afflicted significant portions of
population in the Mediterranean basin. Later, “monasteries were well known as places
of hospitality and refuge during the cataclysmic events of the great migrations during
the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries”. 2
Most of the oldest established educational
institutions in Europe, sponsored by Christian communities, began their life by giving
free tuition to children of the poor. In its origins the Pietist movement of the 17th and
18th centuries paid special attention to the social responsibility of Christians. People like
Philipp Spener and Hermann Francke raised awareness among rulers, Church leaders
and ordinary people of their responsibilities towards those living in conditions of
extreme poverty. Francke, in particular, created many institutions for the alleviation of
poverty, not least those that promoted education. The modern mission movement has
spent much time and energy in attending to excluded and oppressed peoples, such as
lepers, outcasts, abandoned children and young girls exploited in religious prostitution.
1
The Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom literature, the Gospels and Epistles.
2
See, Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for