Now, many Christians themselves try and help the poor. Many believe that they should work towards ending poverty in the world. Some people help the poor in obedience to Jesus Christ and share their wealth with those who need it. In businesses, some Christians make sure that their way of earning money doesn’t hurt anybody in the process. Christians all around the world take part in charities and help raise money for the poor. One such person was Mother Teresa, ““Our love of the poor comes from our love of Jesus. We try to serve him in the poorest of the poor.” She taught children in the slums of Calcutta, India. She ran hospitals and did whatever she could to raise money to feed the poor and hungry. She received the Nobel Prize in 1976 in recognition for the work she had done and died in 1997. In 2000, there was a project on Christianity, Poverty and Wealth in the 21st century. The object of this project was to deal with the problem of poverty and wealth within the Christian Churches worldwide. The project wanted to unite all the churches together to fight against greed and worldwide poverty. Today, the Churches have played an essential part in the campaign to get rid of Third World Debt.
World Development
The world is in a terrible state with more than half of the world’s population living in dire poverty and in desperate need for help. The rich are too rich while the poor live in extreme conditions to shocking to consider. The gap between the wealthy and the deprived is growing more and more day by the day. It is time for this to stop and for the world to look forward to one where everyone is equal in every aspect.
Poverty is a financial condition in which people don’t have enough money to gain minimum levels of health services, food, housing, clothing, and education. These things are necessary to ensure a sufficient standard of living. Relative poverty is when a person’s income is below the average for their particular society. Absolute poverty is when people do not have enough food to remain healthy. Poverty tends to lead to more poverty and in some cases it is passed from one generation to another. It is an endless cycle in which once people enter, they are trapped. Poverty is closely associated with crime. Other social problems, such as mental illness and alcoholism, are common effects of poverty.
The world’s countries are classified into three groups. The First World Countries are rich and developed countries that are very important to the overall world’s economy. Second World Countries are communist countries. Third World Countries are countries that are poor and are still developing. These are the countries that are filled with problems related to poverty, hunger, sickness and suffering. Some of the world’s poorest nations in the world are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. The World Bank defined the international poverty line as U.S. $1 and $2 per day in 1993. The $1 per day level is generally used for the least developed countries, primarily African and the $2-per-day level is used for developing countries like those of East Asia and Latin America. In 2003 there were 1.2 billion out of the developing world's 4.8 billion people living on $1 per day, while another 2.8 billion were living on less than $2 per day. In 2003, the richest fifth of the world's population received 85% of the total world income, while the poorest fifth received just 1.4% of the global income.
World development is curing the problem of poverty in third world countries. The main way this can be achieved is through aid given by developed nations such as the USA or UK.
Earlier in this century and in the last, financial aid was given to poor countries such as Mexico and some African countries. However, these aids had strings attached. Many of the countries asked for a payback with interest. Some also asked that all the countries products should be brought from the country that is helping them. Through this, countries like Mexico have fallen into debt and are unable to payback what they own. This is known as the poverty trap, a situation in which an unemployed person will lose money by working because more will be lost in expenditure than is gained in income.
World development is necessary for the world. People all over are starving and in need of clean, drinkable water. AIDS and other terrible diseases are widespread among many countries. Two billion people are unable to receive any electricity. Millions of children aren’t able to attend a school. God made this world where everyone was born equally. Everyone has the right to live in comfortable conditions where they have a sturdy shelter, good food to eat and enough money to support a family. This world is for everyone not just a select few. The rich have enough money to help thousands belonging to poverty- stricken areas. It is about time they did. We have the resources to end poverty. Then why shouldn’t we do so? Poverty is one of the worst aspects of our planet and needs to be eradicated as soon as possible.
CAFOD – Catholic Agency for Overseas Development
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development is a large Christian charity that has been fighting poverty since 1962 when it was set up by a few Catholic bishops in England and Wales. CAFOD is part of Caritas Internationalis, a worldwide group of Catholic relief and development charities. CAFOD uses Christian teachings and the Bible to help the poor and unfortunate.
“The aims of CAFOD are to:
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Empower people in need regardless of their race, gender, religion or politics to bring about change through development and relief programmes overseas.
- Raise public awareness of poverty and injustice, increasing understanding of the world-wide interdependence of rich and poor, and creating the will to change unjust structures and lifestyles.
- Act as an advocate for the poor, articulating a clear analysis of the underlying causes of poverty and challenging governments and international bodies to adopt policies which incorporate the principles of social justice.”
Taken from CAFOD’s website
CAFOD is a charity where there are no members; only full time staff who work there. CAFOD believes that it is part of the Catholic Church and that all Catholics are members of it. It wishes to reinforce the hope into people who are unfortunate. CAFOD believes in a world where everyone has access to food, shelter, clean water, good health and education. It believes that education is one of the most important things in a person’s life and is an absolute must.
CAFOD strongly believes in eradicating the problem of poverty in third world countries. They collect information about the problem and supports local charities as well as contacting larger organisations. CAFOD aims at eradicating debt in third world countries. Countries such as Brazil are unable to produce enough money for their own country let alone pay off aid from developed nations. In December 2002, CAFOD supporters marched through the streets London to launch the Drop the Debt campaign. Recently, CAFOD has been part of the Fairtrade campaign. This campaign’s aim is to end the unfairness in the way rich countries and businesses do business with the poor. The Fairtrade wishes to ensure a better deal for disadvantaged third world producers. Set up by , , New Consumer, , and the , Fairtrade has created a consumer label, the Fairtrade Mark, to products which meet internationally recognised standards of fair trade. Some of the products Fairtrade deals with are coffee, tea, chocolate and nuts. Through this label, labourers all around the world are respected and are paid the rightful amount of which they earn through hard work.
In November 2001, CAFOD emergency aid helped people in Afghanistan and refugee camps in Pakistan. In January 2002, CAFOD, Caritas India and the Government of Gujarat marked the first anniversary of the Gujarat earthquake with the opening of the rebuilt Raidhanpar village. The earthquake which killed over 20,000 people in the state of Gujarat, India in the beginning of 2001 left many homeless and an extremely high loss of property. In January 2002, when violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories were at its highest, CAFOD donated £40,000 for emergency and technical assistance. CAFOD also donated more than £110,000 to Islamic Relief for its medical work with Chechen refugees in Ingushetia, and a further £56,000 to Caritas Czech for its work with children in Ingushetia and Chechnya. CAFOD receives their funds from people all around the world and use it for long term development work, emergency situations such as earthquakes or floods, campaigns on behalf of the poor and to educate people about poverty and about world development.
“There should be no rich people as long as there is poverty in the world.”
On the issue on wealth and poverty in accordance with the Christian teachings, I disagree with the statement above. I believe that God has given us a world where we are all given free will. Some people have worked hard and earned millions. Some may have fallen prey to tyrants or corrupted leaders. Some may have been lazy. I agree that wealthy people should certainly help poverty- stricken people and this is what is said for them to do in the Bible, but they shouldn’t completely give up their entire wealth in their favour.
Furthermore, poverty has grown in the last couple of decades due to injustice within countries. The poor are getting poorer and poorer and something has to be done to stop this. Charities have been set up by many and earn the money mainly through the rich. In other words, rich people are needed to eradicate poverty. They can provide jobs, they can donate money and they can teach the poor ways of handling money through their experience. There would be no point if a person gives up all their wealth and goes and joins the poor as this would benefit no one except a fair few. By giving a charity a whole load of money, the charity would hand it to the poor. The poor might in return spend it carelessly and would return to the same state they were in earlier. Instead, I believe that the rich should give some money and go and help the poor on how to handle it properly and to utilise it in such a way that it helps them to live a better life.
However, others may argue that it isn’t fair when people are born into rich families and are wealthy even though they haven’t worked for their wealth while others are being born into impoverished families where poverty has been a problem for generations. Moreover, they may even argue that everyone should be equal in their status and amount of wealth owned.
Christian teachings in the Bible state that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” 1Timothy 6:10. I agree with this as it is true that most ‘sins’ are results of financial issues such as stealing. God never condemned wealthy people and both the rich and the poor are equal in his eyes. He didn’t mind people being wealthy as long as they didn’t relish the idea that they were wealthy or used their wealth in the wrong way such as gambling or pride. Additionally, the Bible also teaches that the rich should give money to the poor. No where does it say that there should be no rich people whatsoever. It accepts that there are both rich and poor people in the world. Jesus didn’t command everyone to give everything away to the poor. He only commanded the rich ruler who may have had a problem with greed and told him that “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” Luke 18:25.
However, other Christians might disagree and argue that God never accepted the rich in heaven and that it would be better for everyone to have a sufficient amount of wealth to keep them alive and to serve God as this would gain them entry to heaven. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” Luke 6:20.
Having examined all the opinions above, I believe that the rich should not give up all their wealth in service of the poor but should help them to increase their standard of living and to provide them with a better life through charity work and the improvement of certain policies concerning the poor. Many of the rich are born into families that owned great amounts of wealth and that they don’t have to work. I agree that this is unfair to people who work hard day and night yet don’t earn a sufficient amount of money but that’s part of life and possibly part of God’s plan. If we are bestowed with a great amount of wealth, we might as well put it to some good use and help others.