So the Bible teaches us that it is good to have money as long as we share it with the poor and never let it become a priority ahead of God.
If this money is misused and abused it can lead to poverty all around the world. Absolute poverty is when you have absolutely nothing and everyday is a struggle for survival. Relative poverty just means when you are not are well off as someone else meaning that they have something better than you. Absolute poverty is rarely found in developed countries and is more commonly found in less developed countries. This is one of the main differences between a more economically developed country or MEDC and a less developed country or LEDC. Other differences are that an MEDC can sustain itself without the help of others and is able to make money and put it to good use. An LEDC is unable to make or sustain any money so its people live in poverty.
An LEDC, for example Somalia, comes around through various causes. The country had a poor government and it was corrupt so it was unable to run the government in a productive manner. The government would not use the money that the country made to good use and can therefore not help the country. War used up all the countries resources, it would mean that most of the workforce would die in the war; it would drive the people of the country out so they would become refugees, and also in the most extreme cases the country would be occupied in the war.
MEDC normally come around due to a strong military force that is able to get what the country needs. The country could also be lucky and be located where natural resources are plentiful and people of the country would never go hungry. The government of the country would be a good one ensuring that the country grows stronger as time goes on. A shocking stat is that less than 25% of the world’s population use more than 80% of the world’s resources, which shows how many people are in poverty and how many are well off.
A way of righting this and making the world a better a place is by telling the most powerful countries and help the LEDC out by giving simple necessities like water and shelter. This would mean sharing out the world’s resources and building proper living conditions for the people currently living in poverty.
From a religious point of view we could say that God made this world for all of mankind and it should be shared out equally. This means that the MEDC’s should not abuse their power and they should share out their wealth and help the LEDCs become a better place.
It isn’t just countries that can help LEDC, charities can also do this and one charity is CAFOD.
CAFOD stands for The Catholic Agency for Oversees Development. CAFOD is a major British and Catholic charity that has been fighting third world poverty since 1962. They believe that all human beings have a right to dignity and respect and that the world's resources are a gift to be shared by all men and women, whatever their race, nationality or religion. CAFOD is the English and Welsh arm of , a worldwide network of Catholic relief and development organisations. With the help of our network of regional organisers throughout England and Wales, CAFOD works in partnership on over 1000 programmes worldwide. They raise money in England and Wales to finance programmes in poor countries, which include education and skills training, health care, safe water, and agricultural and small business development. It also covers emergencies so it can produce immediate help for people in emergencies for example natural disasters. Two of CAFODS main campaigns to fight poverty are trade and poverty. An unfair system of global trade that bullies and squeezes the poorest countries out of any money is very bad because companies that sell the product get lots of money while the actual workers get practically nothing. Trade rules that are stacked in favour of rich countries and multinational companies rob LEDC of trade worth $700 billion every year. A huge burden of unpayable debt is still destroying lives in the Third World. Money that could be spent on health care, education and food supplies is being drained away to pay interest on debts to rich creditors, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
CAFOD does everything in its power to help developing countries but they can only be maintained through donations given to them by the public. The more money CAFOD receives the harder it will try to make the world a better place.
‘There should be no rich people as long as there is poverty in the world’
Reasons why I agree with this statement are the there is no point being rich because we all die and when we are dead there is no need for money. God taught us that to truly follow him we should, ‘Go sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have the treasure in Heaven.’ (Mk 10:21). Also Jesus and the disciples did not own much if not anything and if we are to become closer to God we should give our belongings away.
He taught us that we cannot serve both money and God and that we should never put anything in front of god including money, ‘ You cannot serve both God and money.’ (Mt 6:24)
The greatest commandments of all the Christians, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbour as yourself,’ which would mean that there should be no poor or suffering person in the world because of this commandment.
Greed, an excessive desire, and avarice, extreme greed for money or gain; cupidity, are two of the seven deadly sins, so when we commit them by not helping the poor we are committing a sin against God which we should not do.
On the other hand we could say that because people earn it they should keep it because the y worked hard for it. We can also say that the rich such as Bob Geldolf who do help the poor and donate large sums of money to charity and it’s the charity that don’t used it correctly and to proper affect. We can also compare this statement to communism that the only way it could work was if someone enforces it onto the rich people, which is very unlikely because the rich are the powerful. Money can also be used as a motivator and that if everyone had money people would become lazy because they knew they would get money.
None of the Christian denominations condemn wealth as an evil in itself and they all agree that it is how it is used or misused that is the problem.
Deut 15: 7-8, 11 show us that the rich have a duty to give to the poor and that God does not say that being rich is a bad thing just that we must use it to proper uses which are also shown in Isaiah 10:2.
In conclusion I think that it is ok to have some money as long as you are prepared to use it in the correct manner.
