Christians believe that they will be judged on how helpful and compassionate they have been towards the poor. This judgement will include their motivation; whether or not their intentions were genuine or merely to be honoured by their fellow men. It is the desire for heavenly rewards, not earthly acclaim that should motivate Christians to help the poor in the eyes of God.
In the Bible most of the teachings to do with helping those in need is in reference to those among your own community, ‘the widows and the beggars’, who live amongst the more fortunate. Today, because of huge advances in technology and communication, Christians are aware of what is happening all over the world and are able to help those in need on a much larger scale than just the local community. Although Christians support their local church, they feel a strong sense of responsibility to donate money to multinational charities such as Christian aid, to help within the wider community.
Christians are surrounded with the message to help and show compassion towards the poor, and although these are very influential their individual conscience also plays a large role in their motivation towards helping their fellow man. For example a Christian may hear a story about one mans struggle to live and their conscience may motivate them towards doing something, because they may have so much and a fellow Christian, an equal member of God’s family, has so little. Christians believe that everyone is equal in the eyes of God even though the reality could not be further from the truth. It is this belief that motivates many Christians to donate to charity, not just money but time and effort to help those less fortunate. Here is an extract from one of the letters to the Corinthians about equality among man.
“Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality.” (2 Corinthians Ch. 8:13-14)
The church supports the bible’s teachings to show compassion towards the poor in many ways. The church teaches Christians to love others and often from young age in Sunday schools or through their individual rites of passage such as confirmation.
Famous Christian leaders such as Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa are known best for their work with the poor and their example encourages other Christians to do the same.
How might followers of Christianity best fulfil their responsibilities towards the world today?
Christians believe that they have many responsibilities towards the world and there are many ways in which Christians go about fulfilling these obligations and responsibilities. This can been seen by looking at a variety of actions that many Christians take to help others.
One important responsibility that Christians believe they have is to look after those less fortunate and to show compassion towards the poor. Many Christians are involved in charity work or donate money to charities, while others help through their local churches. Either helping to raise money or contributing to the weekly collections for both the local and wider communities usually does this. There are also cases in which Christians have given up their lives in the western world and moved to developing countries to work alongside charities with people in need. Examples of these would include medically trained people working in medical stations or educators working in schools.
Money – and the lack of opportunities to obtain sufficient to live on, is the source of all poverty and it’s this fact that causes great concern for many Christians. A great deal of Christians donate money to particular charities on a regular basis. When Christians are choosing a charity to support they usually look at charities with Christian foundations, such as CAFOD, Christian Aid or Tearfund, charities, which are in keeping with Christian teachings. People usually set aside a particular amount of money every month, which is then, send to the charity that they have chosen to support.
By donating to charities in this way, charities are able to know roughly how much income they will be receiving each month. This means that they can successfully plan new projects, based on their income, knowing that they will be able to fully fund them. In the bible, Paul talks of how Christians should put aside a certain amount of money each month and that they should make a habit of it.
“On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up…” (1 Corinthians 16:2)
Christians in particular largely support Christian Aid. Christian Aid, unlike other charities who give the money raised straight to the poor or to the governments of the countries in need, spends their money on training volunteers. This enables them to be able to teach in schools or help in medical stations in the poorer countries. This also helps the poor to help them selves and not be so dependent on charities to survive.
Other Christians support the work of charity shops such as Oxfam, by donating old clothes and belongings. These are then sold, and the money used to help the poor in the developing world, as well as those less fortunate in the developed world. As well as donating money, Christians frequently donate their time and effort by doing volunteer work in these local charity shops. Still other Christians may keep collecting boxes for money in their homes to remind themselves that there are less fortunate people in the world and that they have a responsibility to help them.
Many Christians donate money when at church into collection baskets, which are usually passed around during the service. Some of this money is put aside for the poor. The church also donates money to charities and agencies, set up to alleviate poverty. They also work for the poor by setting up campaigns such as Jubilee 2000, which was fighting for the cancellation of all world debt.
In the bible, Jesus teaches that it is not important how big the gift is but that the generous spirit of giving is what counts.
“As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. ‘I tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth: but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
However Christians decide to fulfil their responsibilities towards the world, an important Christian message is that gifts of time and/or money are more significant if the person doing the giving does not have much to spare. This means no Christians are exempt but that any contribution is sufficient if means a sacrifice of some kind.
“The problems of the third world communities are their own fault.”
Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer and show that you have thought about different points of view. You must refer to Christianity in your answer.
The problems of the third world communities can be accounted to many things. Many people believe that the problems of the third world are their own fault. They would argue that it is each person’s responsibility to get themselves educated and find a job to support themselves. Others may argue that it is the individual attitudes of the people living in the third world that is what causes the problems. They believe that each person has allowed his or her homes and communities to perish, winding up in total poverty. Others may simply believe that if these people really couldn’t stand living in such poverty, they would do something about it, to improve their situations and lives.
There are others though, who believe that the dreadful conditions in which millions are forced to live today are not the direct result of their own actions but those of the imperialist governments of the past two centuries. When countries that have been left devastated by years of foreign control are studied carefully, it is evident that many of their current issues are the direct result of the damage done by the stripping of their natural resources. This was the case in countries where mining produced great wealth for the British Empire. The Dutch in South Africa also gained enormously from the mines in their colonies. The British went so far as to describe India as the Jewel in the Crown. This represented how much wealth they gained from India as a colony. How much of the poverty that still exists today that can be traced back to the removal of the counties natural resources must be considerable.
If countries such as these and many others have developed countries to thank for their current levels of poverty, how can it be their own fault that they find themselves in this position? How also is it possible for them to extract themselves from this externally created poverty?
Christianity also had a part to play in this process. While countries were being colonised for resources, there was also a Christian view that the primitive peoples of these lands needed to be converted to Christianity and therefore saved. It did not seem to matter that they had rituals and beliefs that had been in existence for many generations. In the case of the aboriginals, fifty thousand years before the arrival of the British. It is possible the that undermining of these cultural and religious systems though out what is now seen as the developing world, instead of helping, has actually destabilised communities and lead to unemployment and poverty. In Australia, the white communities have done extremely well, resulting in the country being known as the lucky country. I do not believe that many aboriginals would describe themselves as lucky in the current day. They may have held a different view before 1770.
Many would argue that the individual people have limited power in which to change their lives no matter how badly they wish to. They depend on help from outside sources such as aid organisations like Oxfam and CAFOD. It is this dependency, which seems to keep the poor, poor and the rich, rich. The poverty cycle is very hard to intercept without the cooperation of governments and leaders. When the population of a county is poor, families tend to be bigger in size than those in rich countries because the labour is needed on farms or to look after aging parents. The population of the poor countries therefore increases faster than those in the developed world. This puts a strain on the health care systems, which poor country cannot satisfactorily provide.
Therefore, in summary, I would strongly debate against the statement that the problems of the third world communities are their own fault. This is because I believe that foreign interference and stripping of resources damaged countries. As a result, the developed countries hold most of the financial and political power. Developing countries, through no fault of their own are left struggling to survive, dependent on foreign aid and unable to break free of the poverty cycle.