As the margin of the rich and the poor widens, global poverty to day has increased, the middle class cannot catch up with the rich and slid back among the poor causing the numbers of the poor to rise up, poverty in today's global village has become the root cause of all/many evils, because it has power and the ability to make people compromise their once held and respected moral values, cultures and religious beliefs, poverty has created a new race of people with common marks of frustrations, loss of hope, prospects and value for life.
Poverty is a cause of corruption while corruption is the consequence of poverty and loss of moral values, the high levels of poverty have resulted in many social problems including stealing, prostitution, crime, fraud, money laundering, drug trafficking, sex trade and corruption. Life becomes the survival of the fittest, in order to survive people engage in all sorts of doings. All this is a result of poverty.
Think
Poverty is and remains the number one killer in the world. Increasingly our world is typified by extremes of wealth and poverty. This is perpetuated wherever economic policies place free-trade and economic growth above the well being of people. Debt and structural adjustment programmes are resulting in millions more starving and dying each year from lack of basic necessities like adequate food, water, shelter, education and medical care. Nearly 1 billion people in the world are illiterate. Approximately 1.3 billion people lack safe water. Over one-half of the developing world’s population (2.6 billion) is without access to adequate sanitation. Poverty is often the companion of hunger, disease, family stress, domestic violence alienation, drug addiction and hopelessness.
It is important that no-one is deprived through poverty of their human rights and meaningful participation in the development of society. The future is in our hands to walk towards life rather than death, to develop and enhance the fabric of life for all co-operatively rather than competitively.
Judge
We believe that to blame those who are poor for their poverty, and to leave the suffering of others to charity is contrary to a Christian view of the purpose of human life and society. The Christian faith says that all people has a fundamental worth and dignity which cannot be taken away from them, regardless of gender, race, class, sexual orientation or other human categorisations. This is recognised in one of the ‘Principles of Justice’ – Justice affirms the dignity of Human person.
Although we are all equal before God, the Bible repeatedly tells us that God has a special concern for those who are poor; the widow and the orphan; the hungry, the lonely and the imprisoned. Our faith tells us that no one should be condemned to life on the margins of society. For Christians, then, poverty cannot be solely an economic issue. It is also an issue of faith.
In the Catholic Church teaching, Pacem in Terris- Peace on Earth, it is stated that peace is only possible if basic human rights and the freedom of religion and conscience are respected. This is evident in Proverbs 31:8 “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are poor”. In Iustitia et Pax- Justice in the World, another Catholic Church teaching, says all nations have a right to self- development and self- determination in economic matters. Economic injustices among nations need to be resolved at an international level. Both these teachings make us aware the extent to which poverty is trying to be resolved.
For Christians, peace is more than the absence of war. It is the effort to build the conditions which ensure there will never again be war. Peace is built on justice and forgiveness. The following Church teachings on peace are taken from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC).
- Peace and violence cannot dwell together, and where there is violence, God cannot be present (CSDC 488).
- Peace is the fruit of justice, understood in the broad sense as the respect for the equilibrium of every dimension of the human person. Peace is threatened when people are not given all that is due to them as human persons, when their dignity is not respected and when civil life is not directed to the common good. The defence and promotion of human rights is essential for the building up of a peaceful society and the development of individuals, peoples and nations (CSDC 494).
- Peace is also the fruit of love. True and lasting peace is more a matter of love then of justice, because the function of justice is merely to do away with obstacles to peace: the injury is done or damaged caused. Peace itself however is an act and results on from love (CSDC 494).
What do you think should be happening?
All people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and are made for life in community- with God, with each other and with the whole of creation. Justice will therefore only exist when people live in right relationships with Te Atua, the source of Tika.
Justice requires people to give God what is due to God- thanks and praise for everything that God is and for everything that God has done for us. By developing God-like attitudes and living in God-like ways people are able to live just lives.
Justice also requires that we live in right relationship with each other and with the world in which we live. In doing all this we not only become Christ’s followers but also reflect God’s love and work towards our mission which is bringing God’s Kingdom here on Earth.
Act
- Global poverty prayer chain- to see 50 million people released from poverty through the work of 100,000 groups of Christians all over the world.
- How can Prayer end poverty? God does it. Prayer works because of the one we’re praying to. And it gets us closer to God too. Jesus told his disciples to do plenty of it –Luke 18.
- Reach out across boundaries of religion, race, ethnicity, gender and disabling conditions.
- Live justly in your families, school, work place and social life.
- Serve those who are poor and vulnerable etc.
- WORK FOR GREATER JUSTICE AND PEACE.