I just finished reading the book "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" by Ronald Sider. If you are interested in topics like giving, justice, and poverty, I strongly recommend that you read this book. But in case you don't have the time, let me give you an overview of what it is about and how you can change your lifestyle to help the poor. I can't give all the details, so if you want to know more, I'd suggest reading the book so you can understand Sider's arguments better.
This book was a good balance to "When Charity Destroys Dignity." That book left me thinking about how important it is to give wisely, but at the same time, wondering how I could practically do that. "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" gives those practical applications for giving. It explains why Christians should care for the poor far more than they already do, yet without causing dependency in the process.
The book begins by explaining, convincingly, why there is a problem in the world. We all know that there is a lot of poverty out there, but do we realize what a problem it is - or how very rich we really are? At least 1.2 billion people live without furniture, extra clothes, food in the cupboards, electricity, running water (or clean water for that matter), books, literacy, hospitals, or monetary savings. Another 1.6 billion aren't much better off. In fact, the richest 5% of the world's people earn 114 times as much income as the poorest 5%. Sider gives far more statistics and information to convince the reader that we are very affluent. And he goes on to describe some rationalizations we might make to give less to the poor.
We may think there are good reasons to keep as much as we can for ourselves, but as Christians, we need to realize that God cares very much about the poor. Sider gives a lot of evidence from the Bible about God's concern for justice and for the rich to help the poor.
So if we are convinced that God wants us to give to the poor so they can live and have justice, what do we do? Sider goes into the many complex causes of poverty. I can't describe them all, but he talks about sinful personal choices, unbiblical worldviews, disasters, inequalities of power, colonial injustice, and structural injustice in economics. He explains how market economies are pretty good, but need changes in the way they operate in order to promote greater justice in the world. Left to itself, a market economy is mindless and will supply what the wealthy can pay for even if that means millions of poor people starve. He describes the problems this causes with the poor and the environment we live in and gives ideas about how things could be improved.
And how do we respond? Well, first Sider says, once we care, we need to examine ourselves. We, the affluent, have, more often than not, made our affluence and possessions our god. Here is one particularly striking quote:
"...we are caught in an absurd, materialistic spiral. The more we make, the more we think we need in order to live decently and respectably. Somehow we have to break this cycle because it makes us sin against our needy brothers and sisters and, therefore, against our Lord. And it also destroys us. Sharing with others is the way to real joy."
Do you know how much the average person in the US gives to charity - all charity? In 1998, it was 2.1% of their income. Church members gave to churches, on average, 2.66% of their income and 0.4% to other benevolences.
If we want to be more generous, Sider gives many ideas about how to do this. Here are just a few of them:
1. Graduated Tithe - give 10% on what you calculate to be the amount you need to live on, then give an extra 5% on each $1,000 you make above that base amount (15% on the first 1,000, 20% on the second, etc.).
2. Live in community so you can share belongings with others instead of owning it all yourself.
3. Balance your giving between emergency relief, development, and broad structural change, but don't neglect other areas of Christian work like evangelism.
4. Question your own lifestyle and work to reduce your budget by spending less on food (like eating less meat, growing food in a garden, etc.), lowering your energy consumption, resisting the appeal of advertising, resisting obsolescence (buy quality products when you buy and keep them a long time), refuse to keep up with clothing fashions, etc.
5. Make sure you evaluate the work of the organizations you give to. Among other questions to ask: is justice rather than continual charity (dependence) the result of their work? And do they use their funds efficiently and wisely?
6. Practice the Sabbath. Rest one day out of seven and do your best to limit the hours you work - turn away from the mad consumerism of our culture.
Sider also talks about working for social change. Encourage our country to have a more caring foreign policy and correct the weaknesses of our market economy. Make international trade more fair, reduce unmanageable debt among very poor countries, protect the earth and empower the poor.
These political things seem impossible to change and you may wonder how you can possibly impact these societal causes of poverty. Well the book does mention some organizations you can support that effectively promote such structural changes. A few of those are: Bread for the World, Debt AIDS Trade Africa, and The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Also, as a woman, I want to mention that emphasizing better education and health care for women is a very effective way to combat poverty. A majority of the very poor people in the world are women. And for every additional year of schooling for women in poor countries, infant mortality rates decline by 5-10% and the fertility rate decreases too.
And now you know some specific ways you can be more generous toward the poor in a wise way. Let's go out and give with joy!