Poverty: The Corporate Concern

This was my entrance writing assignment for Duke. The prompt was Do the poor need Christianity more? I'm sure it will be fun in the coming years to look at this paper as my induction into graduate school. Enjoy, comment, critique. As you will.

     To consider a connection between poverty and the level of need for Christianity is heretical and belies an attitude in the evangelical community that needs to be eradicated. It is the attitude that fosters division and the language that embraces “us” vs. “them”. It is the attitude that “we rich” must acquiesce to help the poor because of our own good nature. The very nature of humanity implies our innate need for Christ regardless of wealth or position. The instinctive desire to promote division is indicative of humanity's eternal temptation to promote the individual self over the corporate self and, ultimately, over God. It is the Garden temptation to become gods rather than to embrace an existence as created. The response to poverty must simultaneously be a response against self-promotion. Poverty is a corporate sickness and must be addressed as such. It is in physical boundaries, language and an unrelenting desire to protect our own that we fail to honestly engage the issue of poverty.

     In her book, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx, Heidi Neumark repeatedly depicts the created and carefully kept division between wealth and poverty. She describes, in detail, the efforts of NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development to disguise the true nature and poverty of the Bronx from wealthy passengers on the Cross Bronx Expressway. This visual “bandage” “protected the illusions of those who drove on by. As long as they didn't make a wrong turn and descend from their elevated highway, to the 'festering wound' below.”¹ The intentional acts of the government to protect and encourage the ignorance of the wealthier public demonstrates a desire to be kept from the other. It is an action meant to increase and strengthen boundaries from one to the other. The atmosphere this creates is one that sets humankind against itself and further fractures the corporate identity. Neumark senses this intentional separation in an experience with Christmas charity:

“Once the feel-good moments of giving and getting are over, what will really have changed? Remembering the less fortunate as an enriching part of one's holiday experience before returning to post-holiday life at best fosters an illusion of goodwill. The ornaments are packed up, the tree comes down, the cookies are finished, and the poor are forgotten. This is what triggers my discomfort.”²

Even in what may appear to be a bridge to comfort and help the poor can now be seen not only as an effort to assuage the guilt of the wealthy, but also becomes yet another distinction between two peoples. It reinforces the internal dialogue of “us” and “them”.

     This internal dialogue, rather than teaching humankind to behave and think as a corporate body (i.e., all created, all human), has instead deteriorated societies to be first and foremost self-focused and self-protective. This distinction can be seen in phrases like, “Feed the poor,” “Care for the needy,” “Help the homeless.” While often benign, these phrases reiterate the differences between “us” and “them” and further the mentality that poverty is someone else's problem. This attitude of separating oneself from others and encouraging boundaries flourishes in the common conception and interaction with poverty. Karl Barth correctly described poverty as “not a natural condition,” but that it is “part of the evil which dominates human life” and is “perhaps the most striking result of human sin.”³ Understanding poverty in this light properly associates it as a human problem, not the problem of an individual or small contingents of society. Properly understood, poverty is a corporate problem. Each and every person as an individual is responsible in part for its presence in society. It is therefore not humankind's problem to “help the poor”, but it is humankind's responsibility to help humankind. We are the poor. The Bible describes this group mindset in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. We are all part of the body of humanity, and if one part suffers, it should be our aim that we all experience that suffering.

     The antithesis to this group mentality is found universally, but is experienced most acutely in Western societies. It is the attitude that separates the self from the other and viciously attacks any offense to this “right”. Albeit cliché, this is demonstrated in the American slogan, “I'm lookin' out for #1.” This is the same mindset that promises that wealth and the protection of the self will ensure a safe and controllable world and titillates humanity's desire to become the gods of their own lives. The determination to remain an individual apart from and against the other destroys the possibility of the creation of community. The very act of rising up to protect one's own sets humankind against itself and reinforces the divisive boundaries between them.To understand oneself in the context of the whole, however, correctly orients the individual to be in a posture that embraces community.

     The epidemic of poverty, therefore, is not one to be fought passively or to assist with from the other side. But one that must be engaged as if it were each person's personal and familial battle. For it is each person's struggle. Gustave Gutierrez challenges that everyong must make

“a commitment of solidarity with the poor, with those who suffer misery and injustice. The commitment is to witness to the evil which as resulted from sin and is a breach of communion. It is not a question of idealizing poverty, but rather of taking it on as it is—an evil—to protest against it and to struggle to abolish it.”⁴

To say “we are the poor” is not to belittle another's experience, but it is to say, “I am your brother, your sister. Your grief is my grief. The injustices done to you are done to me. We are all created.”

1Heidi B. Neumark, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), 74.

2Ibid., 160.

3Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/I (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), 245.

4Gustav Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation. Ed. and trans. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson. (Lima: Orbis Books, 1971), 172. 

(Dis?) Orienting at Duke and the Beast called Inadequate

The week of (dis) orientation was just that. Perhaps if I had done some excavating I would have been more prepared for my beginning at Duke Divinity School. The following were my observations and assumptions gone wrong.
1) The MTS program at Duke is very small. There are approx. 120 (or so) incoming MDIV students and 20 incoming MTS students. This means that in all of Duke Divinity School there are only 40 MTS students! Hence, nearly the whole time we were addressed as a student body, we were addressed as MDIV students. Most of the time the distinction wasn't critical (though I was a little confused a momentarily panicky when they called us the class of 2013--my program's only two years long and their's is three!).

2) The MDIV students (nearly everyone) are "on track for ordination". These students are gearing up for life in the church and serving it in some capacity. Needless to say, I didn't feel that I had much in common with the majority of my peers.

3) Once you are East of, say, New Mexico, you will be asked what denomination you belong to in the same breath as you are asked your name. Within days, you'll be saying, "I'm John. I'm Baptist." "I'm Presbyterian. I'm Mary." "I'm Catholic Julie." Just to clarify, this doesn't happen on the West Coast. No one cares, it has no relevance to us for the most part. We're all on the same team, so to speak. So I have to say, it was rather odd to me that in a Divinity School I was constantly accosted to provide my denomination. I don't identify with one over another. At least not at this point. I interpreted these questions as irrelevant as asking me if my mother's hair is brown or black. Uhm, it's brown, why? Is it so necessary to divide us all the way down into our own little camps and cliques? Is this how people find their friends?

I finally just asked a fellow student, "Why do people keep asking me what denomination I am? Why does it matter?" His answer was two-fold. a) Most of the students are on an ordination track and need to know or quickly figure out what denomination they will pursue ordination with. And b) Once east of New Mexico, everyone is "christian". It is the culture and expectation to be so. The only way of figuring out where someone fits into the tapestry that is christianity is to ask them what denomination they are. Then it can be ascertained if they are ... truly Christian I guess? So, we're trying to figure out if you're "in" or not. ... It's all still sinking in for me. Please excuse the cynicism if it's uncalled for. If not, please embrace it.

4) Once out of school and removed from  an environment in which you are mentally challenged and forced to learn aurally, your brain will rapidly deteriorate and forget how to function in these environments. My first class at Duke was 2.5 hours long. After some introductions, the professor stood up to lecture...and lecture....and lecture. It was amazing     and very     v e r y     long. After about, eh 30 minutes, my brain turned off. I watched in horror as this brilliant professor was reduced, in my mind, to the teacher in Charlie Brown. Waa wa waaa waa. I knew he was speaking English, but not even the structure of the words he was using were forming sentences for me. Even more horrifying was the furiously firing machine-gun fingers flying and burning through the keys all around me as the students scrambled to encapsulate the brilliancy before them. I'm sure we all failed to some extent. I'm sure I failed more than anyone. To say I was overwhelmed would belittle the situation. I think I practiced lamaze at one point, but the only baby I birthed was Ineptitude and his twin Inadequacy. I always wanted twins!

Well, the first week of class is over, and I am still here, still breathing lamaze, but still here. I think I read for 10 hours straight yesterday. I feel my brain beginning to have pins and needles. Ah the pain of waking up. I did find myself remembering through the week the words that were spoken to us over and over again in orientation, "You belong here. It's no accident that you are here." So I've dumped my twins into the compost bin (they have one in the Refectory cafe!) and decided to trust that the admissions committee must have known what they were doing admitting me to Duke.

(I wrote what I think to be an interesting paper on poverty as an entrance requirement. I'll post it up soon?)