What do we do about poverty and affluence?

In the aftermath of the “global financial crisis” many Christians in the so called “West” have began to pay careful attention to the way they handle their finances. Many Christian organizations have made available teaching resources and tools to help people get out of debt. (Of course, the organization that I work for has been doing this for more than 30 years now.) Overall, I am happy with this development. It has the potential to make us all think harder about our responsibility as stewards. (And according to the Bible it seems very clear that whatever else our purpose in life is, we will always remain stewards – bearing the responsibility to take care of all that God has given us – time, talents, resources and the earth.)

Nevertheless, I am concerned that a lot of this newly-revived attention to money-management remains very selfish. Indeed, it is my observation that most people are now interested to become better stewards of money not because of a desire to grow ever more generous, but because of facing the reality of decreasing wealth. Our understanding of stewardship needs to be much more broader than just managing a budget or “tithing”. Therefore, I have made it my personal goal to study as in depth as possible the biblical “theology of stewardship”. This blog may likely serve as my notebook.

Yesterday, I stumbled onto a lecture Marvin Olasky gave as part of the Cedarville University Critical Concern Series. The lecture is titled “A critical evaluation of Christian responses to poverty and affluence”. Olasky’s lecture is his initial contribution to the moderated discussion between him and Jim Wallis that took place on 11th March 2010. (Click on the links below to download the two parts.)

Marvin Olasky – A critical evaluation of Christian responses to poverty and affluence (part one)
Marvin Olasky – A critical evaluation of Christian responses to poverty and affluence (part two)

In the first part of the recording, Olasky argues for the biblical emphasis on righteousness and justice in contrast to the liberals’ emphasis on equality. In the second part he highlights the contrast between compassion and equality, arguing that historically North American church groups have been more effective in battling poverty through compassionate care (that treats the individual in need as someone who could contribute to their own betterment) rather than an ideal of equality. Please find more information on the aforementioned discussion in the links section below. Unfortunately, so far I haven’t been able to find the recording of Jim Wallis’ contribution freely available online.

LINKS:
http://bit.ly/c3uAYx - Marvin Olasky’s podcasts
http://bit.ly/bDoH8R – information about the discussion between Wallis and Olasky at Cedarville University
http://bit.ly/9cfIVY – resources related to the discussion
http://bit.ly/9mFMxG – schedule of the event (PDF)
http://bit.ly/cz8Akt - purchase the recording of the whole event