Answer:

BRINGING GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR

This text is part of the symposium on poverty and the poor, organised by the Institute for

Faith and Education of Baylor University and recently held on the University’s campus.

It may be quoted, but only with the express permission of the author, whose email

address can be found at the end.

Introduction

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight,

the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the

poor have good news brought to them” (Luke 7.22)

My task in this presentation is to offer a theoretical framework for considering a

practical Christian response to poverty as an integral part of the Church’s calling or

mission, an inescapable element of its very raison d’etre. From the outset, we should

remind ourselves that we are speaking of the poor, who are real people living in

concrete situations all over the globe, not just about poverty as an abstract concept.

Poverty is experienced by actual human beings, created in the image of God. Whether

they live close by or at a distance, they are our neighbours (Lk. 10.29-37). They belong

to families like us; their needs are the same as ours. However, unlike most of us, they

have been BORN into circumstances that have given them little or no opportunity to

escape from the humiliating cycle of poverty in which their community is trapped.

I will begin by highlighting three important aspects of this theme, which will set the

direction for all that follows. First, the reality of the poor is taken seriously in the whole

of the Bible. It might be an exaggeration to say that they appear on every page.

Nevertheless, as we shall see, their plight is seen as a major concern in every strand of

literature, 1

especially in the ministry of Jesus Christ (see, for example, Lk. 4.18; 6.20;

11.41; 12.33; 14.13).

Secondly, from its very beginning the Church has shown a special care for the poor.

Early in its life, the diaconal ministry was given prominence. The main task of the

deacons was to attend to the sick and aid the poor. In the second and third centuries,

churches cared for the sick during plagues that afflicted SIGNIFICANT portions of

population in the Mediterranean basin. Later, “monasteries were well known as places

of hospitality and refuge during the cataclysmic events of the great migrations during

the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries”. 2

Most of the oldest established educational

institutions in Europe, sponsored by Christian communities, began their life by giving

free tuition to children of the poor. In its origins the Pietist movement of the 17th and

18th centuries paid special attention to the social responsibility of Christians. People like

Philipp Spener and Hermann Francke raised awareness among RULERS, Church leaders

and ordinary people of their responsibilities towards those living in conditions of

extreme poverty. Francke, in particular, created many institutions for the alleviation of

poverty, not least those that promoted education. The MODERN mission movement has

spent much time and energy in attending to excluded and oppressed peoples, such as

lepers, outcasts, abandoned children and young girls exploited in religious prostitution.

1

The Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom literature, the GOSPELS and Epistles.

2

See, Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for