As an American Christian, I like to think I do a fair job caring for the world’s poor — those in my own neighborhood and those around the world who have greater financial need than I do. After all, Americans pride themselves on generosity. And Christians desire to be known for their service to others.
However, recent news (polls, studies, and political campaigns) suggest otherwise. How do we reconcile this?
Let me ask: Do any of the statements below resonate with you?
- Americans think 25 percent of federal dollars go to aid.
- “Aid to the world’s poor” should be the first thing cut from the federal budget.
- Americans who strongly believe that “God has a plan” for their lives — as evangelicals do — are the most likely to oppose government intervention on behalf of the poor.
- Many Americans perceive our foreign-assistance programs to be ineffective and wasteful.
- Aid is good, but it is not the government’s job.
In an article posted today in the Wall Street Journal, Evangelicals and the Case for Foreign Aid — and included in the Atlantic Wire’s Five Best Friday Columns — Rich Stearns, president of World Vision U.S., argues that providing funds for the poor should be in the interest of all Christians.
Perhaps the reality that poverty-focused aid makes up a mere 0.5 percent of the federal budget paints a picture of just where our priorities really do lie.
Washington is in an era of budget-cutting, so we frequently hear calls to shrink or eliminate U.S. foreign-assistance programs. In response, several religious groups (including my own) are highlighting how these programs reduce global poverty and hunger, saving millions of lives. But why are evangelical Christians largely absent from this religious coalition?
In a recent closed-door session on Capitol Hill, representatives from the National Council of Churches, Catholic Relief Services and Bread for the World met with several senators about the Senate’s proposed reduction of $3 billion from last year’s foreign-affairs budget. (The House would eliminate $9 billion.) The director of Church World Service, John McCullough, told reporters afterward that “responding to hunger and poverty is not a partisan issue…It is a moral issue that people of faith, across the political spectrum, agree upon.”
This is largely true, but a Pew survey earlier this year found that 56% of evangelicals think “aid to the world’s poor” should be the first thing cut from the federal budget. In September, a Baylor University survey found that Americans who strongly believe that “God has a plan” for their lives — as evangelicals do — are the most likely to oppose government intervention on behalf of the poor.
Read the article in full on the Wall Street Journal online.
Call your members of Congress. Ask them to oppose major cuts to the International Affairs Budget. There are few places in the U.S. federal budget where dollars translate so directly into lives saved.
Of course it is the job of Christians to help the poor in our neighborhoods, country and the world. That is our calling. But we obviously aren’t doing enough by ourselves. I would welcome my tax dollars being used for such a worthy endeavor and believe most Americans would, too. That’s something we can do to help in the world and overcome our tarnished image as selfish, greedy, and warmongering. I have read Rich Stearns The Hole in the Gospel and support 2 children through World Vision and 2 others through other organizations. I am a great fan of World Vision and have seen its good work for orphans in Zimbabwe with my own eyes in my 5 mission trips there.
I wonder how you and others have come to such a conclusion as to believe that Americans are not helping the poor in America. We are flooded with gov’t programs for just about everything/everybody under the sun. Food stamps, social security, WIC, WIA, Sallie Mae, and welfare. That’s just in the gov’t sector alone! Should I really need to speak of the thousands if not tens of thousands of private (church, humanitarian, and non-profit) initiatives that are currently in operation and helping the needy? When we look at the nearly insurmountable amount of need in some of the drought and AIDS stricken areas of Africa where there are literally 100,000+ who are not only homeless but without even enough food to keep their kids from literally starving to death, we should be shaken to our core to ever have any problem with our “Christian” nation helping to alleviate the suffering of so many needy people worldwide. Biblically, this is a black-and white subject. We either stand with God and the gospel in helping the suffering, or we stand in our haughty attitudes and pride of life with our feelings of self worth and sensuality while watching others literally starve to death spiritually and physically. This doesn’t have to be an issue of helping either here OR there, but should be an issue of helping here AND there as we glorify God in our standing in obedience to His Word and standing/suffering WITH the poverty stricken around the world.
I feel wholeheartedly that it is not the government’s job to support the poor. That is the job of the Church. As Christians, we need to shine the light of Jesus on the world through our time, talents, and treasures.
The government is bloated and wasteful. I want our contributions to have the biggest impact possible, and to do that, we need to eliminate the dripping sink from the equation.
There needs to be a paradigm shift from people being lazy and relying on the government to being motivated, hard-working individuals that, through the Church, are able to help the world.
Americans are not helping the poor in America…have you checked out how many HOMELESS there are ….on the street and tent cities???
Mr. Stearns is missleading in several respects:
1. Government IAD does not help the democratic cause in countries – historically it has helped dictators stay in power.
2. He fails to address the main cause of poverty in the world: War, Government corruption and socialist policies that preclude economic development (just look at Zimbawe which went from a food exporting country to subsistance farming)
3. you do not fight poverty effectively (i.e. long term) with handouts but with economic development and investment – for which you need the rule of law and economic liberty.
4. The only program Mr. Stearn mentions is the AIDS program, assuming it actually save as many people as he professes, how many of those are still poor…let me guess..all of them.
5. If Mr. really want’s to fight poverty as such, he should find true sustainable economic development success stories and help promote those.
6. I recommend that you read the bood Switch…for some good ideas.