Every major denomination in the Christian Church has a poverty initiative or 12. Almost every city in America has an Urban Ministries or Gospel Rescue Mission or Salvation Army, all of them ran by professed Christians. In the park, the street preachers line up, dispensing lunch and salvation with a side dish of hellfire and brimstone.
The big steeples all have open door programs, designed to dispense $100 to the person who needs help on their light bill or rent – never mind that $100 never kept a damn soul from being evicted. Rare is the church that does not have a clothing closet or a food pantry. And for all that, the basic question I get asked all the time is this: What can the church do to eliminate homelessness?
This question saddens me. It really does. In fact, the question outright discourages me. I guess it is good that we are still asking it, but we all know the answer to that question. The question we really want to ask, but nobody has the guts, the cajones, or the simple intestinal fortitude to ask is
“How can the church end homelessness – and yet keep all of this? “
Simple.
We can’t.
But, we can sit in the dark with them.
Word, brother. So very true. We must first abdicate our need to save the world.
Dumb question from a non-church person – Yet keep all of what? All of the stuff they were doing ostensibly to end homelessness? Is it that those things make the church people feel good in a way that doing something that could actually potentially end homelessness wouldn’t?
I think an even better question is what can anyone do to end homelessness. Does that question sadden and discourage you also? I’m probably missing something by not being a church person. But poverty should be an everybody issue.
Put another way, Beckie, is “How can we, the church, end the suffering of others without sacrificing our lifestyle.”
As a non-church person you may wonder why this is an issue – but then again, the ostensible founder of your religion did not say that the way to save your life was to lose it, or to sell all you have and give it to the poor, or to love your neighbor as yourself.
But our’s did. We just can’t be bothered to give a damn, is all.
“How can we, the church, end the suffering of others without sacrificing our lifestyle.”
I don’t have a religion, but that’s sad
Being part of an organization that fights homelessness and poverty this question comes up…..a lot! There are several angles to the question, so we must look at it from the “social injustice” angle. There are some who chose a lifestyle that leads to homelessness, there are others who haven’t. In our community there are many who are homeless because of mental illness or physical disabilities…….marginalized because they aren’t “equally” equipped. What I’ve noticed from the church as a whole is an indifference above all else. Not that we are are apathetic to the needs of the leas of these….it’s just easier to overlook so we don’t have to be. I find that we (the church) are willing to give out of abundance, but what happens when it takes sacrifice…..no building funds, sports centers, youth trips, etc. When my family first got involved in combating homelessness and poverty, we asked the question…..how far does love go? Are we willing to lose what we have so that others have what they need………the early church did.