Response to Fiona Gregson

Duncker & Humblot

It is a fact that millions of people live in severe poverty and die each year from starvation. Forty-six percent of humankind live below the US$2-a-day poverty line, and over 1,214 million people live below the $1-a-day poverty line. 2 About 18 million extremely poor people die each year from poverty-related causes (one-third of all human deaths). At the same time, it is also a fact that poverty is not unavoidable in a world where the global production of food is twice the amount that would be necessary to feed the total population. The cost of eradicating extreme starvation is less than 1 percent of the global income, and the cost of providing universal access to basic social services and transfers to alleviate absolute poverty would cost $80 billion, less than the wealth of the seven richest men in the world. 3 I guess that for the majority of us these data are devastating. Certainly, statistics about destitution are always moving, and the normal reaction to them is of regret and concern. 4 Nevertheless, the reality is that income differences between the most affluent population and the poorest are actually increasing, rather than diminishing, and that all this is taking place despite our impressive technological progress and the success of human rights discourse in Western democracies. 5 Perhaps what explains our global collective inaction concerning this problem is not mere indifference to others' suffering, but rather the widespread belief that we, people from affluent countries, do not really have a moral duty to help those who are dying of hunger far from us. We may certainly feel compelled to engage in charitable acts, and we do deeply value people making this kind of effort, but the inaction toward the starving population is not perceived as a moral fault. Global-scale problems, we could say, are not a real concern in our common-sense morality because, as Samuel Scheffler emphasizes, common-sense morality and the image of human social life are "defined primarily by small-scale personal relations among independent individual agents." 6 7 Pogge (2002a, 4) correctly points out that "we live in extreme isolation from severe poverty. We do not know people scarred by the experience of losing a child of hunger, diarrhea, or measles, do not know anyone earning less than $10 for a 72-hour web of hard, monotonous labor." 8 Singer (1985, 249; 1993, 230-231). 9 See Singer (1985, 259).

Poverty in the Early Church and Today , 2019

This paper will examine the concept of the ‘undeserving poor’ as it appears in current political discourse, looking at the ideas associated with it and the ways in which they are expressed. In order to provide focus to a large topic, the paper will focus on the ongoing debate and coverage of the current Welfare Reform and Work Bill in parliament and the media. In the paper I will argue that in its current use, the concept traps people between an understanding of systemic issues that contribute to poverty and a belief in the potential of an individual to lift themselves of poverty in a way that encourages us to create a category of person who does not truly deserve our support. I will then argue that the Bible provides us with an alternate understanding of poverty in which both individual and systemic factors play a contributing factor and can be tackled by a society, and suggest that this perspective is one to which the church could constructively give a public voice in our contemporary conversations about helping people out of poverty.

2024

This essay is the second assignment for the "Applied Ethics" course of the "Philosophy and Religion" master programme at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. In this assignment, I discuss the question: "Do we have a duty to lift others out of extreme poverty?".

2008

In the book "When I needed a neighbour were you there? Christians and the Challenge of Poverty" I highlight the overwhelming evidence that involvement with poor people and the issues of poverty is a fundamental part of what it means to be Christian. The life and teaching of Jesus Christ suggest that all Christians should be seriously concerned about the plight of poor people. Why? Let me explain. Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith and role model for Christian behaviour in the world. In his life on earth he showed deep compassion for all people marginalized by society – for the poor, for widows, children, and the sick. Many of his stories and actions illustrate the extent to which he prioritized the relief of human suffering in his own ministry. The emphasis in the ministry of Jesus on compassion for marginalized people was nothing new in ancient Israel. A constant theme in the Old Testament was an imperative to show concern for marginalized people, especially widows, orphans, strangers, and poor people. As in the New Testament, caring for society’s vulnerable members was tied to the central religious obligations required of the ancient Israelites. . I seek to uncover ethical values in the biblical texts that can enrich our understanding of how best to deal with poverty. This book is primarily directed at non-poor Christians to persuade them to take the plight of poor people more seriously. It also aims to present biblical perspectives on poverty that can be empowering to those who personally face the challenges of poverty.

The extent and severity of global poverty are among the most profoundly disturbing aspects of our world. Statistics provide some sense of the scale of the problem. But they are relatively sterile, not least from being so often repeated, and fail to capture important features of the lived experience of those in severe poverty. We – relatively affluent people in the developed world – are accustomed to being able to change our circumstances for the better through hard work. We are able to guard against misfortune fairly easily most of the time. Those in severe poverty cannot do so and live in a precarious state. What would it be like for an unexpected illness or weather event to push us from just barely meeting our needs to not meeting them at all? What would it be like for our children or others close to us to die or experience debilitating illness from what (in our current state of affluence) causes only relatively short-term inconvenience? When we think about poverty, to the extent that we can, in terms of its implications for day-today experience, its prevalence and persistence seems all the more terrible. But it is one thing to recognize a terrible problem and quite another to establish who, if anyone, is responsible for doing something about it and what they might sensibly do. This book is a philosophical exploration of the nature of the moral responsibilities of relatively affluent individuals in the developed world to address global poverty and the arguments that philosophers have offered for our having these responsibilities.

2020

There are approximately 5,000 slum colonies in Bombay. More than half of Bombay's 10 million plus inhabitants live in dehumanizing conditions of poverty, inadequate housing, sanitation and water. They are the unevangelized of this city. Less than 10% of Bombay's 600 churches work among them. They leave it to the para-church agencies who are able to reach only a fraction of the people in need. Calcutta is the same stow, only worse. Half a million children from 3 years upward toil on an average 14 hours a day in factories and in cottage industries in shameful conditions earning less than 5 dollars a month. There are at least 20,000 child prostitutes in Calcutta. Jesus cares; do we his disciples? At the beginning of his ministry Jesus announced his manifesto in the synagogue at Nazareth, ending with 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing' (Luke 4:21). In him the Kingdom had come. Empowered by the Spirit he preached good news to the poor and through them to the whole community. The response of the poor was a sign to the rich, perhaps the only sign they would respond to. Ministry to the poor authenticates the good news for all people. The dichotomy between evangelism, church growth, compassionate service and social justice is a judgement on both the theology and practice of the Church. Liberals give priority to justice, evangelicals to evangelism or to compassionate service-with the result that we all fail in church planting. The poor neither hear nor see the gospel. They remain unevangelized. Commando raids from the outside are no answer. Only incarnational servant-hood will be able to train the poor to reach their own people. But the cost is more than most of us are willing to bear. The love of Christ and the empowering of the Holy Spirit alone can enable the Church to fulfil this ever-widening task. This issue of ERT is dedicated to the Consultation 'The Evangelization of the Poor' sponsored by the Ethics and Society Study Unit of the Theological Commission of WEF and held October 17-23 1993 in New Delhi. Seven women and fifteen men participated drawing together theologians and practitioners p. 100 from ten countries. The hermeneutical process involved a serious dialogue between the Scriptures and a wide range of case studies and theological reflection. The result is a creative and living theology. A selection of papers and case studies is included in this issue. A larger book and study guides for churches and missions will follow. p. 101

Throughout its history, the church has struggled with the issue of how to respond to the poor. In this essay I give a biblical and theological response to the concept of the "undeserving poor."

God, the Good, and Utilitarianism: Perspectives on Peter Singer, 2014

This volume hopes to renew a conversation that has a long history in the academy, the Church, and the wider world. In addition to various precursors in English and Scottish moral philosophy, theistic engagement with the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill had a profound impact on Anglo-American theology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the 1960sand1970s, Christian ethics focused explicitly on various theories of actand rule-utilitarianism. 1 Ongoing debates about proportionalism in Roman Catholic moral theology trade upon the extent to which proponents of this view adopt a form of consequentialism inconsistent with church doctrine. 2 Today, however, sustained engagement with utilitarianism by theologians typically occurs more indirectly through proxy debates in economics, public policy, political theory, and psychology. Deontological and utilitarian ethics still frame many discussions in normative and applied ethics. Peter Singer's own writings have done much to fund this interest, often provoking polemical charges of immorality and irrationality by philosophers and theologians alike. At the same time, the growing appeal of virtue language in theological circles tends to focus on character and goodness rather than right action. In contrast to previous generations, contemporary Christian ethics has been shaped more by alliances with Kantian contractualism and Aristotelian virtue ethics than utilitarianism. Indeed, despite the appeal of proportionalism or the soft consequentialism of Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism, it is difficult to think of a prominent Christian consequentialist or even explicit treatment of contemporary utilitarian philosophers in recent Christian ethics. It is therefore a welcome

Giving Well, 2011