Rich and Poor in America, Part 2

One would-be immigrant wanted to come to America because it is a country where “even poor people are fat!” But many of the poor in our culture don’t feel particularly “fat”. Wendy lives in a trailer home with her parents. Dinesh D’Souza explains that she “has never known grinding poverty. Her father earns $9 an hour as a welder; her mother works part-time as a cook. Her problem is that her public school is largely made up of the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, and business executives.” What she suffers from “is not the physical hardship of going hungry but the psychological suffering of everyday humiliation. Some of the children call her `trailer girl.’” Others call her “Rabbit” because of her protruding front teeth -- which Wendy has pleaded with her parents to have straightened.

So how do we help Wendy? Should our government tax the wealthy and give money to the poor so they can purchase designer clothing and braces for their kids? Is this what Jefferson envisioned when he wrote that “all men are created equal”? D’Souza believes that Jefferson’s view is that private concern for an individual does not “translate into a public responsibility involving the federal government.” Jefferson believed that the government’s role was not to undo all wrongs, but to give equal rights. He believed in the equality of rights, not the equality of outcomes.

The church, though, should be at the forefront of bringing the rich and the poor together. We do this by:

• shouting that life is found through an intimate relationship with the Living God, not through large stock portfolios or four-car garages.
• warning the poor not to envy. This is one of the Ten Big Ones: “You shall not covet ... anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
• reminding the rich that their abundance was given by God “to supply for [the poor’s] need.” (II Cor. 8:14) A rich person might help pay an orthodontist’s bill. Or he might be sure to pay his employees a living wage -- not simply what the market bears.
• teaching that our identity is based on being a gifted part of Christ’s body. The poor man makes up for the rich man’s deficits (and vice versa). They complete and need each other.