Pentecost Witness for a Moral Budget

Pentecost was a highly significant Christian event that occurred fifty days after Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Unlike Christmas and Easter, it is not widely celebrated even by many devout Christians, and certainly not by the general public.

This year, though, Jim Wallis and his friends/supporters are promoting what he is calling “Pentecost witness for a moral budget.”¹ 

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to the media on May 22 after the House narrowly passed the "big, beautiful bill."

Jim Wallis’s Substack blogsite is called “God’s Politics.” On May 8, he posted a call there for people to join him on June 10, two days after Pentecost, in “a public procession and vigil led by clergy and congregants, religious and lay leaders, at the U.S. Capitol before a key Senate vote.”

That vote will be “on a reconciliation package that threatens to slash care for the sick in Medicaid, limit feeding the hungry in SNAP, and crippling other vital social programs that support and uplift vulnerable people among us.” It may even restrict Medicare.

It will likely be early July before the Senate votes on the budget bill, but on May 22 (at 6:56 a.m.!), the House passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB) by a vote of 215 for and 214 against, with one dissenting Republican House member voting “present.”²

Wallis has long emphasized that a budget is a moral issue. That is because tax policies and government budgets affect people’s lives. They have moral consequences—and the moral standard is the biblical vision of economic justice. (Jim wrote about that in his best-selling book God’s Politics, 2006.)

The Poor People’s Campaign is also emphasizing a moral budget. At 7:56 a.m. on May 22, exactly one hour after the House passed the BBB, the leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign wrote that “now 215 Republican members of the House have put their name on this one big, ugly payout to billionaires.” (I encourage you to read their full blog post here.)

The prime leader of the Poor People’s Campaign is William Barber, whom I have mentioned, and lauded, several times since first introducing him in a September 2016 blog post. (He was also on my list of Ten Most Admired Contemporary Christians that I posted in March 2017.)

The week before Wallis’s June 10 event, Barber is hosting a protest on the east side of the Capitol, in front of the Supreme Court at 11 a.m. (ET) on June 2. In announcing that gathering, Barber wrote,  

As the cries of the poor grow louder and the policies of the powerful grow colder, we must rise. Across lines of faith, race, and region, moral witnesses will converge at the very steps where justice has been delayed, where truth has been trampled, and where budgets have become weapons against the vulnerable.

Now is the time to protest the harmful provisions of the BBB. Even though it will be more than a month before the Senate votes on their version of it, now is the time to be aware—and to make others aware—of how immoral the House-passed version of the BBB is.

Before the House vote, the President was touting the “merits” of the BBB. He is reported to have said, “This is the greatest bill … the most important bill this country, just about, has ever done, in terms of size and scope. That’s why we call it the great, big, beautiful deal.”

However, as Mark Wingfield posted on May 27, “Apart from evangelicals and die-hard Trump supporters, America's religious leaders find the president's ‘big beautiful bill’ … to be immoral, unkind and un-Christian.”³

That’s why now, a month and more before the Senate vote, as a Pentecost witness for a moral budget, we who agree with Wingfield and the religious leaders he cites need to write our Senators, urging them to vote No—and maybe we can convince friends and family members to do the same.

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*1 On May 29, Jim posted a Stackpost article (here) similar to what he posted on May 8. Many of you know who Jim Wallis is and my longstanding appreciation for him, but if you don’t, please take a look at the blog post I made about him in July 2021 by clicking here.

*2 See here for details about the content of the BBB on a government website. Since it is such a “big” bill, it includes much more than merely budgetary matters.

*3 Wingfield is Baptist News Global’s executive director and publisher. The article cited above is quite long, but if you want to read it all, which I hope some of you do, here is a link to it:
Faith leaders decry 'big beautiful bill' as immoral and un-Christian

The Five Worst Things of POTUS 47’s First 100 Days

April 12 was the 80^th anniversary of the death of Pres. Roosevelt, who first referred to “the first 100 days” of a president’s term. Yesterday, April 29, was the 100^th day of Pres. Trump’s second term. What a difference between those first 100 days of one of the best U.S. presidents and the first 100 days of one of the worst!*¹ 

The U.S. was in terrible shape when Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. The first 100 days of his presidency were pivotal in turning the nation toward recovery and saving the country, which was “in the throes of an unmatched calamity” and “on the brink of collapse”.*²

In March 1933, almost 25% of the civilian labor force (15,500,000 people!) were unemployed. And on his inauguration day, the most immediate challenge facing the new president was the imminent collapse of the US banking system. 

Jonathan Alter is an American journalist and best-selling author. One of his significant books is The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (2006). On the first page of his book, Alter avers that in March 1933 the U.S. was experiencing “its greatest crisis since the Civil War.”

The U.S. was in relatively good shape when Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2025. Of course, there were problems, but the recovery from the debilitating COVID-19 pandemic was better than that of the world’s other industrialized countries. The unemployment rate was low (4%), and the inflation rate was down to 3% from the pandemic peak of over 9% in 2022.

In the very first paragraph of his inaugural address, Trump said that “the golden age of America begins right now.” He vowed that every single day he would put America first and that his top priority would be “to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free.” He emphasized how bad things were currently and declared that “from this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

To a large extent, his promise to “make America great again” meant going back to the way things were before Roosevelt. That had long been the strong desire of right-wing politicians and a large segment of U.S. citizens who had long listened to easily accessible conservative “talk radio” programs and Fox News telecasts. Trump’s campaign rhetoric exploited that desire.

In the early 2010s, I was teaching a night class at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, and on the way home I would listen to a local AM station. That meant I often heard the rantings of Mark Levin.*³ He often said the U.S. needed to go back to the way it was 80 years ago, and I finally realized he meant going back to the way things were before FDR.

So, what are the five most harmful things Trump has done during these first 100 days of his second term? The following is my tentative list with only brief comments about each—and I could be persuaded to revise my list by readers who suggest something they see as worse or who think these “worse five’ should be ordered differently.

1) Harm to world peace. Because of Trump’s rhetoric and actions, the likelihood of warfare with the use of tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons has become greater in the last 100 days. His coziness with Putin, his negative views of NATO, and the current tariff war with China are troublesome signs of what might possibly happen in the not-so-distant future. 

2) Harm to the global environment. On inauguration day, Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. to again withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement. Then here in the U.S., he has made multiple moves to do away with environmental programs designed to slow global warming and ecological collapse.

3) Harm to needy people at home and abroad. In February, the Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance, which eliminates the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad. Other cuts remove funding designed to help the neediest people in the U.S.

4) Harm to the worldwide economy. As CNN posted on April 28, “Trump took the US economy to the brink of a crisis in just 100 days.” On the same day, Reuters wrote, “Risks are high that the global economy will slip into recession this year, according to … a Reuters poll, in which scores [of economists] said U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs have damaged business sentiment.”

5) Harm to the rule of law. Domestically, Trump’s furor over migrants in the U.S. has led to the repeated rejection of “due process,” which is the bedrock foundation of the rule of law. According to CBS on April 23, Trump “is now arguing undocumented migrants should not be given a trial where they could challenge being removed from the country.”

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*¹ According to the conclusions of the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project (see here), Roosevelt ranked number two, following Abraham Lincoln, and Trump was 45^th, dead last—and there is ample reason to think that Trump’s second term so far is worse than his first. 

*² The words cited are those of Naftali Bendavid, the senior national political correspondent of the Washington Post. “Trump claims mantle of FDR’s first 100 days, but differences are stark” was the title of his April 28 post.

*³ As I learned on Wikipedia, “A 2016 study which sought to measure incendiary discourse on talk radio and TV found that Levin scored highest on its measure of ‘outrage’." He also “helped to legitimate the use of uncivil discourse.” Earlier this month, Trump appointed Levin to become a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. It is not hard to understand why Trump appreciates what Levin has been saying on talk radio for so long and more recently on Fox News.

Note: To those of you who like statistics, I encourage you to take a look at "How Low Can Trump Go" a Substack post made yesterday by Rachel Bitecofer​ regarding Trump's polling numbers (click here--and let me know if you have trouble accessing Rachel's Substack post).

Why God Gets Angry

“When you see God getting angry in the Bible, it’s often because the poor are being mistreated.” These are the words of Matthew Desmond in the August issue of Sojourners magazine (see here).

Over the years I have written about poverty several times on this blog, but reading the Sojourners’ interview with Desmond spurred me to post here again about that troubling topic.*¹

Matthew Desmond is a sociology professor at Princeton University. His first book was the Pulitzer Prize-winning Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016). His new book, Poverty, by America, was released in March. I was highly impressed by what I read in both books. 

In introducing their interview with Desmond (b. 1979/80), the editors of Sojourners note that he “is the son of a pastor, and his work is rich with spiritual metaphor and flare while founded in the material realities of poverty and the conditions that cause it.”

Indeed, rather than an outside academic studying the problem of poverty from the “ivory tower,” Desmond did his research by living among the poor for extended periods of time, becoming friends with those suffering from the many perils of poverty.

Interviewer Mitchell Atencio began by asking Desmond to comment on Gustavo Gutiérrez’s depiction of poverty.

The Peruvian liberation theologian defined poverty as “premature and unjust death,” and stated that “the poor person is someone who is treated as a non-person, someone who is considered insignificant from an economic, political, and cultural point of view.”*²

Desmond agreed, noting that “one of the leading causes of death in the United States is poverty.” For that and other reasons, Desmond declares, “I want to end poverty. I don’t want to treat it, I want to cure it. I don’t want to reduce it, I want to abolish it.”

Accordingly, he challenges his readers to join him in becoming “poverty abolitionists.”*³

The abolitionist movement was the name of the long struggle for the eradication of the enslavement of human beings mostly to do manual labor without pay.

There have also long been attempts to abolish capital punishment. The Death Penalty Information Center has a webpage titled The Abolitionist Movement, and it is, of course, about the history of attempts to abolish the death penalty.

Some people are seeking to abolish abortion. For example, the “Abolition of Abortion in Missouri Act” was introduced to the Missouri Senate last year.

Little has been said, though, about the abolition of poverty. There was, of course, “the war on poverty” launched by President Johnson in 1964. Although opposed by GOP politicians from the beginning, some positive steps to reduce poverty were made. But it soon began to lose effectiveness.

Accordingly, early in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., started the Poor People's Campaign to address what he saw as the shortcomings of the war on poverty—and his trip to Memphis where he was assassinated in April was not to struggle against racism as such, but to protest against poverty.*⁴

Desmond’s call for a new abolitionist movement is something that we need to take seriously. That is so for all people of goodwill and especially true for those of us who are Christians, or Jews, and take our Scripture seriously.

Reflecting on what Desmond said about why God gets angry, consider the words of the Old Testament prophets speaking for God in judgment on those who are wealthy and mistreating or neglecting the poor, words, for example, found in Isaiah 1:11~17, Ezekiel 22:29~31, and Amos 2:6-7a, 4:1-2.

If we are going to work to abolish poverty, we must work toward ridding our neighborhoods, and our churches, of segregation—not of racial segregation so much as economic segregation. Most of our neighborhoods and churches now have far more of the latter than the former.

As Desmond says, “Segregation poisons our minds and souls. When affluents live, work, play, and worship mainly alongside fellow affluents, they can grow insular, quite literally forgetting the poor.” (Poverty, p. 162).

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*¹ My May 20, 2015, blog article was titled “The Culture of Poverty,” and it has been one of my most accessed blog posts with over 3,000 pageviews.

*² “50 years later, Gustavo Gutiérrez’s ‘A Theology of Liberation’ remains prophetic” is the title of an informative 8/17/23 article in America (the Jesuit review of faith and culture) about Gutiérrez and his ground-breaking book first published in English in 1973.

*³ “How to Be a Poverty Abolitionist: On Matthew Desmond’s ‘Poverty, by America’” is an excellent review of Desmond’s book published on March 21 by the Los Angeles Review of Books.

*⁴ In 2018, William Barber II launched the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, seeking to complete what King started 50 years earlier. (See my May 5, 2018, blog post: “Can a Barber do what a King couldn’t?”.)

The Marvels of Modern Medical Procedures

Most of us have benefited greatly from “modern medicine,” and from the standpoint of those who lived in previous times, even 100 years ago, much that is common now would have seemed quite marvelous to them. 

The Marvel of Knee Surgery

This is the first blog post I have finished writing since my July 20 knee replacement surgery. (My 7/25 post was written entirely before then.)

While I still have some discomfort, I have confidence that for years to come I will have far less knee pain than I had for months (and even years) before surgery. But what did people do before 1968?

It was in ’68 (when I was 30) that the first-ever total knee replacement surgery was completed, although the development of knee arthroplasty (joint replacement surgery) began way back in the early 1860s. But it was not even very satisfactory until several years after 1968

What about before then? Perhaps most people died before ever needing knee surgery—or they just had to put up with the pain.

June (my wife) had knee replacement surgery twelve years ago, and after a few weeks of recovery has had full use of that knee with little discomfort ever since. I am expecting the same—and I wish I had had this surgery last year.

I chose a clinic where the patient goes home the day of surgery “no matter what.” We left to go to the Total Joint Center at 5:15 a.m. and were home about eight hours later. Although I am sorry for the extra burden it put upon June, by midnight I was able to take care of my own needs.

How grateful I am that I now live in 2022 rather than in 1922—or even in 1972—and that I had easy access to a competent surgeon, proficient nurses, and a modern medical facility.

I am also grateful that I have insurance (a Medicare Advantage plan) that covered most of the expenses of the operation and the prescribed pain medicine.

The Marvel of C-section Births

June and I have been thrilled this year with the birth of our first two great-grandchildren, one in February and the second earlier this month.

Both of our precious great-grandchildren were born by cesarean delivery, not because of some emergency after labor began but because of conditions that led the doctors to conclude that C-section would be safer than natural birth.

Relatively safe cesarean deliveries date back to the 1920s, but such births became much more common after the development of penicillin in the 1940s—and then still more common after ultrasound (sonograms) became widely used in the 1970s.

The lives of many women and babies are now regularly being saved because of the availability of safe C-section deliveries.

So, again, I am most grateful for modern medical procedures, grateful for the benefit I have received this month and for the benefits that my granddaughters each received this year in the births of their babies.

What about Those for Whom Modern Medicine is not Available?

While I, as well as my two granddaughters and their husbands, were able to greatly benefit from the marvels of modern medical procedures this year, millions of USAmericans are not able to benefit as fully because of the lack of (adequate) insurance.

According to this Jan. 2022 website, approximately 30 million people in the United States are uninsured and risk financial ruin if they become ill or injured. Worse, there are approximately 9 million uninsured children in the country. That’s about one out of every 10 children in the United States.

In the poorer countries of the world, not only is there no insurance for masses of people, there are also far too few trained doctors and adequate medical facilities.

It is not surprising that the three countries with the highest infant mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) are also among the top seven poorest countries in the world (as measured by their gross national income per capita).

Much more needs to be done domestically and internationally for all to be able to enjoy the marvels of modern medical procedures. Can’t we actively promote that?

In Support of the Moral March on Washington

This is not the first time I have written about William Barber II (see here and especially here), but I am posting this article in strong support of Barber and his (and co-chair Liz Theoharis’s) Poor People’s Campaign’s “Moral March on Washington and to the Polls!” on June 18 (here is their website link.)

The June 18 March on Washington is also dubbed the Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly. Barber and Theoharis have issued a declaration for why the long-planned June 18 assembly and march are necessary (see here).

After stating that “there are 140 million poor and low-income people in this country,” the Declaration lists eight major concerns. Here are the first three of those:

1. Living wages, adequate incomes, inclusive welfare programs & the right to form and join unions

2. Universal, quality and affordable healthcare, housing, water, utilities & public education

3. Expanded voting rights, civil rights, access to democracy & equal protection under the law

Further, Barber and Theoharis give ten reasons for the assembly and march. The first is:

Because the promise of our democracy requires that we address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism & the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. It is time to heal the wounds of our society and declare a moral revival across the land.

This is the kind of statement the vocal opponents of “critical race theory” and intersectionality find objectionable and depreciate. But it seems to me that this is a very clear, correct, and significant statement.

Barber and Theoharis conclude with this appeal:    

    Join us to move this society beyond the false choices of liberal vs. conservative and right vs. left and toward the essential question of our time: right vs. wrong! 
    Join us to revive and renew the heart and soul of our democracy!

Those of us who have concern for the large segment of our society who are struggling/suffering the most should surely respond to this appeal wholeheartedly.

Please note that Saturday’s march/assembly is not a political activity—although it does align with the left wing of the Democratic Party more than any other (except maybe for the Democratic Socialists).

The Poor People’s Campaign is firmly rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ, not in politics. Barber and Theoharis are Christian clergy, and how refreshing it is to see Christian leaders in the news because of their commitment to following Jesus’ teaching rather than because of some sexual or financial scandal as, unfortunately, is so often the case nowadays.

Most of all, Barber and Theoharis are seeking to lead those who heed their call to follow the teachings of Jesus such as found in Luke 4:16~21 and Matthew 25:31~40.

Yes, how encouraging it is to observe the activity of clergy who are truly Christian leaders rather than misleaders, to witness Jesus-followers who are carrying on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Walter Rauschenbusch, and many other faithful clergy of the past.

The June 18 assembly/march will be virtual as well as live. (You can access the livestream of the activities that day beginning at 9:30 a.m., EDT, here.)

Perhaps most of you will not take the time to watch all the livestreamed program (and neither will I), but I at least will watch some of it from about 10:45 (EDT) that morning—and I hope you will, too.

The Long Shadow of War

It has now been 40 days since Russia invaded Ukraine—and who knows when or how that tragic war will end. From the beginning, the Ukrainian people have struggled bravely to defend their country—and have suffered great losses. But the shadow of that war is a long one. 

The Local Effects of the War

It is hard to comprehend the horrors of the death and destruction in Ukraine since February 24. According to the latest figures I could find yesterday (Apr. 4), some 24,000 people have already been killed, and the Ukrainian government claims that around 7,000 non-combatants have lost their lives.

In addition, more than 10,000,000 Ukrainians have left their homes with more than 40% of them having become refugees in other countries, primarily Poland. Twenty-three of the U.S. states have a population smaller than the number of current Ukrainian refugees (approx. 4,200,000).

Further, there is the wanton destruction of houses, factories, infrastructure, farmland, and much more. A sad, sad situation in Ukraine indeed!**

The Global Effects of the War

The shadow of the war in Ukraine is a long one, affecting many millions of people around the world. Consider just two major detrimental global effects:

** Hunger/Starvation

        “War in Ukraine could plunge world into food shortages.” This is a March 25 headline of a National Geographic article.

According to that piece, “Over the past decade, Ukraine, long known as the breadbasket of Europe, has become an agricultural powerhouse for much of the developing world.” Ukraine is “a country of 40 million people, but they produce food for 400 million.”

But sadly, Ukraine will most likely not be able to do that this year because of the war.

A March 21 post by Religion News Service warns, “Ukraine may leave millions hungry.” That was the assessment of Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World.

It is too soon to know how intense/detrimental the long shadow of the war in Ukraine will be, but the prospect of increased world hunger/starvation is distressing.

** Poverty

In this country, the most direct effect of the war in eastern Europe is inflation, particularly seen in the dramatic rise in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. While price increases are a source of widespread complaint, it is a dire problem for those already living in or near poverty.

In the U.S., even in 2020 there were more than 37,000,000 residents who were living in poverty.

A headline on a March 29 post on Business Insider advises, “Americans should budget an extra $5,200 this year to cover rising prices.” But how can that possibly be done by households with a yearly income of less than $26,500 (the poverty level line for 2021)?

And how many more will fall into poverty because of the war?

Then there are the hundreds of millions around the world who are considerably worse off.

The future looks much darker now for nearly all of these people because of the long shadow of the war in Ukraine.

The Personal Effects of the War

If the war in Ukraine doesn’t escalate into a nuclear war—and I remain grateful that Pres. Biden has persistently and consistently sought to guard against that possibility—we who live in North America don’t have to worry about being directly affected by what happens in Eastern Europe.

Most of us Americans, though, will be affected indirectly, mostly by higher prices and perhaps shortages of some commodities. Even that will be no big problem for those of us who are able to bear the extra cost.

But the coming months are going to be a time when many people in this country, mainly those living below the poverty line, and vastly more in the poorer countries of the world, are going to need additional help to buy food and other necessities of life.

Can we—and will we—in the middle class (or above) do more to help the multitudes who are already suffering and who will be suffering more in the long shadow of the war in Ukraine? And will we also support the federal government in providing greater assistance? If not, why not?

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** On Sunday (4/3) the news media made public news and images about the atrocities committed against the Ukrainians in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. See, for example, this CNN article (with a video).

Between Two Monsters: The Scylla of the Pandemic and the Charybdis of Poverty

In my May 25 blog post, I referred to Scylla and Charybdis, two sea monsters found in ancient Greek mythology. In this article, I am again using that story to highlight the exceedingly difficult problem of dealing effectively with the covid-19 pandemic without consigning millions to poverty—and to death because of starvation. 

The Two Monsters in the U.S.

As was widely noted at the end of May, the number of deaths in the U.S. from covid-19 topped 100,000 people—and now that number is already nearing 115,000. It has also been noted, although not so widely, that the number of deaths is disproportionately higher among non-white and financially poor people.

According to a 5/28 article in The Guardian, “Figures compiled by APM Research Lab from 40 states show that African Americans are being killed at almost three times the rate of white people.

“Black Kansans are seven times more likely to die from the virus than white Kansans. In Missouri, Wisconsin and Washington DC the ratio is six times.”

That same article goes on to quote William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign (whom I first wrote about in this 9/15/16 blog post).

Barber emphasizes that covid-19 is a disease of the poor. “People are being forced to work, putting profit over protection,” he says. “This pandemic will highlight how poverty—and our willingness to let people remain in it—presents a clear and present danger for all of us.”

The wealthy can practice social distancing, work from home, etc. But what if you have only an over-crowded—or no—home to go to, and no paying work at all if you stay home?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly half of U.S. workers earn less than $15 an hour and nearly 70% have less than $1,000 in savings. Most of these people must show up for work if they are going to be paid.

Caught between the monsters of the pandemic and poverty, many must go back to work in unsafe conditions and take their chances of not getting sick.

The Two Monsters in the LICs

Worldwide, when the number of deaths reached 100,000 in the U.S., there were more than 350,000 deaths from covid-19. But more than 64% of those deaths were in just five of the wealthier countries: the U.S., the UK, France, Spain, and Italy.

But just this month, as the number of deaths worldwide topped 410,000, Brazil became the country with the third most deaths—and the surge has just started in the LICs (low-income countries) of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.

Most of the attention of us citizens in the USA has been on the domestic crisis—and that is especially true of DJT. As the headline in a June 3 WaPo editorial expresses it, “Trump irresponsibly abandons the WHO while the pandemic surges in less developed nations.”

A week earlier, a Boston U. epidemiologist wrote an op-ed piece titled “The coronavirus pandemic will turn into a poverty pandemic unless we act now.” The author contends that “the long-term health costs of an economic depression could ultimately far eclipse what covid-19 has wrought.”

That is especially true for the LICs. According to that article, a regional director of the WHO for Africa said last week that the coronavirus pandemic will move about 27 million Africans to extreme poverty.

Earlier, a May 28 article in a newspaper of India said, “The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could push as many as 86 million more children into poverty by the end of 2020.” (The image above accompanied that article.)

A report issued by Gospel for Asia the day before World Hunger Day on May 28 declared, “It’s estimated that nine million people will die in a coronavirus-worsened ‘scandal of starvation’ this year.”

The U.S. and countries around the world have made great efforts to avoid/control the monster of the covid-19 pandemic. Isn’t it time we also make a more concerted effort to avoid/control the monster of poverty? 

Jean Vanier (1928~2019) and his meritorious life dedicated to living in community with people who had serious mental and/or physical “disabilities” was the topic of my Sept. 10 blog posting. This article is about one of Vanier’s main emphases: doing things with rather than just for people with serious needs.

In Harmony with Vanier

In his L’Arche homes, Vanier and those who followed his example, modeled what it means to treat people who have physical needs with respect. They chose to live with people who had serious mental and/or physical “handicaps,” not just to provide homes where they could be taken care of.

Before I learned about Vanier and L’Arche, I heard about similar institutions in Japan, institutions very much in harmony with the L’Arche movement Vanier began in France in 1964.

Two years before Vanier started the first L’Arche home, Fukui Tatsu’u (福井 達雨), a 32-year-old Japanese man, founded what became Shiyo Gakuen (止揚学園) as a home for physically challenged people.

Fukui, a 1956 graduate of the Department of Theology of the renowned Doshisha University in Kyoto, remained the head of Shiyo Gakuen until 2015.

During the years I taught at Seinan Gakuin, Fukui-sensei was invited many times to be the guest speaker during the “Christian Focus Week” special chapel services at the university and the junior-senior high school. He always emphasized doing things with the “needy,” not just doing things for them.

In 1976, Hisayama Ryoikuen (久山療育園), a similar facility, was established in the outskirts of Fukuoka City. Their emphasis from the beginning has been “living with” (tomo ni, pronounced toh-moh knee, in Japanese).

Doing something for others is expressed in Japanese as tame ni (pronounced tah-meh knee). These similar words express a great difference—and the former continues to be admirably modeled by Hisayama Ryoikuen, Shiyo Gakuen, and Jean Vanier’s L’Arche homes. 

From a Hisayama Ryoikuen poster emphasizing "living with"

In the Spirit of Vanier

I don’t know if he was influenced at all by Jean Vanier, but Chris Arnade is a fascinating man who spent a considerable amount of time in the 2010s living out the spirit of Vanier by constant contact with the “underclass” of American society.

Arnade (b. 1965) earned a Ph.D. in physics and then worked with a Wall Street bank for twenty years before becoming a freelance writer and photographer. In 2012 he began visiting a neighborhood in the South Bronx where he became friends with homeless people, sex workers, and addicts.

Arnade then traveled over 150,000 miles around the U.S., spending time with “back row” people in American society. Based upon his experiences, earlier this year Arnade published a book titled Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.

I first learned about Arnade’s book by reading Peter Mommsen’s excellent interview with Arnade published in the Summer 2019 issue of Plough Quarterly. That interview and the book are both very impressive.

The first chapter of Arnade’s book is titled, “If You Want to Understand the Country, Visit McDonald’s.” He spent countless hours in McDonald’s restaurants talking with the people who are frequent visitors there.

Arnade concluded that many of the people he found at McDonald’s felt “excluded, rejected, and, most of all, humiliated.” He recognized that society has “denied many their dignity” (p. 284)—thus the title, and thrust, of his book.

At the end of his interview with Mommsen, Arnade emphasized, “Take time to listen to people. Give them respect.”

While most of us can’t, or won’t, choose to live in a L’Arche home or a similar institution, we can choose to spend more time with “needy” people of various sorts, seeking to show them dignity and respect by doing things with them rather than just doing something for them.

The Problem of Payday Loans

It’s tough to be poor. (I know, for my wife and I were quite poor for the first several years of our marriage.) And some of the poor in this country are even poorer because in times of great need they have gotten a loan (or loans) from a payday lender. 

A Short Introduction

Payday loans are typically small loans ($500 or less) that people can easily get by walking into a business establishment with a valid ID, proof of income, and a bank account. Such loans are generally due for complete repayment two weeks later, or on the borrower’s next payday.

Payday lenders are plentiful in most states across the country. According to this helpful Aug. 2018 online article, there are approximately 23,000 payday lenders in the U.S., almost twice the number of McDonald’s restaurants. In addition, now there are also many online lenders. 

While payday loans might be considered “life-savers” for some people, the problem is the exorbitant interest/fees charged. While the loans provide quick much-needed cash, the national average annual percentage rate (APR) for such loans is almost 400%. (In contrast, last week the average credit card APR was only 17.39%.)

An online investigation of three payday lenders closest to my home here in suburban Kansas City revealed that the interest rates for 14-day loans of up to $500 are from 443.21% to 651.79% APR.

These establishments are often rightly called “predatory lenders,” for many people can’t make their re-payment on time and have to roll over their loans—and Missouri allows up to six rollovers. Consequently, some people end up paying far more in interest than the amount of money borrowed.

An Immediate Goal

The Northland Justice Coalition is a small group here in Liberty (Mo.) where I live. (Northland refers to Kansas City and its suburbs north of the Missouri River.) For the last several months, some of us in that organization have been working on ways to limit payday lenders in our small city.

Because of our work in preparing a petition and obtaining 1,270 signatures, there will be a special election on Nov. 5 giving voters the chance to limit the number of payday lenders in our city and to increase their licensing fees considerably.

On behalf of the group I have written an op/ed piece about this matter for the Clay County Courier-Tribune, our local weekly newspaper, and I am expecting that to be in the Oct. 24 issue.

A Long-term Struggle

Missouri Faith Voices (MFV) is a multi-faith, multi-racial, statewide, nonpartisan organization committed to empowering and transforming the lives of ordinary citizens who have been targeted by unfair policies and practices and oppressed by racial and economic injustice. 

In Missouri, only the state legislature can cap the interest rates that lenders can charge. In 2017 MFV made a concerted effort to get the state legislature to place a ceiling on the exorbitant rates now allowed. But they were unsuccessful in their valiant attempt to get approval for a bill that would do that.

Those directly involved in that effort told me that the payday lenders’ lobbying activities—and their generous contributions to state legislators—make it difficult for any substantial changes to be made.

There are twelve states (and D.C.), including Missouri’s neighbor Arkansas, that prohibit payday loans. But in most states payday lending is legal and in some states the interest rate is completely unregulated. There is a limit in Missouri—1,970%!

For us in Missouri and in many other states, seeking new and just legislation limiting the interest rates payday lenders can charge is of great importance.

In 2006 the federal Military Lending Act capped the interest that could be charged military personnel and veterans at 36%. Surely, that needs to become the law for all.

In Praise of Dom Helder Camara

Just like Fred Korematsu, the subject of my previous blog article (found here), Helder Camara is similarly not a household name. But Camara, who was born ten years before Korematsu, is also a man well worth remembering with acclaim.

Introducing Dom Helder

Hélder Pessoa Câmara was born on February 7, 1909, in northeastern Brazil. From an early age, he played at saying Mass; when he was only eight or nine years old, he talked about becoming a priest. At age 14 he entered the seminary and was ordained eight years later, in August 1931.

Dom Helder, as he was usually called in Brazil, had 54 years of active ministry, including 21 years as an archbishop, before his retirement in 1985. Twenty years ago, in August 1999, he died at the age of 90.

The Washington Post article announcing Camara’s death referred to him as “a former Brazilian Catholic archbishop and proponent of Liberation Theology who became a noted human rights crusader and champion of agrarian reform.”

Dom Helder was a tireless advocate for and friend of the poor and marginalized people in his native country and around the world. Here are his most widely-cited words:  

Learning from Dom Helder

Through the years I saw various references to Camara and was impressed by what I read by and about him. Now that I have just finished reading the book Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings (2009), I am even more impressed.

Camara championed liberation theology, which has often been charged with inciting violence. But Dom Helder was a man of peace. He declared,

We, as Christians, are on the side of nonviolence, and this is in no way an option for weakness and passivity. Opting for nonviolence means to believe more strongly in the power of truth, justice, and love than in the power of wars, weapons, and hatred (p. 81).

Dom Helder was also a poet. I like this poem that expresses the type of man he was:

If you disagree with me,
you have something to give me
if you are sincere
and seek the truth
as best you may,
honestly, with modest care,
your thought is growth
to mine, correction,
you deepen my vision.

(pp.99-100)

As an archbishop, Camara often faced large audiences that applauded and cheered him. He wrote that at such times, “I turn to Christ and say to him simply: ‘Lord, this is your triumphal entry into Jerusalem! I am just the little donkey you are riding on!’ And it’s true” (p. 145).

Would that all God’s servants and church leaders had that sort of humility!

Praising Dom Helder

Although Dom Helder was a small man, barely five feet tall, he had a large following of admirers. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. The Brazilian military dictatorship, his constant adversary, actively worked again his receiving that award, and they were successful.

Nevertheless, Francis McDonagh, who wrote the Introduction to the book of Dom Helder’s writings, reports, “In compensation, Norwegian churches and NGOs awarded him a ‘People’s Peace Prize’ in 1974, one of twenty-one international awards and eighteen degrees that testified to the esteem in which he was held by the international community” (p. 33).

One such noteworthy recognition was the Pacem in Terris Award, which he received in 1975—ten years after it was awarded to MLK, Jr., and the year before it was given to Mother Teresa.

Camara’s dream of the liberation of the poor and the creation of a fully just society hasn’t yet become a reality any more than MLK’s dream has, but people of goodwill must keep that dream alive and actively work toward its fulfillment.

Solidarity with the Poor

Pope Francis designated this past Sunday as World Day of the Poor. It was the second of what will likely be an ongoing, and expanding, observance by the Roman Catholic Church. But the plight of the poor—and solidarity with the poor, which the Pope has often emphasized—is something all of us need to think about seriously.

The Poor

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s report issued in Sept. 2018, there are nearly 40 million people in the U.S. living in poverty. That is 12.3% of the total population. For African-Americans the percentage is much higher: 21.7%. Sadly, the report also indicates that 17.5% of all children under 18 are living in poverty.

Worldwide, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where it is the worst, the percentage of people living in poverty is much higher. True, the poverty rates have been steadily declining in recent decades. But there are still vast segments of society, at home and especially abroad, that suffer daily from the effects of being poor.

Surely, people of goodwill must become more fully aware that domestic and international poverty is a shameful reality and be inclined to act to alleviate as much of that poverty as possible.

The Challenge

The Pope has, as have many other religious and also some civic leaders, been challenging people to be more aware of and compassionate toward the poor of the world. 

In his message for World Day of the Poor (you can read that message here), he used the word “solidarity” four times this year, as he did last year, and during his papacy he has often spoken of solidarity with or for the poor.

For example, in July (here) the Pope said,

"The proclamation of Christ, bread of eternal life, requires a generous commitment of solidarity for the poor, the weak, the least important, the defenseless. This action of proximity and charity is the best verification of the quality of our faith, both on a personal level and on a community level."

To make a generous commitment of solidarity with the poor is a difficult challenge. It is much easier to talk about being/living in solidarity than actually doing so.   

The Difficulties

To be in solidarity with the poor means, among other things, to be committed to “simple living,” as I have written about previously (see here and here). But living in such a manner is not easy.

It is easy, though, to rationalize, to quickly come up with reasons why we should buy or spend money for this or that, which would be out of the question for those who are poor.

Further, it is easy to engage in tokenism, claiming that such and such is done in solidarity with the poor when it is just a rather insignificant part of the totality of what we spend for things the poor cannot purchase or experience.

Part of the problem in trying to live in solidarity with the poor is that those around such a person, especially those who are closest, will likely not appreciate the emphasis on solidarity—and it is hard to talk about living in solidarity with the poor without sounding “holier than thou.”

In spite of the attendant difficulties, people who profess to be followers of Jesus—and all people of goodwill—must surely seek to live and to think more and more in solidarity with the poor.

And among other things, this also calls for supporting the politicians who are, and whichever political party is, conscientiously seeking to enact legislation that will be of greatest benefit to the poor people of our nation and of the world.