Remembering Martin Buber and the Importance of Dialogue

My previous blog post was about a contemporary Jewish woman who is an atheist. This post is about Martin Buber. a historical Jewish man who stressed the importance of dialogue between people and of the encounter with God, the basis of his philosophical thought and writings. 

Martin Buber was born in 1878 (145 years ago) to an Orthodox Jewish couple in Vienna. From 1881~92, he was raised by his grandfather in what is now Lviv, Ukraine. In 1899, while studying philosophy in Zürich, he met Paula Winkler, who was a Catholic, and they married in 1901.

Martin and Paula, who converted to Judaism, worked as a couple in the Zionist movement. Unlike most Zionists, though, the Bubers believed that that movement should focus on fostering cooperation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and they envisioned a binational state where both could coexist in harmony.

Buber was a prolific author, and Ich und Du, his best-known and most influential book, was published 100 years ago (in 1923). It was first translated into English in 1937 and issued under the title I and Thou.

A central emphasis of Buber’s book is the difference between the word pairs “I-It” and “I-Thou.” His philosophy centered on the encounter, or dialogue, of people with other human beings through relationships, which ultimately rest on and point to a relationship with God, “the eternal Thou.”

In 1938, when he was 60, Buber moved to Jerusalem where he resided until he died in 1965.

“I-It” is the primary stance of modern science. As Buber states in I and Thou, “the basic word I-It” is “the word of separation.”**

In the I-It realm, the natural world and everything in it is seen as something to be observed, examined, categorized. It is completely related to in an objective manner. Other humans, too, are often seen objectively. In that way, they, like natural phenomena, are experienced but not encountered.

When the physical world is considered an It, it can be used and manipulated for one’s own benefit without compunction. That, in fact, is one of the reasons for the ever-growing ecological crisis of the present time.

Unfortunately, when people are considered as Its, they too can easily be used, manipulated, and discriminated against without qualms. That is seen most clearly in the way enemies in warfare are always seen as Its who need to be destroyed.

“I-Thou” is primarily the stance of those who emphasize relationships and seek interaction with other people and even the natural world through subjective encounter rather than objective experience. 

The I-Thou (I-You) realm is one of dialogue, where there is mutual respect between people. Both the I and the You speak clearly and listen attentively, accepting both the uniqueness and the similarity of each other.

This I-Thou relationship can be enjoyed to a degree with even the non-human world, and that has been practiced by animistic religions such as that of traditional Native American peoples and of Shinto in Japan.

In the Handbook of Contemporary Animism (2013), Graham Harvey sees the animist perspective as similar to Buber's emphasis on "I-Thou." Animists relate to the world of animals, trees, and even inanimate objects in an I-Thou manner rather than in an I-It way.

And even in the present time, some modern environmentalists are called “tree-huggers” because of their desire to embrace an I-Thou relationship with the world of nature.

The distressing problem, however, is that modern industrial civilization and a world of eight billion people cannot be sustained by a worldview that relates to nature primarily in an I-Thou manner.

According to Buber, the basis of all I-Thou relationships is God, “the eternal Thou.” Through encounter with the eternal Thou, individuals are transformed and their understanding of the world and their place in it is fundamentally altered.

Buber believed that such encounter is essential to human flourishing and meaningful existence.

In my view, Buber was correct, indeed, and that is the reason I want us all to remember him and his emphasis on the importance of encounter with God and of having dialogue with other people.

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** The first (1937) English translation of Buber’s Ich und Du was by Ronald Gregor Smith. This citation is from Walter Kaufmann’s 1970 translation (p. 66 of the Kindle edition). At the beginning of that edition, Kaufmann has a helpful prologue of more than 40 pages. Buber’s book alone is only about 120 pages, but it is difficult reading and most of us need to read it more than once in order to fully grasp what he is saying. 

Does America Need More Atheists?

An opinion piece on the October 3 website of the Washington Post caught my eye and captured my attention. It was by WaPo’s contributing columnist Kate Cohen and titled “America doesn’t need more God. It needs more atheists.” 

Kate Cohen is a mother, an atheist, and an author. Her book, We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should To), which was also published on Oct. 3, states that being a mother led her to “come out” as an atheist.

Cohen was raised Jewish and married a Jew in a Jewish wedding—but she explains that she never really believed “in that jealous, capricious, and cruel Old Testament God” (p. 12). But she never identified herself as an atheist until she began rearing her children.

In her book, Kate tells how she vowed to teach her children “what I truly thought about everything,” and she “did not let them decide for themselves,” for she strongly believed that “passing on one’s preference for reason, evidence, and honesty…is the truly moral choice” (pp. 13, 14).

Kate was born and reared in Virginia. She graduated from Dartmouth University and married in 1997. She is now in her late 40s, but I was unable to find out how old her children are. They are probably young adults now and it would be interesting to know how they have turned out.*¹

There are positive aspects of Kate Cohen and her book that should be recognized. She is honest in identifying who she is rather than seeking (any longer) to keep her lack of religious faith closeted. And she encourages others to be honest also as intimated in her book’s subtitle.

Even though I have spent most of my life seeking to help people become God-believers, I think those who don’t believe in God should be able to identify themselves openly rather than pretending to be and to believe, what they are not and do not. Honesty, indeed, is the best policy.

Further, Cohen seeks to remove the stigma from those who identify as atheists. She writes, “Like atheism, homosexuality is a difference that can be hidden. Sociologists call it a Concealable Stigmatized Identity” (p. 221), but she claims that that stigma is disappearing more rapidly for LGBTQ people than for atheists.

But as a God-believer—and because I am a God-believer—I certainly think that people need to be respected/accepted regardless of their religious faith or lack thereof. After all, that is what freedom of religion means.

There are also highly questionable aspects of Cohen’s book. While there are some nuanced places, she gives the impression that all atheists are largely the same, and “good,” whereas all who believe in God/religion are also largely the same, and “bad.” (See, for example, p. 228).

In strongly encouraging people who do not believe in God to affirm their atheism, she writes,

If you need a reason to let people know that you don’t believe moral authority derives from a Supreme Being, then I offer you no less than making America a safer, smarter, more just, and more compassionate country.*²

It is because of that belief that the WaPo article was titled “America doesn’t need more God It Needs More Atheists.”

On the previous page, she asserts, “…peel back the layers of discrimination against LGBTQ people and you find religion.”

She further contends that “control over women’s bodies,” as well as “school-library book bans, and even the backlash against acknowledging the racist underpinnings of our nation are motivated by religion.”

To such charges, I can only say “Yes, but….” Yes, there are Christians who are exactly such as Kate mentioned. But, there are Christians who are against discrimination and control as much as she is. And regarding climate change, note what Pope Francis said about in his 10/4 “apostolic exhortation.”*³

Moreover, if truth were known, my guess is that there is a large percentage of atheists who support discrimination and control as well as the (mostly) conservative evangelical Christians she uses as her foil.

So, no, Ms. Cohen, America doesn’t need less God and more atheists. It needs more intellectually honest and intelligent atheists (or whatever) as well as intellectually honest and intelligent God-believers to work together to make our society more compassionate and more just for all.

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*¹ In her book, Cohen says that her children are “engaged, informed, and savvy citizens” (p. 227).

*² These words are in a paragraph that begins with her saying that “anti-atheist sentiment is not a matter of life and death in America. But transphobia is, sexual violence against women is, forced birth is, climate change is, and global pandemics are” (p. 230).

*³ I wrote about this in some detail in my Oct. 13 blog post (see here).

 

Praise for the Pope

Like most of you who read this blog, I am not a Roman Catholic, but I have considerable appreciation for Pope Francis. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in 1936, ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969, and elected Pope in March 2013. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. 

Pope Francis speaking at the Vatican on 10/4/23]

There are many reasons to praise Pope Francis. For example, just nine days ago (on 10/4/23), the Pope issued an “apostolic exhortation” under the title Laudate Deum (=Praise God). That document, which can be read in full here, was directed “to all people of good will” and was “on the climate crisis.”

Last month, I read much of Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis’s encyclical officially published by the Vatican in 2020 on October 4, the feast day of Francis of Assisi. While there was much good and important content, I was somewhat critical of it as it seemed to be lacking specificity or concreteness.

This month’s new document, however, which is a commentary on Laudato si' (=Praise Be to You), the Pope’s major 2015 encyclical on the environment, is generally quite specific and concrete. In the second paragraph of this recent “exhortation,” the Pope says:

…with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.

Over the past twenty months, I have cited Michael Dowd and others who have spoken warningly about collapse, but here is a clear statement about that fateful future by the Pope.**

Also, an Oct. 4 Vatican News article (see here) states that in Laudate Deum the Pope “criticizes climate change deniers, saying that the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt.”

Early this month, the Pope convened the three-week General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, sometimes called the Super Bowl of the Catholic Church. It drew bishops from around the world to discuss hot-button issues.

Some of those issues are whether priests should be allowed to get married, if divorced and remarried Catholics should receive communion, whether women should be allowed to become deacons, and how the church will handle matters around the LGBTQ community.

It remains to be seen how, or when, these contentious matters will be resolved, but for those of us who are egalitarians, the Pope’s willingness to consider such matters is certainly praiseworthy.

Sadly, many USAmericans have little praise for the Pope. Politics takes precedence over their religious faith. Or for others, they hold to an outdated, conservative Catholicism and are, literally, more traditionally Catholic than the Pope.

According to an Aug. 28 APNews.com post, “Many conservatives have blasted Francis’s emphasis on social justice issues such as the environment and the poor,” and they have also branded as heretical his openness “to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive the sacraments.”

As an example of politics taking precedence over the position of the Pope, consider the contrast between Francis’s recent “exhortation” regarding global warming and U.S. Catholics.

The Pope, as well as the preponderant majority of climate scientists around the world, emphasizes that “the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt.”

But last month, Pew Research Center (here) reported that only 44% of U.S. Catholics say Earth is warming mainly due to human activity—and of U.S. Catholics who are Republicans or lean Republican, only a strikingly low 18% think that global warming is human-caused.

In response to such criticism, the Pope has called the strong, organized, reactionary attitude of some Catholics in the U.S. Church “backward,” and has stated that their faith has been replaced by ideologies.

Francis reminds these people that “backwardness is useless, and they must understand that there’s a correction evolution in the understanding of questions of faith and morals” that allows for doctrine to progress over time.

Such progressiveness is one of the main reasons I have praise for the Pope. His deep concern for the future well-being of all people around the world has led him to claim that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.

Would that all Catholics, and all Protestants as well, could embrace these progressive ideas of the forward-looking Pope.

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** With considerable sadness I am sharing the news that Michael Dowd (b. 11/1958) died on October 7 as the result of a fall in a friend’s home. More information about his death and memorial service is available here. 

Remembering Alvin Toffler and “Future Shock”

When I happened to see that Alvin Toffler was born in October 1928, I thought that today, the 95th anniversary of his October 4 birthday, would be a good time to write about him and his book Future Shock. 

Alvin Toffler, who died in 2016, was an author, futurist, and businessman who, with his wife Heidi, wrote Future Shock, which became a worldwide best-seller. It is considered to be one of the most important and influential books about the future ever written.

Toffler was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from New York University in 1950, the same year he and Heidi Farrell married. During the last half of the 1960s, the Tofflers did research for Future Shock, first published in 1970.

According to the Tofflers' website, over 15 million copies of Future Shock have been sold worldwide. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and has never been out of print.

The second book authored by the Tofflers and issued in 1980, was titled The Third Wave. Following the agrarian revolution, and the industrial revolution, the “third wave” is the information revolution.

Powershift (1990), their third major book, deals with the increasing power of twenty-first-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.

The later books continue the Tofflers’ exploration/development of ideas first introduced in Future Shock.

Alvin and Heidi Toffler coined the term future shock to describe the emotional distress that individuals and societies experience when facing rapid technological and social change.

Early in the first chapter of their book, the Tofflers referred to “culture shock,” explaining that it refers to “the effect that immersion in a strange culture has on the unprepared visitor.” They then go on to say that

culture shock is relatively mild in comparison with the much more serious malady, future shock. Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow.

In 2020, a massive book titled After Shock was published with the subtitle, “The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock and look ahead to the next 50.” (I wish I had been able to read much more of it.)

Rather than writing more specifically about the books just mentioned, though, I will now share only some of my personal reflections about Future Shock and how I was influenced by it.

Reading Future Shock in my early 30s was instructive and formative for me. Early in 1970, I somehow heard about “future shock” and that Toffler had written about that concept in an essay published in the March issue of Playboy magazine, of all places.

As I was living in Japan at that time and there was no other way to read Toffler’s essay, I bought a copy of that Playboy magazine at the excellent English bookstore in Fukuoka, the city where I lived, and read his article with great interest.

(Memories from 50+ years ago are rather unreliable, but as far as I can remember, that was the first and probably the last time I ever bought a Playboy magazine.)

After several months I was able to get a library copy of the book, and it took a few weeks to read it as I was stretched by the challenge of teaching university classes in Japanese. I also remember taking rather extensive notes, but alas, they weren’t included in what I brought back to the U.S.

Partly because of reading Future Shock, sometime in the 1970s I joined the World Future Society (WFS), founded in 1966, and read The Futurist, their bimonthly magazine. I never was a futurist as such, but through the decades I was deeply interested in thinking about the future.

In July 1989, I flew from Japan to Washington, D.C., to attend the WFS’s annual assembly, and at one of the study group sessions I presented a paper titled “Religious Faith and World Peace in the 1990s and Beyond.”

Perhaps it is not a direct quote, but Toffler is widely credited for this aphorism: “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Much has changed since 1970, and the likely future of world civilization is more shocking now than ever.

The challenge for us now is to unlearn much of what we think we know, to learn what the world actually is at present, and to see and act upon the new knowledge of what it is likely to become in the near future.

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** The underlying notion of future shock existed many years before the Tofflers’ book was published. In 1949, an issue of the Saturday Evening Post included the poem (not by Toffler) titled “Time of the Mad Atom,” which I remember reading, and quoting, in the mid-1950s. Here it is in its entirety:

This is the age
Of the half-read page.
And the quick hash
And the mad dash.

The bright night
With the nerves tight.
The plane hop
With the brief stop.

The lamp tan
In a short span.
The Big Shot
In a good spot.

And the brain strain
The heart pain.
And the cat naps
Till the spring snaps

—And the fun’s done!

Enjoying the Present, Extending the Future

Since early 2022, I have posted several times about the disturbing matter of the likely collapse of the world order in which we now live. Many of you are probably tired of hearing/thinking about that. So, here I am focusing on enjoying the present as well as extending the future of our civilization. 

We humans are prone to embrace extremes. There are many people who focus so much on the present that there is but scant consideration given to future perils. Of course, many such people are so busy with work and family there is little time to think beyond the press of daily affairs.

On the other hand, others think/worry so much about the future in light of the current ecological predicament, their present happiness is stifled. This is especially true for those who realize that TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) may soon become a reality.

Eco-anxiety is a current psychological problem for many, and especially for many younger people—and I encourage you to read this Sept. 16 article posted in the New York Times, which Thinking Friend Anton Jacobs sent me last week.

Is it possible, though, to be keenly aware of the likelihood of TEOTWAWKI in the near future and still live with joy in the present? I think so.

As in many other situations, we must seek to be firmly established in a position between the poles—in a radiant center, if you will. At the very least, we need to learn how to “toggle” between the opposites.

How can we live with enjoyment of the present while being aware of the collapse that lies ahead in the not-too-distant future?

I asked Bard (Google’s AI chatbot) for suggestions about how to live joyfully in light of the current ecological predicament.

I fully agreed with the beginning of their response: “The ecological predicament is a serious one, and it is important to be honest about the challenges we face. However, it is also important to find ways to live joyfully in the present moment.”

Indeed, that’s what we must seek to do: both to be honest in assessing the world’s ecological challenges and also to learn how to live now with a sense of joy.

Bard’s suggestions regarding how to do the latter were not bad. They included “spend time in nature,” “connect with loved ones,” “be grateful,” and “give back to others.”

(They also suggested, “do things that you enjoy,” but it didn’t seem very intelligent for AI to say the way to live joyfully in the present is to do things that you enjoy.)

Enjoying the present largely depends on not allowing the fears of the future to dominate our thinking. Rather, we must be fully present in the present for much of the time.

Knowing that industrial civilization will at some point collapse—and sooner than most people are willing to consider probable—doesn’t mean we can’t live with enjoyment in the present. We individuals, especially we older adults, know that death is coming, but we still can experience much joy now.*

But it is imperative that as we enjoy the present we don’t jeopardize the future by damaging the environment. Or, more positively, our goal should be living joyfully in the present and also doing all we can to extend the future for the coming generation(s).

While TEOTWAWKI is most likely to happen sooner than any of us want to think, human action now can push that collapse further into the future. Twenty years from now is far better than ten years, and collapse in 40 years is much to be preferred over 20 years.

What can we do to extend the future while enjoying the present? Here, very briefly, are three important things we can do in this regard:

1) Seek increasingly to practice simple living.**

2) Continue to develop good environmental practices and to encourage friends and acquaintances to do the same.

3) Work actively for the election of Senators and Representatives who have a good understanding of the current ecological predicament and who will work to enact public policies that will, indeed, help to extend the future.

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* I have already dealt with this matter to some extent in “Memento Mori,” my 1/28/23 blog post, see here, and I encourage you to read that post (again).

** A helpful book in this regard is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Simple Living (2000). This book is now out of print, but several used copies (reasonably priced) are available at Abe Books. I also encourage you to read “The Shakertown Pledge: Nine Ways to Make a Difference,” my 5/5/11 article on the GoodFaithMedia website (here). 

"Windows to God": Introducing Kelly Latimore

Perhaps many of you haven’t heard, or don’t remember, the name Kelly Latimore, but he is a man who deserves to be known because of his work as an iconographer. I am posting this article to expand the circle of those who know & appreciate Latimore’s outstanding artistic creations and what we can learn from him. 

Ruth Harder, my pastor, is finishing her work on “Stained Theology,” the name of her pastoral study grant project funded by the Louisville Institute (which you can learn more about here).

Her project grew out of concern at Rainbow Mennonite Church regarding the large stained glass window in our sanctuary, which I wrote about in my 10/10/20 blog article titled “What To Do about a White Jesus?”.

Pastor Ruth’s meticulous study has been not only about stained glass windows but also how images of Jesus in such windows and elsewhere have stained, in a negative way, theological understanding and has abetted racism and attitudes of white supremacy.

In her research, she visited Kelly Latimore in St. Louis, and while he is not directly involved with stained glass windows, he has produced many striking images of Jesus (and his birth family).

This past Sunday (Sept. 10), Kelly was the guest speaker at Rainbow Mennonite Church.*

Kelly Latimore is a youngish (b. 1986) artist who grew up as a PK (pastor’s kid) in a conservative church in the suburbs of Chicago and graduated from Greenville College (now University), a conservative Christian school in central Illinois. And then his religious viewpoint/understanding expanded.

From 2009-13 he lived/worked on the Good Earth Farm in Ohio as one of the Common Friars, affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It was there in 2010 that he painted his first icon.**

After Trump was elected President in 2016, the first icon he drew was “Refugees: La Sagrada Familia,” in which Latin immigrants crossing the desert depicts the holy family’s flight to Egypt. A picture of that icon is on Pope Francis’s 2018 book A Stranger and You Welcomed Me.

Kelly’s most widely known (and in some circles infamous) icon was the one titled “Mama” (pictured above). It was painted in 2020 in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Kelly and this icon, among others, was featured in a 5/5/21 Christian Century article (see here).

These two icons elicited hate mail and even death threats. Kelly says, though, that such opposition is confirmation that his “icons are preaching as they should.”

In his Sunday talk at Rainbow Church, Kelly referred to icons as “windows to God,” and his icons mainly show God and God’s actions in the world now, not in the past.

He emphasized that as an artist he must “pay attention,” and that all of us “must practice seeing.” Kelly’s icons help us to see, to engage in what he calls “holy pondering.” He also challenged us not only to see, but to become “living icons,” acting for peace and justice in this needy world.

The icons of the past, most prominent in the Eastern Orthodox Church, always portray the holy family or recognized saints with halos. Kelly’s icons are of contemporary people who have not been formally designated as saints by any Church, but they are “saints” nevertheless because they are windows to God.

His modern-day “saints” include several African Americans, such as MLK Jr., James Cone, and John Lewis. But there are also notable White saints as well: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henri Nouwen, Mr. Rogers, and Mary Oliver, for example.

Although he didn’t mention it Sunday, one of Kelly’s recent and publicized paintings is of Matthew Shepard. It is now in the Washington National Cathedral. Their website explains:

On Dec. 1, 2022, on what would have been Matthew Shepard's 46^th birthday, the Cathedral dedicated a devotional portrait of Matthew Shepard by acclaimed iconographer Kelly Latimore.

I encourage you to open this link to see a picture of that portrait and the story about it.

My prayer is that we all will learn from Kelly how to see God more fully through the icons, the “windows of God” around us, and that we, too, can more and more become living icons.

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* The YouTube video of that worship service is available for viewing by clicking this link, and Pastor Ruth’s introduction and Kelly’s talk begins at the 18:50 mark.

** Kelly tells about painting his first icon in this article.

NOTE: Learn/see more about Kelly’s icons by clicking this link to his website. Reproductions of his icons can be purchased by linking to “store.”  

LKS posing with Kelly on Sept. 10

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?”.)