BIRMINGHAM, England (ABP) — The poor will always be with us, Jesus said. Does that mean we should ignore them?
“Certainly not,” said Graham Sparkes of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.
So what are Baptist Christians going to do about it?
“We as Baptists focus on what the Bible says as we respond to the needs of the world,” Sparkes told a focus group on the poor during the Baptist Centenary World Congress in Birmingham, England.
“Poverty is the context in which the gospel must be proclaimed,” he said, citing many biblical passages. “A concern for the poor is at the heart of who God is and what the Bible has to say. The Bible, as Jim Wallis of Sojourners has said, ‘is biased for the poor and oppressed.'”
Ministering to the poor is an imperative for Christians, explained Sparkes and four other focus group leaders — Vivienne Lassetter of the Baptist Union of Great Britain; Stan Rand of the Jubilee Debt Campaign; Nigel Varndell of Christian Aid; and Michael Smitheran of the Micah Challenge.
The gap between the rich and the poor grows ever wider, the panelists explained, because of at least five complex factors that fuel each other: disasters, economic injustice and trade and debt issues, HIV/AIDS, conflicts and wars, and widespread corruption, speakers said.
Disasters hit the poor the hardest, taking their homes, livelihoods and hope, the panel said.
Meanwhile, the world's poorest countries have debts totaling $523 billion and pay $100 million on debt service every day. Debt relief in the past four years has allowed 10 African countries to increase spending on education by over 40 percent and on health by over 70 percent.
“Free” trade, rather than “fair” trade, has cost sub-Saharan Africa $272 billion in the last 20 years, they said.
Each day HIV/AIDS kills 8,000 people and infects 13,500 others, decimating people, household incomes, school enrollments, life expectancies and national prosperity of many countries.
Poverty does not cause conflict but often fuels it. So does greed over natural resources and selfish exploitation of poor nations by rich nations. In conflicts, the poorest of the poor are the worst affected.
Corruption is not found only in developing countries, said Varndell. Botswana has a better record against corruption than Italy, South Africa than Greece, and Ghana than Poland. “Great Britain is listed as the eighth biggest briber in world,” he said.
What can we do about it?
“A key action must be to build international campaigning networks, such as the Micah Challenge and Make Poverty History organizations, and join in the effort to address these problems,” Sparkes said.
On a personal level, Sparkes said, churches and community organizations can work to create awareness, work for peace and reconciliation, and reach out to the poor in their own areas.