Monday, December 28, 2009

Five faces of poverty

Rather intense blogging at the moment because I have time and health to try to think about the stuff I've been reading and thinking about when ill.

What is poverty? Pastor and writer Malcolm Duncan defines five faces of poverty:

1. Material poverty -- the face most obvious: low income, few possessions.
2. Spiritual poverty -- this is the one the evangelical missions and churches have focussed on: the lack of the knowledge of Jesus and his Kingdom. Of course spiritual poverty is in a sense the condition of all of us.
3. Civic poverty -- 'the lack of opportunity for the excluded and poor to shape their own future'. For example, I once knew someone whose life-savings had been snatched by the Marcos regime in the Philippines. 'The poor man buys a field; injustice sweeps it away'. Dealing with civic poverty has tradionally been the domain of politics, perhaps especially communism.
4. Identity poverty: the voices in the head that say we are worthless, won't amount to much.
5. Aspirational poverty: closely related to civic poverty and identity poverty, it is the crushing of hope.

This is from Micah's Challenge: The Church's Responsibility to the Global Poor, pp 151 - 163.

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