In recent years there has been a lot of talk about poverty from the Christian perspective. Ronald Sider's book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger has helped to shape that conversation. Sider takes the time to layout the facts, establishes a biblical foundation about poverty, and how it can be ended.If you are easily bored by facts this might not be the book for you. Filled with dates, percentages about everything from calorie consumption data to Gross Domestic Product growth, it can make your head spin at times. But Sider does a good job at explaining the facts of poverty in terms that people can understand. On a side note the book is currently in it's 5th edition, so the facts are being updated every couple of years to stay current.
A shining example of Siders insight into the economics of poverty is his explanation the Gross Domestic Product. He points out that many negative things can actually help the GDP grow. A much better indicator of growth is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). It takes into account factors like enviromental polution and longer work hours for the same pay. According to the GPI American life hasn't gotten much better sense the 1970's!
The only down side to the book is it's lack of answering the "What can I do now" question. Although Sider does provide an entire section to answer this question, and talks about the concept of a graduated tithe, I felt as though I would like more concrete steps. Sider talks more about what the Federal Government could do to end poverty than about how the individual can. Having thought about this issue for the past two year and being ready to take on more personal commitments I was a little disappointed.
Over all I highly recommend this book, it is a great way to get the facts on poverty and some biblical perspective too.
1 comment:
This post is interesting it reminds me of the book Who's God which supplies a way to refute existance of God.
The other thing it has me wonder is if a system of Green-Marxism can be put to use with Christian allies. Would combine solar wind, electric and other power with people power and updated Marxist Manifesto to reflect these realities.
Also the idea of U.N. replacing national armies and citizens called on to enforce U.N. Charter plus ideas Green Peace be sent overseas in place of armies to raise awareness of Global Warming.
I think with worry over Global Warming Green Peace could be effective.
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