President Barack Obama joined top evangelical and Catholic leaders at Georgetown University this week at a summit to address an issue mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible — caring for the poor.
Taking care of the needy is a major tenet of most religions, and indeed, Pope Francis has made fighting poverty the focus of his popular papacy, calling the "scandal of poverty" in a world of plenty a "piercing moral challenge" for church-goers and the human community.
As the richest country in the world, the United States is facing a poverty crisis of its own: 1 in 5 children in America is now being reared in a poor household.
While political polarization has often stymied policy, could faith groups — which have long focused on "the least of these" — take the lead in fighting poverty?
In Tuesday's panel, Obama joined two policy heavy-hitters from opposite ends of the political spectrum — Robert Putnam of Harvard, and the American Enterprise Institute’s Arthur Brooks. He called on religious groups to speak out on poverty "in a more forceful fashion," presenting it as an imperative of Christian faith.
"There is a transformative power to be had there," the president said.
The force of faith
When it comes to inequality in America, faith can, in fact, move mountains, according to Putnam, a professor of political science.
"Without the voice of faith, it’s going to be very hard to push this to the top of the agenda," said Putnam, co-author of "American Grace," and "Our Kids," a book about the widening gap between rich and poor children in America.
If religious observance includes an obligation to the poor, the religious can be a powerful force for positive action and social justice, said Putnam.
Indeed, Putnam and Obama pointed out that at another time of steeply widening inequality in America — the Gilded Age — there was an "awakening of consciousness" that was largely led by religious leaders and religious people that "overcame social Darwinism" and called attention to the plight of the poor.
Major American charity groups — like the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and Volunteers of America — are faith-based, and 70 percent of U.S. food pantries are run by faith-based nonprofits, according to the Urban Institute. One of 6 child care centers is run by a church or synagogue.
"The church built the institutions to care for the poor; charities and hospitals are largely a Christian invention," said Rev. Robert Sirico, Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, in response to Tuesday's remarks.
"It all stems from the example of Christ himself who told us to care for the poor, and the story of the Good Samaritan," he said. "From the earliest moments of Christianity that idea was set in our DNA."
Poor as other, poor as brother
Contentious arguments over whether and how to help the poor have been hamstrung by portrayals of the poor as "sponges, leeches, lazy and undeserving," said Obama.
Brooks agreed that it is trendy on the right and left to talk about the poor as "the other."
"We have commitments to the teachings of the Savior when we talk about the least of these as our brothers and sisters," said Brooks. "They are assets to develop, not liabilities."
This trend is exacerbated by income inequality, noted Obama and Putnam, because the poor have become increasingly segregated by the rich, who attend private schools, private clubs and even church with those in their same class.
Rev. Sam Rodriguez said he thinks churches can be an antidote to rising inequality. Rev. Rodriguez is the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference with over 40,118 Latino Evangelical churches as members. At his congregations in Sacramento, California, he said you'll see bikes parked next to a Mercedes-Benz.
"The attitude is, 'that's my brother or sister,' whether they have a GED or a Ph.D.," he said. "That's beautiful and transformative and holy, and I love it."
However, in his "black and brown" congregations that are mostly black and Hispanic, it's easier for classes to mix than in Anglo congregations, according to Rodriguez.
"You would be hard-pressed to find someone black or brown that doesn't know what it is to not pay rent, to ask God for a miracle to get groceries," he said. "We share that personal narrative."
Cynicism and solutions
Obama emphasized that people can't be cynical about poverty and that solutions are out there and they work.
"We can't buy the idea that the poor will always be with us, and there's nothing we can do; there's a lot we can do," he said. "We have to have the political and communal will to do it."
Faith groups are uniquely positioned to know what those needs are, said Rev. Sirico, because they have rich information on individuals and families that bureaucrats don't.
"When you treat poverty at the highest levels of government you can end up with cookie-cutter solutions that touch people's lives, but not necessarily a particular life with particular problems," he said.
He points to the bishop storehouse welfare model of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which he has visited in Salt Lake City, as an example of a successful private model tailored to suit the needs of a particular community.
"That model would be more difficult in a Catholic Church that's not so mono-cultural, but nobody can tell me that doesn't work, it absolutely works for that community," said Rev. Sirico.
Rev. Rodriguez thinks churches, like nonprofits and government programs, should also be goal-oriented and held to metrics if they are serious about poverty.
"My sermon on poverty is cute, but without money, and structural support, and measurements, it's all just rhetoric," he said.
Like many faith groups, Rev. Rodriguez's believes family is the key to alleviating poverty, but acknowledges that government programs to promote marriage have been an abysmal failure. But churches, he said, have a personal touch the government doesn't. The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is launching an "adopt a family" program where financially stable families adopt struggling ones to share resources, help with finding a job, share networks and pray.
"What if every Christian family — 70 percent of Americans — committed to adopt a family that's impoverished? That would change poverty," he said.
Robert Zachritz is vice president of advocacy and government relations for World Vision, an Evangelical Christian humanitarian aid group that's one of the biggest in the country with a budget of over $1 billion. He attended the poverty summit and said he was struck by the role of trust and love in helping to overcome poverty.
"Love is a better motivator than self-sacrifice," said Zachritz, and instilling love for fellow man is part of the role that faith groups have to play in fighting poverty, he said.
"People demonize each other on each side of the political spectrum, left and right," he said. "But we're all created in God's image. It shouldn't matter what side we're on as long as we recognize that there's human dignity in each of us."
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