Bible, Poverty, and Class
Though the level of intensity might differ between traditions or denominations, the Bible is still considered an essential element, if not the anchor, of Christian lifestyle and thinking. Hence, when Christians encounter the issue of poverty in the current context, more often than not, they peruse what the Bible might have a say on such a subject. The Bible, however, seems to have ambiguous attitudes toward poverty.
On the one hand, some verses promote poverty as opposed to being rich yet wicked (Prov. 15:16, Ps. 37:16); propose poverty as originated from God (1 Sam 2:7, Prov. 22:2); and even setting poverty aside for Jesus’ anointment (Matt. 26:10-11). On the other hand, some verses claim God’s care for the poor (Ps. 9:18, Deut. 10:17-18); how blessed are the poor (Jas. 2:5, Lk. 6:20-21); and even urges support for the poor (Prov. 28:27, 22:9).
In addition to this tension, the Bible also seems to suggest that “laziness” is the root of all poverty (Prov. 19:15, 20:13, 24:33-34). This correlation of “laziness” and poverty indeed incite curiosity and skepticism from the readers who are suspicious of similar notion promoted by capitalism and colonialism.
For that reason, this forum seeks to explore the tension between the Bible, the poverty issue, and class. Panelists will address questions like (but not limited to): What can the Bible contribute to addressing poverty? What should be done going forward concerning poverty? Is class analysis an appropriate hermeneutical and analytical tool to address poverty?
Contributors: Francisco Lozada, Jr.; Mothy Varkey; Robert Wafawanaka; Bruce Worthington.
Bible, Poverty, and Class: Social Location
Francisco Lozada, Jr.
May 12, 2022
The first “exegetical” paper I ever wrote was on the topic of the poor (ptóchoi) in the entire Gospel of Luke. The course I wrote it for was an Introduction to the New Testament, and it came with a handout on how to “exegete.” The first step was to tell what “the poor” meant in the ancient world, and the second, what it means today. Retrospectively, the paper, which I still have, was quite ambitious, too. The aim was to reveal who the poor were in the Gospel of Luke. Suffice it to say that the paper did not receive a positive mark.
Although most of my scholarship over the years has focused on ethnic/racial formations and their reception, the question of poverty never really disappeared from my thinking. I just have not foregrounded it as much compared to other social factors. However, I would like to take this brief opportunity to reflect on poverty and class and their relationship to the role of the reader, myself, in the process of interpreting ancient texts.
To put this discussion in perspective, my academic readings of the biblical text emanate out of the Global North urban “poor” context. I am familiar with government-issued stamps, free processed cheese (under the Reagan administration), working in the informal economic sector, and working at a very young age in various jobs, from cleaning hospital floors to working as a garbage person to make ends meet. I suspect that I am not alone with this sort of economic upbringing among many in the Academy. The point here is to explain my outlook of the capitalistic system to follow.
I work with the assumption that the modern study of ancient texts in the Global North is immersed in capitalism. Just as the field of biblical interpretation emerges out of “whiteness” (e.g., the rise of higher criticism in the 19th century), the field and its language are also drenched in and colored by the production of wealth. For instance, terms such as the stages of “production,” the “production” of meaning, and the “consumption” of meaning all strike me as capitalistic language. Capitalism, at the risk of oversimplifying, is the wealth of an individual, community, or country used in the production of food, clothing, raw materials, etc., employing labor to create more wealth. Biblical interpretation and its research on the social-economic world is construed, at least in the Global North context, out of a capitalistic ideology. Even undergraduate religion programs, master’s level divinity schools, and doctoral programs work out of a capitalistic system. Like “white” privilege, capitalism for many interpreters is the norm and the force to assimilate is strong. That is, we are not always cognizant that we are informed by issues of wealth and poverty—though I would argue that COVID-19 has revealed more of the disparities. And even if one is informed, we remain in a capitalistic system functioning within it.
When I began teaching in the mid-1990s, one thing I noticed in scanning the introductions to the New Testament was how little discussion around the questions of poverty and class were engaged. Other than the cursory discussion that most of the ancient world were seen as “poor” and that one of Luke’s themes is poverty, very little discussion examined in a sustained way questions of a socio-economic world. Like the word “slave” or “slavery,” which is read over as the norm of the ancient world without problematizing it, questions of poverty were ignored by the textbooks and readers. In fact, in reading the Gospel of John, the focus is typically on John as a spiritual gospel, thanks to Clement of Alexandria’s famous nomenclature for the gospel. A more conscious reader of poverty and class will notice that questions of wealth and equality show up in John 2 at the wedding at Cana and the abundance of wine, the feeding of 5000 in John 6, and a preoccupation with the poor during the anointing at Bethany in John 12. Of course, there are other allusions to poverty—intersected with the physically challenged—such as the lame man in John 5 and blind beggar in John 9. The point here is that it is easy for interpreters not to see the invisible hand of the market infiltrating our thinking and reading experience.
Finally, the rules of biblical interpretation are also touched by the capitalistic world around us. Modern biblical interpretation, as mentioned earlier, comes out of the 19th century when Global North industrialization was in play in the world economy. The rules to remain objective, read for one meaning, and produce meaning for the entire world echoes capitalism’s ethos for ethnic/racial identified workers to assimilate (e.g., as the Ford Motor Company promoted), to accept one way of life (the “white American way”), and produce a product (e.g., like a commentary) for the entire world. Recently—and how I see it—neoliberal capitalism’s quest for privatization, deregulation, and the scaling down of government assistance, is being challenged by minoritized hermeneutics. Reading as a community (teología de conjunto), for instance, is one way to challenge this current economic system. But, keep in mind that minoritized readers (U.S.) also read out of a capitalistic system and along the class system.
Francisco Lozada, Jr. is the Charles Fischer Catholic Professor of New Testament and Latinx Studies. He holds a doctorate in New Testament and Early Christianity from Vanderbilt University. He is a past co-chair of the Johannine Literature Section (SBL), past chair of the Program Committee of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), and a past member of SBL Council. He is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, a past steering committee member of the Bible, Indigenous Group of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and past co-chair of the Latino/a and Latin American Biblical Interpretation Consultation (SBL). He also serves on the board of directors for the Hispanic Summer Program, and mentored several doctoral students with the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI). Dr. Lozada’s most recent publications concern cultural and ideological interpretation while exploring how the Bible is employed and deployed in ethnic/racial communities. As a teacher, he co-led immersion travel seminars to Guatemala to explore colonial/postcolonial issues and, most recently, to El Paso, TX, and Nogales, AZ, to study life and society in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Pandemic of Poverty
Mothy Varkey
May 12, 2022
As daily bread is necessary
So is daily justice.
It is even necessary several times a day.
From morning till night, at work, enjoying oneself.
At work which is an enjoyment.
In hard times and in happy times
The people require the plentiful, wholesome
Daily bread of justice.
Since the bread of justice, then, is so important
Who, friends, shall bake it?
(Bertolt Brecht, ‘The Bread of the People’)
In the backdrop of COVID-19 and its impact on millions of poor and migrant laborers, a heart-wrenching video surfaced on social media—a famished laborer eating the raw meat of a dead dog on the Delhi–Jaipur National Highway in Shahpura, Rajasthan, India—sparked outrage. Elsewhere, in central Asia, Hayatullah Khan, an Afghan laborer whose daily earnings fell below $1.50 during the coronavirus pandemic, had two choices: Buy a mask and let his family go hungry or buy food and go out into the crowded city without one. But with the squeeze on his earnings, his question was, “Should I buy a mask or food for my family?”
Researchers predict a sharp increase in poverty even in the most powerful nations, like the US. Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin, said: “Poverty represents a level of deprivation that many middle–or upper–income Americans can’t even wrap their head around… the first thing that comes to mind is a mother I met who was trying to manage her son’s asthma while living in an apartment that had rodents, insects, and molds no matter how much she cleaned. Rising poverty rates mean more families living like that.” All these economic pointers underline the fact that the coronavirus pandemic is bringing about another pandemic—of poverty—which will be perhaps a serious ‘humanitarian catastrophe.’
The coronavirus has been called a great leveler, and to some extent, it is true. But in India, as writer-activist Suraj Yengde, the author of Caste Matters, says, the coronavirus has “reaffirmed India’s caste and class inequalities.” The lockdown to check the spread of the novel coronavirus disease sparked a mass ‘reverse exodus’ of migrant laborers. With disturbing images of migrant workers stranded on highways and sprayed with disinfectants surfacing, many have criticized the state’s handling of the situation. Most of the workers were agricultural migrants, Dalits, or Adivasis. During the lockdown, several contractual workers were fired, and many of them were not eligible for the relief package as they did not have construction worker’s welfare board cards. This is due to the insensitivity of the authorities, who never understood their lives. There is no representation; a vote, after all, does not guarantee representation.
Food is (it should be) important materiality that constitutes our faith. According to Gregory Fewster, the story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50) unfolds the connection between economic power and the centrality of food. Joseph develops a clear and crude relation between food and power, as evidenced earlier by his relationship with the cupbearer. This is further evident in Joseph’s creative solution to the food shortage crisis. He capitalizes on the Pharaoh’s vulnerability to the threat of famine, food shortage, and starvation. This is where ‘expert interpreters’ of scarcity/famine/pandemic tactfully secure positions in the corridors of power. Joseph advises the Pharaoh to fashion a political economy to organize a monopoly of grain and thus could administer resources for the subsistence of agricultural peasants and for the luxury of the Pharaoh and his urban/court elites (who managed the state economy for the sake of their surplus). This capacity to administer grain supplies is evident in the Bible in the ‘storehouse cities’ of the Pharaoh (Exodus 1:11, see Genesis 47:13-19). During this pandemic, who controls food distribution?
Food scarcity was assumed to be ‘normal’ before the pandemic. What would it be in the age of the ‘post normal’? Would the faith community (ekklēsia) regard the coexistence of ‘the food secure’ and ‘the food insecure’ in its neighborhood or elsewhere as ‘normal’? As Walter Brueggemann points out: “It turns out that ‘scarcity’ is not a given in the world. It is, rather, a construct proposed by those who do not want to share, who would rather have the ‘food insecure’ as enemies rather than neighbors.” COVID-19 further problematized the givenness of scarcity. In a context such as this pandemic, Christian witnessing means practicing eucharistic food protocols and alternative politics of food security. It is through the diakonia of practicing God’s abundance, which subverts our normalized scarcity that ekklēsia happens/evolves as a community of the ‘food secure.’ This is the liturgical wonder that the faith community practices and celebrates in and through the ‘wonder of bread’ called the Eucharist.
The diaconal vocation of the faith community is to build grassroots local food systems based on agroecological food production that can outperform the prevailing industrial food systems. As a model of agriculture, agroecology is based on traditional knowledge and modern agricultural research, utilizing elements of contemporary ecology, soil biology, and the biological control of pests. Decentralized, local community-owned food systems based on shorter food-supply chains that can cope with future shocks are now needed more than ever. In this regard, the “Arakunomics model” of the Naandi Foundation, a Hyderabad-based non-profit organization in the regions of Araku, Wardha, and New Delhi, is an apt example. It was selected as one of the top 10 visionaries globally for the Food System Vision 2050 Prize by the Rockefeller Foundation, announced in New York on 6 August 2020. The Arakunomics model follows an ‘ABCDEFGH’ framework centered on agriculture, biology, compost, decentralized decision-making, entrepreneurs, families, global markets, and ‘headstands’ (implying innovation). This ‘food-print’ may be considered a potential model of diakonia in the context of pandemic-induced poverty. It could transform faith communities into agroecoklēsia (agro-eco-ekklēsia).
Rev. Dr. Mothy Varkey is an ordained priest of the Malankara Mar Thoma Church, India. He is the Professor of New Testament at the Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kerala, India. He is also the visiting fellow at the Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. Among his many and influential works are Concept of Power in Matthew: A Postcolonial Reading (CSS, 2010), Salvation in Continuity: Reconsidering Matthew’s Soteriology (Fortress, 2017), and Church and Diakonia in the Age of COVID-19 (ISPCK, 2020), Inheritance and Resistance: Reclaiming Bible, Body and Power (CWI, 2020).
What Does the Bible Really Say about Poverty?
Robert Wafawanaka
May 12, 2022
It is a serious misconception to assume that the Bible says one thing about poverty or wealth. A close reading of the text reveals multiple perspectives on this crucial subject. Indeed, the Bible rarely speaks in one voice as it is the product of many authors who wrote at different times and in different contexts addressing various issues and audiences. The Bible also addresses many aspects of life, including the perennial problem of poverty.
Reading through the scriptures, one finds a multitude of perspectives on poverty, and I have extensively addressed this issue elsewhere (Wafawanaka, Am I Still My Brother’s Keeper? University Press of America, 2012; “Is the Biblical Perspective on Poverty that ‘There Shall Be No Poor Among You’ or ‘You Will Always Have the Poor with You?’” Review and Expositor Vol. 111: Issue 2 (May 2014): 107-120). Generally, the subject of poverty is found throughout the entire Bible, including the New Testament.
Despite the lessons we may draw from the Bible, ironically, poverty continues to afflict human societies, including developed nations. Perhaps we need to reflect on what the Bible really says about poverty, what we can learn from the biblical tradition, and how we might apply scriptural lessons to combat poverty today. Many scholars agree that poverty is a human creation, and it is logical that only human beings can dismantle it.
The persistence of poverty from time immemorial through today behooves us to examine this problem in an attempt to draw some relevant lessons. According to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy (15:4), there should be no poverty among the Israelites. The reason is that if the Israelites obeyed the law, then the poor would not exist because community members would take care of the poor among them. While this vision seems idealistic today, nevertheless, it would have eliminated poverty among the Israelites had it been adhered to.
Deuteronomy argues that poverty exists due to Israel’s disobedience to the law. As a result, Deut 15:11 states that the poor will never cease out of the land. However, read in its proper context, the text argues that the poor should not exist in Israelite society at all. Verse 11 prescribes a solution to the problem by stating, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” This is a mandate to take care of the poor, and the book of Deuteronomy and other books demonstrate how Israel is to care for them. This is one viable response to poverty among many that can be proposed.
This mandate to care for the poor is evident throughout the biblical period. We see the same care and concern for the poor in both testaments, including the period between the testaments. In the ancient world, the duty to care for the poor was upon governments and community members who were in a position to remedy their situation. These are class issues that were relevant in antiquity and are still a viable hermeneutical lens today, as poverty has everything to do with social class and status. The poor did not own land but worked the land while the rich enjoyed the benefits of their labor.
While poverty is prevalent in the biblical world and ours, there are various responses and perspectives on poverty in the Bible. In general, the law books view poverty as a result of the improper distribution of resources, as the book of Deuteronomy suggests. For the most part, the prophetic literature blames the existence of poverty on the exploitation and oppression of the poor and powerless (e.g., Amos 2:6-8; 4:1-3; 8:4-6). Also, the prophets prophesied in imperial contexts where empires extracted taxes and tributes on poor peasants. While both perspectives are retained in the Writings, there is a shift toward the question of individual responsibility as a causal explanation of poverty. For example, here, the poor are blamed for their poverty due to laziness (Prov 6:6-11; 19:15, 20:13, 24:33-34). Wisdom writers had the opportunity to reflect on the causes of poverty from their privileged position while the poor were simply struggling to survive. Rabbinic literature of the intertestamental period is filled with debates among the rabbis on the question of poverty. They debated each other on questions such as what poverty was, who was poor, and what to do about the condition of the poor. Interestingly, they always came to different conclusions about these questions. Their debates continue to shape our responses to poverty today.
The problem of poverty continued unabated through New Testament times. This explains Jesus’ memorable statement that “you always have the poor with you” (Mt 26:11; Mk 14:7; Jn 12:8), which seems like an antithesis to the law of Deuteronomy. Implicit in this remark is the persistence of poverty many centuries after the text of Deuteronomy. While Jesus recognizes the reality of poverty in first-century Palestine, his prescription for it is significant. He tells those who were complaining about the wasted expensive oil that they could show kindness to the poor whenever they needed to. Jesus was well aware of the mandate to care for the poor. His response is a stinging criticism of the disobedience to this basic command. This critique is still applicable in our modern context, where there are many opportunities to end poverty.
The existence of poverty in biblical and modern societies has other explanations. One viable reason is that the poor will always exist because someone else is profiting from their condition. The prophetic critique of social injustice reveals the oppressive social world of ancient Israel. The system that created poverty benefits from it and is unlikely to be motivated to change it. Where would creditors be without benefiting from the high-interest rates charged to the poor who can’t afford to pay off their debts in a timely manner? Penalties, late fees, and other sanctions serve lenders better but worsen the condition of the poor while enriching the wealthy.
In our global economy, the differences are quite striking. Social scientists state that most individuals in the Two-Thirds World are poor and survive on only one to two dollars a day, the price of a cup of coffee in America. There are cases of extreme poverty in Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world. Despite progress in technology and other areas, the poor today die of poverty, preventable diseases, and many other causes.
Today’s poverty demonstrates the continual human disregard for each other’s well-being. Some social scientists argue that if only we could share the resources of the earth more equitably or have rich nations supply the basic needs of the poor by enabling them to be economically independent, poverty would be wiped out in our generation (Sachs, The End of Poverty, Penguin Books, 2005). The end of extreme poverty in our lifetime parallels the biblical vision.
The Bible says many things about poverty, including the responsibility of the rich toward the poor, one of its most important and enduring lessons.
Robert Wafawanaka, ThD., is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Old Testament / Hebrew Bible at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University, Richmond, VA. His research interests are in the areas of poverty and wealth in the Bible and in contemporary society, ethics and social justice issues, as well as postcolonial studies. He is the author of Am I Still My Brother’s Keeper? Biblical Perspectives on Poverty (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012). He has also authored several journal articles and book chapters including most recently, “The Bible, Power and Wealth in Africa: A Critique of the Prosperity Gospel in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Navigating African Biblical Hermeneutics: Trends and Themes from Our Pots and Our Calabashes, edited by Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele) and Kenneth Ngwa, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018); “Biblical Responses to the ‘Strong Men’ Syndrome in Africa,” (January 2, 2019); “Reflections on the Legacy and Influence of James H. Cone: From Africa to America,” in Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center Volume 47, (Spring 2019): 107-127; and “Toxic Masculinity in Africa and the Bible: The Strong-Man Model and the Co-optation of Feminist Biblical Interpretation,” in Old Testament Essays 34/3 (2021): 806-834.
Resisting Meat as Resistance
Bruce Worthington
May 12, 2022
One of the more obscure issues in the New Testament, especially to Christians unfamiliar with connecting dietary restrictions to issues of faith, is the issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols. Contemporary Christians, unlike modern Muslims or Jews, are typically guided by some of the more popular approaches to food in the New Testament, such as Jesus’ declaration that all food is clean (Mark 7:19) or Paul’s relative ambivalence on the topic: “But food does not bring us closer to God.” (1 Cor 8:8). We typically see the freedom to eat whatever we want as a hallmark of the Christian faith, a type of consumption that is generally consistent with the spirit of indulgence within capitalism. A gluttonous, regrettable trip to Cracker Barrel after church on Sunday and then an afternoon nap—all of this part of the cycle of religious life in America.
However, the author of John’s Apocalypse does not share the same moral ambivalence. Unlike Paul, who retains the believers' right to choose to eat meat sacrificed to idols, John makes this admonition: “Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols” (Rev 2:20). While we need not endorse the misogynist rhetoric of this passage, it is worth unpacking insofar as this advice looks very different than the approach of Jesus in the Gospels or Paul’s letters. Insofar as the seven churches of Asia Minor (Ephesus, Laodicea, etc.) comprise large parts of Paul’s own missionary turf, we may view this conflict in terms of antagonism between John and libertine elements of Pauline churches.
Recent scholarship approaches this issue with a significant concern to incorporating John’s advice on food within the structures of diaspora Judaism. As it goes, the logic of John’s admonition is inherently Jewish, perhaps of a more conservative brand than Paul or his immediate rival Jezebel. In general, this shift towards understanding ethical issues within (and not without) the context of Judaism is a very welcome shift that mitigates against seeing early Christianity in terms of a unique, cloistered, or sui generis movement. However, in interpreting this passage along the lines of religion and ethnicity, there are significant elements of class and poverty that still merit closer inspection.
The issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols hinges—like many issues—on an economic axis. It is a historical fact that poor peoples did not normally have access to meat in the latter part of the first century CE, especially in the meals of common associations like Christ groups in the Roman province of Asia minor. In his recent book, Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City, John Kloppenborg notes: “while for a few association banquets meat was on offer, a survey of the menu available at other association meals indicates that bread and wine (pane et vino) and sometimes oil (oleo) were the normal fare. Meat was the exception rather than the rule.” (214). Contrary to Jezebel’s followers, who are affluent and able to eat meat and are invited to elite Roman banquets, it is likely that John’s followers were poor day laborers employed in the local mines of Asia, the unemployed, enslaved people, or contingent “Humiliores” (craftspeople living day to day). Because poor people typically didn’t eat meat, we can reasonably conclude that John’s condemnation of those who eat meat sacrificed to idols is also a terrifying condemnation of the rich.
Herein lies the value of terror in the book of Revelation. Without terror, as Alain Badiou notes in Logic of Worlds: “the natural movement of things lies in the dissidence of the power of the rich.” (25). John requires the radical dissolution of the rich for the principle of egalitarianism to take hold in this situation. In warning the rich in the churches of Asia, John reminds us of the value of terror, which, as Badiou suggests: “is nothing but the abstract upshot of a consideration required by every revolution.” (25). John’s warning to the rich still stands today.
In conclusion, a typical accusation leveled against the Left is that we lack a comprehensive vision for change. Our lack of clarity is understandable, given the repeated abuse suffered at the hands of a system meant to devastate our capacity for resistance. For whatever reason, John provides a comprehensive, detailed vision of the future—a city with measurements, walls, trees, fresh crops of fruit, and a very specific list of people to whom there will be “water without cost” (Rev. 21:6). If the goal of Revelation is to reveal, the meaning of Revelation is discovered when viewed from the perspective of poverty, both in terms of those poor peoples in the text and the ones that read it now.
Bruce Worthington is a recent PhD graduate in Theological Studies at the University of Toronto, where he teaches part-time. He is Book Review Editor for the journal Critical Research on Religion, and the editor of the volume Reading the Bible in an Age of Crisis (Fortress 2015). Bruce's work explores the intersection of early Christianity and political subjectivity through the work of Alain Badiou and Ernesto Laclau