The reality of poverty

I want to share an article published by Common Dreams entitled, "Of Congress and Camels". The title is an allusion to the words of Jesus when he said it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Funny, I don't hear members of the religious right quoting that one. Here's an excerpt from the article:

... In the midst of a half-trillion-dollar war, in an age of stagnating wages and skyrocketing health care, fuel and housing costs, and in the face of exploding deficits and entitlements, the Republican-controlled Congress is set to pass yet another multi-billion-dollar tax cut, nearly ninety percent of which will go to the richest fifteen percent of Americans.

As if this shocking fiscal indiscipline weren’t enough to make anyone sleepless with confusion and worry for our children’s future, these selfsame Republicans, a majority of whom profess themselves “born-again” through Jesus, are brazen enough to once again enrich the rich while governing under the banner of “compassionate conservatism."

Now I’m not out to question anyone’s faith. But would the same Jesus who put first those who society counted least and put last, and who proclaimed his ministry was to “bring good news to the poor," have rejoiced at the news of yet another tax cut for the wealthy paid for by borrowing and by budget cuts for our nation’s growing poor?

Low-income Americans find themselves today in a more precarious position than at any time since the Great Depression. Nearly forty million Americans live in poverty every day. Many millions more are living in near-poverty, working hard, and often without benefits, doing all the things society tells them that they should to get ahead. And yet they’re falling further behind, watching the American dream sail away.

What really upsets me is that the right wingers blame the poor people themselves for their poverty:

Republican leaders seem to believe that the solution to poverty is to grow the economy out of the problem. And yet despite nearly two decades of generally robust economic growth poverty, especially severe poverty in single-parent families with children, has risen dramatically. Even now, in the 21st century, we do not even have to leave our country to find third-world poverty.

Republican leaders also seem to believe that the blame for poverty lies with the individual poor people themselves. Poor people are the authors of their own poverty. If you’re poor, you must not be smart enough. You must not be willing to work hard enough. In the eyes of these Republican leaders, poverty is proof of bad character, and confirms a personal flaw.

Then the author puts the real gospel message before us:

And who did Jesus speak for? The dispossessed, widows, orphans. The hungry, the homeless, the helpless. The least, the last, the lost. Jesus reminded his followers that as they have done to the least of these, they have done to him. Few plainer words have been spoken.

So, late at night, I wonder: How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich and pro-business? What of the biblical imperatives for social justice and for uplifting the poor? How did compassion come to be reserved primarily for the rich and the unborn, with little or no interest in those who Jesus put first?

I wonder too. I don't understand how following Jesus can include completely ignoring what he actually had to say.