Any time you want

I failed to bookmark Sarah Vowell's New York Times op-ed column on Pat Robertson earlier this month, so I don't have a valid link to offer here. (Update: Here's a link, thanks Oolon.)

Vowell offers a "Pat on the Back" -- praising the often-whacky televangelist and sometime presidential candidate for participating in the Make Poverty History campaign. She doesn't overlook his more infamous contributions to American life, but she wants to commend where she can:

Remember when he wanted to boycott the "Satanic ritual" that is Halloween? Or when he said, "The husband is the head of the wife"? Or when he warned the city of Orlando that the flying of homosexuals' upbeat rainbow flags might incite divine retribution in the form of hurricanes or "possibly a meteor"? Yep, good times.

Nevertheless, when I spotted Robertson in a lineup of celebrities including Brad Pitt, Bono, George Clooney and the also-never-boring Dennis Hopper, I was delighted to see him. He was in the One Campaign's television ad asking for help in the crusade against poverty, starvation and AIDS in Africa and elsewhere.

In the commercial, Robertson says, "Americans have an unprecedented opportunity," and then Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, of all people, finishes his sentence, concluding that "we can make history."

On a recent "Nightline," Robertson showed up with his new best friend, Clooney. When asked if his group Operation Blessing would promote "the responsible use of condoms" along with abstinence in its AIDS education program in Africa, Robertson answered, "Absolutely." Pat Robertson!

"I just don't think we can close our eyes to human nature," he continued, adding that with regard to teaching proper condom use, "you have to do that, given the magnitude." I could have hugged him.

Me too. Robertson can be an important figure in what I've called the "gatekeeper" role. His support for this antipoverty effort, in effect, gives permission to his followers to support it as well. "Poverty is bad" may not seem like the most radical statement, but compared to where Pat and his followers were 20 years ago, it's progress.

Besides, Pat Robertson can leg-press 2,000 pounds.

Despite Robertson's support, a campaign named Make Poverty History is going to raise red flags with many evangelicals.

The lofty aspirations of the campaign are vaguely millennialist -- an effort to make the world in which we live more like the perfect shalom of the kingdom of God. That rankles pre-millennialist evangelicals, such as our friends LaHaye and Jenkins, who believe that things can only get better after Jesus comes back. And that, they believe, will only happen after the world we live in gets very much worse. So premillennialists like L&J aren't inclined to support an effort to "Make Poverty History," although their theology would support an effort to intensify poverty and make it more widespread.

The phrase "Make Poverty History" also inevitably elicits another response from evangelicals, which occurs whenever anyone talks about "ending" or "wiping out" this particular scourge. They quote Jesus words from Mark 14:7, "The poor you will always have with you ..."

So, here we go again:

1. Anybody who quotes that phrase without quoting the rest of Jesus' sentence should not be trusted. Here's the full sentence: "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want." Interesting how the first part of that sentence so often gets quoted as though it refuted the second part.

2. Jesus' words refer us back to the books of Moses, to the 15th chapter of Deuteronomy. That passage describes the year of Jubilee -- so it's a good one to read regarding the Make Poverty History campaign. It reads, in part:

... There should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. ...

If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. ... Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.

The passage begins with "there should be no poor among you" and works its way from there to the verse that Jesus quoted about "there will always be poor people." That initial "there should be" is conditional -- "there should be no poor among you ... if only you fully obey the Lord your God." The writer of Deuteronomy knows better than to expect that such a condition will be met, thus: "There will always be poor people."

So Jesus quotes a passage that warns against being "hardhearted or tightfisted" toward the poor. And that very passage gets quoted, loudly and often, to support the idea that we ought to be hardhearted and tightfisted toward the poor.

"You can help the poor any time you want," Jesus said. Any time we want. If only we wanted to.

Comments

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

Beautiful as always, Fred.

[Kevin]

Now if only Pat would stop mining with African dictators who have ties to Al-Qaeda.

[Oolon Colluphid]

The same article ran in the Herald-Tribune here

[twyla]

One of my favorite twists in the Bible is where God explains why Sodom was destroyed, "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it." (Ezekiel 16) Sounds familiar. Also blows the "God hates homos, look how he fried Sodom" BS.

[pharoute]

An important point to remember is that the poor will always be with us but who makes up the poor changes constantly. Helping the poor doesn't end with making sure the don't starve or freeze to death; give anyone a real chance to succeed and they'll amaze you with their talents.
We all are roughly 2-4 paychecks away from being "the poor." Hell for some of us even with 2-4 paychecks they are still "the poor."

[Sophist]

"Rich" and "poor" are relative terms, based on on your condition related to society as a whole. It's like IQ, get so many standard devations from the median and you're "poor". And no matter what you do, there will pretty much always be something the poor lack, whether it is food, shelter, medicine, what have you. We're creating new things for poor people to not be able to afford all the time. It's a neverending cycle. You can't win, but you can lose.

However, that is exactly no excuse at all for not doing anything. Eventually humanity will go extinct, the earth will fall into the sun, the universe will suffer an endless heat death (perhaps). Entropy gets everything in the end, but so what? That's no reason to give up.

[Darryl Pearce]

Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify!"

2,000 pounds?! W?TF!

I've been getting the gym regularly and leg-press 850 pounds (15 reps, thank you very much).

Pat Robertson can leg-press a ton?! W?TF!

Isn't there a commandment against bearing false witness? Does his "disclaimer" emiliorate, abrogate his (or his representatives') responsibility?!

[bellatrys]

I dunno Sophist, it seems like "poor" hasn't changed much in thousands of years.

Not being able to count on even one full meal a day, not being able to pay the rent nor count on a roof over one's head, having no transportation but Shanks's Mare, and not being able to get even basic medical care all felt like being poor to me. Regardless of the fact that there are computers and cars and telephones today, and other gadgets that fill various niches and move from being exotic luxury to routine to necessity depending on how we allow society's infrastructure to be shaped by economics (ie the destruction of public transit to benefit the auto industry a generation ago.)

And *still* being a mere paycheck away from the streets, barring the assistance of strangers, for all my college degree and full-time job, doesn't exactly feel like the opposite these days, either.

When I hear people say things like "Yes I'm making $100K a year but where I live, that's not rich," shows me someone so far out of touch with reality, it reminds me of the upper middle class kids at the parish school I attended who complained that yes indeed they had known deprivation like that of the children in the Rice Bowl leaflets we got for lent to encourage us to give away our pennies - their parents wouldn't buy them the $100 sneakers they *needed*...

[g]

Someone who quotes "The poor will always be with you" and doesn't go on
and add "... and you can help them whenever you wish" needn't be selectively
quoting from Mark; they might be straightforwardly quoting from the
parallel passage in Matthew, which doesn't have that bit. (Which is
curious, since usually Matthew is longer and more socially focused
than Mark.)

This doesn't, of course, invalidate anything else Fred said.

[Scott]

Wonderful. The people who want to validate themselves as God's mouthpieces by controlling what people see and who they sleep with are getting together w/ the people who want to validate themselves as God's mouthpieces by controlling people's bank accounts and wallets (BTW, if you don't think Robertson's support will cost the left some serious concessions in the future, y'all are kidding yourselves). I feel myself getting progressively more forcibly moralized even as we speak.

I guess evangelicals have decided that forcing people to act the way Jesus would want them to is close enough to voluntary conversion that it will do. "And now these three remain: faith, hope and State power. But the greatest of these is State power." 1 Corinthians 13:13

I've pretty much stopped taking communion over the Iraq war cheerleading in the church, this may drive me away altogether.

[--susan]

When I hear people say things like "Yes I'm making $100K a year but where I live, that's not rich," shows me someone so far out of touch with reality..."

Ain't just spoiled prep-school kids, either. NY Times Mag accepted blindly Santorum's earnest explanation that Leesburg was as close to DC as he could afford to live with six kids making $129K a year and that he was barely making ends meet. Hey, I'm not saying that real estate in the DC area isn't ridiculous or that a family of eight isn't big, but WTF. If he thinks he's poor, in what universe do all those people he drives past everyday in DC live?

[Laertes]

"premillennialists like L&J aren't inclined to support an effort to "Make Poverty History," although their theology would support an effort to intensify poverty and make it more widespread"

Would premillennialists of the L&J variety readily admit to this, or is this more in the way of a critique that they'd deny but is likely true nonetheless? On first reading I assumed the latter, but it occurs to me that I don't personally know any LJPMDs, so I shouldn't go making assumptions about the depths of their lunacy.

[J Mann]

Good for Pat Robertson.

I find it hard to believe that any Christian doesn't think that Jesus wants us to help the poor. (Or, for the people who are tied up in faith vs. works, I can't believe that those Xians don't think that anyone who truly has accepted Jesus in their hearts will want to help the poor).

Personally, I don't think you can read either Mark 14 or Matthew 19 alone; you've got to think about where they meet. But there's a *lot* more passages like Matthew 19, which plays in as well.

16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
17"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

18"Which ones?" the man inquired.

Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,'[d] and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'[e]"

20"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"

21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

23Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"

26Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

27Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?" [*]

28Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother[f] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

[*] (I love Peter. He's so great.)

[Nancy Lebovitz]

In re Matthew 19: Is it possible that the rich young man is showing another sort of greed by not accepting Jesus' first two answers? Or is the r.y.m. accurately perceiving a personal lack?

[J Mann]

That's interesting.

IMHO, part of it is greed, in that the RYM wants to "earn" heaven (as do the disciples) and Jesus basically tells them they can't.

Therefore, I'm sure some people argue that it means that perfection is impossible, no matter how many "works" you do, and therefore salvation comes only through God. I'd be more inclined to say that while helping the poor isn't enough, Jesus clearly thinks that it's good and important - if the RYM were perfectly righteous, that's what he would be doing.

Now, nobody's perfectly righteous, which is why Jesus says that everyone is going to need to rely on God's mercy, but that's no excuse for not *trying* to be righteous.

[Sour Kraut]

"Would premillennialists of the L&J variety readily admit to this, or is this more in the way of a critique that they'd deny but is likely true nonetheless? On first reading I assumed the latter, but it occurs to me that I don't personally know any LJPMDs, so I shouldn't go making assumptions about the depths of their lunacy."

I think their standard answer would be more along the lines of: the plan to fight poverty is redistribution of wealth, which is a akin to socialism/communism, which enables dictatorial state power, which is key to the Antichrist's enslavement of mankind (denouncement of UN and/or UN antipoverty programs optional). This shows that people are willing to compromise the freedom we have in our Christian Nation and join with nonbelievers. Renowned Prophecy Scholar (insert name of PMD preacher) says this is a sure sign that we are living in the End Times.

[Kim]

I'd have to agree with Scott on this one. How can one person use the words of a hate monger on some issues, and the words of a compassionate, rational person on another? Maybe I'm ignorant of the complexity of human personality, but I'm suspicious of his motives as well. Though maybe I'm just not used to modern conservatives thinking for themselves. It's sad, but I actually find myself thinking, "remember when conservatives were like Pat Robertson? Man, those were the days..."

[Andew Smith]

Luke 12:16-21. Look it up. It plays itself out in every generation.

Or same chapter, 32-34, which ends, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (NRSV)

And my favorite, Luke 16:19-31: "Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazaruw in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and your are in agony…" (NRSV)

Which ties to Luke's version of Matthew's "beatitudes", Luke 6:20b - "Blessed are you who are poor, for yors is the kingdom of God… 6:24 - "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation…" (NRSV)

I wonder if Joel Osteen has read Luke 6, or Luke at all, for that matter. Or even if he has read the whole Bible, or just those proof texts that suit his "Gospel of Prosperity".

[Nancy Lebovitz]

J Mann, I was thinking about greed in the sense that the rich young man isn't content with the commandments which are good enough to get anyone into heaven--he wants something special.

[Beth]

The rich young man asked Jesus, "What do I still lack?" I don't think Jesus' response was intended to help the poor or to create a new prerequisite for salvation, but to answer that question. What the man still lacked was non-attachment to material possessions. Instead of saying, "you're too attached," Jesus caused the young man to recognize how attached he really was. The issues of attachment and faith are intimately connected. When we lack faith (whether in God, the universe, or ourselves) we must cling to power and position as our only source of security. We're not told what happened to the young man after he left, but I like to think that sadness continued to gnaw at him and grow into a realization of what his attachment to wealth was costing him, so that eventually he was able give it up and truly attain "eternal life."

[Mabus]

"I think their standard answer would be more along the lines of: the plan to fight poverty is redistribution of wealth, which is a akin to socialism/communism, which enables dictatorial state power, which is key to the Antichrist's enslavement of mankind"

PMDs (and others) may also argue that poverty is a bottomless hole--we can pour all our resources into it until we make ourselves equally poor and still not lift anyone else to an appreciable degree. I've heard that line from a variety of people, most of whom are not PMD (as far as I know), but it sounds like something they'd pick up on. And, to be honest, I'm not really sure it's false.

[Rasselas]

Not to wax United Church of Christ on you, but it is false. A world in which all devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the aid of the poor and the wretched, even at sharp self-sacrifice, would be a world in which all were immeasurably richer.

[bellatrys]

Rasselasm amen - "live simply, that others may simply live" . The "pouring water down a dry hole" viewpoint mabus mentions accepts as unquestioned givens many, many things.

One of which is that the status quo in all its little specific parts is an Eternal Verity - that nothing can be done to reform, either through oversight or shame, the corrupt PTB who have no actual interest in ending poverty but every interest in locking us all in endless slavery to their company store.

I remember when it was a tenet of the Defenders of the Status Quo, and their local minions, that Americans would *never* recycle. Or use public transportation. We now have, after much determined work, exhortive, organizational, practical and inspirational both - a very respectable recycling program in use city-wide, massive voluntarily compliance - and our first new regional train system since they destroyed our public transit generations ago has broken all records and expectations in its first year of operation, with expansion looking more and more likely every year.

But the fatalists - if we'd trusted them, we'd have neither.

[bellatrys]

--susan, hey, maybe the NYT people *agree* with him on what constitutes an acceptable standard of living. And of course he's so poor that he has to steal from the state to educate his children, too!

[Duane]

Laertes:

Fred wasn't saying that LJPMDs are actively trying to create more poverty. He is suggesting that their theology views such a thing as integral to their end-world scenarios. Things must get worse and worse and worse so the AntiChrist can rise forth and make everything better for 3.5 years, at which time he will give into the dark side and torment the world for 3.5 years. Then Jesus will come back and spank his ass and throw he and his buddies into the Bottomless Pit.

So instead of viewing mass poverty, job-loss, shrinking manufactuing base and perpetual war as a result of awful economic and foreign policy for the last XX years that can be reversed by changing our elected officials, LJPMDs consider this spiraling entropy to be beyond mankind's ability to change. In their mind, we are already living in God's revenge fantasy. The irony is that every generation for hundreds of years has held these same views and been proven wrong. The difference is there are so many more of these nutjobs now.

And, it should be pointed out despite what they believe, things are getting better every day. Those who take the long view of history - God's view, if you will - know that we are living in relative paradise on Earth compared to folks backwards on the timeline.

[Fernmonkey]

PMDs (and others) may also argue that poverty is a bottomless hole--we can pour all our resources into it until we make ourselves equally poor and still not lift anyone else to an appreciable degree. I've heard that line from a variety of people, most of whom are not PMD (as far as I know), but it sounds like something they'd pick up on. And, to be honest, I'm not really sure it's false.

I know that it's glurge-tastic, but this reminds me of the parable of the starfish.

The parable of the starfish??

[Ray]

I'm guessing this -
"One morning an elderly man was walking on a nearly deserted beach. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean.

Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, "Little boy, what are you doing?"

The youth responded without looking up, "I'm trying to save these starfish, sir."

The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?"

Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish into the water, said, "It will make a difference to that one!"

Had to look it up myself...

Light rail ridership numbers are easily distorted, e.g., by changing routes so that one continuous route is now two routes and a short hop on the light rail system. The LR ridership numbers may go higher, but at that the cost of a longer commute because of the additional transfers.

I think you can make an argument that "poverty" is similar. "Hungry and cold" is always hungry and cold and we should seek to minimize it, but there are more subtle forms of poverty. I think you can make a strong argument that the United States is an extremely impoverished nation because we are so starved for time with loved ones. We try to fill that gap with material things and organized activities, but twenty years down the road will the kids prefer to have memories of time spent with their father or memories of the playstation and soccer league that their parents paid for by working late yet again?

[bellatrys]

Um, no. We went from having *no* passenger rail at all in the state, to having *a* passenger rail line. It isn't even in the most convenient part of the state (unless you happen to live there of course), except in that there was already a Victorian platform that hadn't been torn down in the "renewal" of the past fifty years, and even the optimists didn't expect that too many people would start using it right away. The number of tickets sold astonished them - the seacoast pouplation, who is generally well off and can certainly *afford* cars and gas, still likes to take the train, now that they have that option.

Which says that when a train service is available for the more populous central corridor of the state, even more people will very likely be taking it. But the nonsense you're spouting, anonymous, about numbers being faked is totally irelevant to the actual facts of the case.

And perhaps in *your* wealthy comfy slice of America, the "emptiness" is coming from too much material goods and not enough time.

That's not the other 80% of us, though. Now excuse me, my 10 year old car is indisposed again, I have to get ready to walk half-a-mile in to work.

[R. Mildred]

Starfish are evil and deserve to die.

They're like aquatic wasps, nasty little bastards.

[Ray]

kind of a tangent, but if my commute was half a mile (or two miles), I'd be walking in to work every day.

[Beth]

we can pour all our resources into it until we make ourselves equally poor and still not lift anyone else to an appreciable degree.

Clearly, that's not literally true. As I'm sure we all know, for just 80 cents a day (less than the price of a cup of coffee) you can make an appreciable difference in someone's life, and according to one leading economist, if we spent only 0.7% on our GNP we could end the worst ravages of poverty.

Of course if we decided to keep pouring in money until we wiped out poverty entirely and permanently, we'd end up in much the situation you described. The poor will always be with us, just as there will always be germs in your kitchen. Even if you cleaned your kitchen top to bottom with the strongest antibacterials known to man, and when you got to the bottom, started all over again at the top, they'd still waft in on the breeze and rub off from your clothes and skin. You'd eventually drop dead of exhaustion in your still not perfectly clean kitchen. That doesn't mean you shouldn't bother cleaning your kitchen at all. There's no permanent solution to the germ problem, but regular, moderate cleaning will at least prevent your kitchen from turning into a science project.

[Mabus]

Agreed, Beth. (As it happens, I just finished cleaning my kitchen. *chuckle*)

But when I read liberal editorials about poverty, I always find myself imagining essentially the situation you metaphorically describe--a dedicated, well-intentioned liberal government in charge of America, taxing away 95% of our income and sending it to Africa (or handing it out to homeless people) where it promptly gets spent on weapons (or liquor), wondering why we're getting poorer and poorer while job after job evaporates and the GNP tanks because no business can turn a profit.

Let's make sure there's no mistake--I know there are fallacies in the above description, and I get exactly the opposite reaction reading conservative editorials about the foolishness of trying to help the poor. The point is, I'm no economist, and I'm always left floundering, wondering if there's anything at all that can work.