The Denver Post published an interesting article this week outlining the results of a poll on the causes of poverty.
In the poll, respondents were essentially asked, If a person is poor, which is more likely to blame: lack of effort on their own part, or difficult circumstances beyond their control?
The results seemed to indicate that Republicans and evangelical Christians were at least twice as likely to blame poverty on lack of individual effort. Democrats or those who don’t associate with a religion were more likely to blame difficult circumstances.
The article read a little like an indictment of evangelical Christian judgment, and perhaps it was. It was a heavy generalization, especially of a group that has historically stood with the poor. But the slant aside, the question itself is one I have often pondered.
As a reporter who spent many hours in court, I was always astounded at how very many poor people were tangled up in the criminal justice system. Now, as a prosecutor, I continue to face daily a majority of defendants who qualify for the public defender because they are deemed indigent.
I’ve asked the question to myself a hundred times: How did this person end up in this unenviable mess? Their contact with the criminal justice system aside, how did they first of all end up homeless, or foreclosed upon, or sleeping on a friend’s porch?
It is certainly easy to live with an answer like, “I live in a comfortable warm house with a family because of my choices. The man shivering on the street is there because of his choices.”
Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol certainly had no trouble living with it when he asked: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”
Three ghostly visitations later, of course, he understood that life is more complex than that.
In Scrooge’s defense, we recognize in our own lives the pattern of cause and effect. And it is likely that those who blamed poverty on personal choice had an internal locus of control – a belief that they alone are responsible for their lives and circumstances.
That is a healthy mindset, one I endeavor to have, and it is also the mindset that Ebenezer Scrooge had. He had, after all, spent his life in the counting house, working strenuously for his wealth. He deserved to be rich and he knew it. The poor people, in his mind, hadn’t put in their time. He deserved his lot in life and they deserved theirs. It was justice.
To Scrooge, cause and effect in human life were as ascertainable, as definite, and as unflinching as a mathematical equation.
That isn’t the case.
Honestly, I don’t believe the survey question from the Denver Post article can ever be answered. What causes poverty for one may be her terrible life choices, another, his insurmountable life circumstances. For most it is probably a miserable mix that you and I can only imagine.
Only God knows the deeply complex weave of choice and circumstance that makes up each of our lives, souls and destinies. In the end, thank goodness, we only answer to Him.
I expect no one in my lifetime to get to the bottom of why we have poverty. Jesus himself said, “The poor you will always have with you.” So perhaps the question does not matter that much.
But what does matter, I think, is that we thoughtfully recognize – as Scrooge did on Christmas morning – that the answer is not as simple as we think.