Poverty and Religion

While my family was never wealthy growing up, from my teenage years and on we lived in communities that could comfortably be described as upper-middle class. My father was a talented architect and general contractor, and aside from a brief detour pursuing his lifelong dream of having a restaurant his business consisted mostly of building homes on spec, meaning there was no buyer at the outset, then selling those homes once they were finished. But because we were not ourselves wealthy we moved into those homes and lived in them until they sold, and then move into the next one he was building, until that was sold, and so on, allowing us to live in communities we otherwise could not afford.

This arrangement wouldn’t have been so terrible except moving often meant changing schools and leaving friends, and was extremely disruptive to our development and stability, and there is some alternate reality in which my dad still works as an architect and contractor but our family lives in a quaint, well-kept, but affordable home and do not move, on average once a year, growing a lush garden of healthier food than what we otherwise bought from the grocery store while he built around the community in which we lived. But a significant reason for our endless nomadic childhood was my parents’ unrealized desire to be wealthy, and living in the upper-middle class homes he built in upper-middle class neighborhoods we could not afford allowed my parents to live a pretended lifestyle they desired, but at great expense to our stability and quality of life.

At the same time, the communities in which we lived and were raised were also extremely religious, and we were made to attend church not only weekly (for three hours every Sunday) but also participate in religious youth groups, other religious functions and obligations outside of church services, and Utah also unconstitutionally facilitates seminary classes for teenagers in church property built immediately next to public schools, in which I wasted an entire class every year during Junior High and High School receiving the same religious instruction and indoctrination that occurred in church and youth group instead of taking useful language classes or other courses that would have bettered my future. While we lived a pretended life that superficially elevated our monetary status, our religious groups emphasized supposed service to the poor and lower-class, and were socially and religiously obliged to perform acts of charity specifically to both other members of the religion, often in the context of religious fellowship and indoctrination, and those living in poverty. In the more affluent community in which we lived this often took the form of coat and food drives at the holiday season, or Eagle Scout projects for young men like myself earning their Eagle Scout badges, whom would organize some service project for the underserved and underprivileged, always accompanied by praise and admiration from the community on how great it was that they and we were helping those who were not as fortunate as ourselves.

Similarly, the recent death of former President of the U.S., Jimmy Carter reignited the fixation by the media and mourners of his life-long commitment to serving the poor and underprivileged, such as through his participation with Habitat for Humanity, or his efforts to help eradicate guinea worm which is a particularly nasty tropical parasite now very nearly eradicated. Like my family and community, Carter was also deeply religious and much of his service was very similar in religious context to that with which I was raised and indoctrinated as a young man, to not only believe in helping the poor and underserved, but to actually do it. But two years ago about a week before Christmas in the evening while working at my computer I heard someone outside my apartment on the street below scream, "oh my God, oh my God he’s dead, he’s dead!” Obviously, I was very alarmed and looked out my curtains to see three women dressed tightly in puffy winter coats, scarves, and gloves standing over the body of a man crouched up against the facade of our apartment building (I was on the first floor so I could see down on most of the scene). They were already calling 911, but it was tragically apparent that this man had died from exposure, being snowy and icy outside, and not five minutes later about 15 police arrived to stand around his dead body making jokes while detectives set to work documenting the scene. Most interesting about the death of this man is that it occurred mere blocks from the headquarters of the richest religious on the planet—the same church in which I was raised—and our neighborhood was also a large gathering place for many of the homeless people in our city with whom I would often share fruit or other food on my way back from grocery shopping (or getting them some food in the store if they asked) in spite of claims by this religion to donate millions to charity every year (they don’t—their donations are deceitfully overstated because what they do give goes mostly go to supporting their internal member welfare and other religious programs or are invested in stocks and real estate). While there is a homeless shelter several blocks away it is not very effective and, like many shelters in the US, typically only provides shelter at night and for a limited number of beds that is insufficient to meet the number of people in need of such services. In fact, their church does not run a single homeless shelter, in spite of the fact that the Mormon church is so wealthy they could single handedly house every one of the more than 770,000 homeless people in the United States and still retain more than half their current wealth. Ostensibly the point of religion is to serve people, and charity of religion (tax free) to alleviate the suffering of the poor and underserved, yet this church does not even house the homeless in its own city, and pointing out this disparity to its members is usually met with pithy, callous, hateful retorts that I should do it myself if I have a problem with it—a single person who makes only enough money to live in a studio apartment, or they blame people like the man who died outside my apartment from exposure for his life choices, which they have no idea of and assume that it’s his own fault he died outside from exposure as if that also is some kind of acceptable position and not some of the most depraved and amoral ideology I have ever heard in my life.

Deaths from starvation, exposure, disease, and drug overdose are not a new phenomenon, and were still occurring even as my family and community gathered coats or canned foods every Christmas believing our acts of service made a difference. It was not until I was grown and lived in a big city like Los Angeles that I realized the true function of this type of service, which is not at all to help the poor but to help those whom are better off feel good about the fact that we have while others do not. The people we helped every Christmas who needed clothes and food wouldn’t need those things in the first place if they were paid appropriately for their work instead of poverty wages which do not allow for someone to afford food, shelter, clothing, and medicine even though they work the same or more hours as my parents or others who lived in our wealthy communities. Many countries that are not as wealthy as the U.S. build public housing that is not only publicly owned and thus a much lower rate of rent but are also well-maintained, safe, and even landscaped and located near public transit which allows its tenants to also easily commute to their jobs and school, along with public and highly regulated childcare (Vienna, Austria is a great example of these kinds of communities), and while we were taught regularly as children to serve the poor we were never taught to actually help alleviate the conditions which made people poor. Wages in the United States have remained stagnant since the 1970s, and while some of the acts Jimmy Carter did after his presidency were admirable he was in fact the first President who undertook deregulation and the evisceration of the public and social policies and programs which had helped alleviate poverty after the Great Depression. He is, in fact, nicknamed “The Great Deregulator” by every soulless, liberal, exploitative economic think-tank, and many millions of people lost their jobs under the Carter Presidency because of what he did, and then he helped hammer a few nails in a few homes for a few of the people left impoverished by his policies in the first place.

While Regan after him was even worse people usually fail to recognize the vile, ruthless Capitalism of Jimmy Carter which sacrificed people’s jobs, income, and financial security in service of profit margins, from which the American people have never recovered, because of his outward, superficial compassion and service to people that wouldn’t even need his help in the first place had he never been president. Like many religious people, Carter believed in the poor—that they should exist and exist in service of his personal worldview, because without the poor to whom could Carter then commit his acts of service? The rehabilitation of his reputation from one of the most destructive Presidents in US history to someone who cared about others was so successful people believe he had an omnipresent role in Habitat of Humanity instead of only going there once a week every year for performative acts and, like my religious upbringing, entirely absent of efforts to permanently alleviate those conditions which cause poverty in the first place. There would in truth be no need for Habitat for Humanity at all if Carter, Regan, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden had never been President, because more people would have jobs that actually paid them enough to afford homes, food, clothing, shelter, and medicine they need to survive (and not driven up the price of housing due to liberal economic housing policy). But without the policies and services which used to protect against poverty we have, predictably, seen a tremendous increase in poverty, homeless, substance abuse, and other problems associated with the stress of poverty ever since. Religious people and institutions are often fine with this because it then gives them a function to fulfill their worldviews and people on whom to impart their charity, without which they would not be able. While Carter’s eradication of guinea worm is admirable he also (like all the other presidents since) sabotaged efforts to achieve a single payer health system such as other countries have. Gross and debilitating as guinea worm is, it’s not a fatal disease, and likely millions of Americans have died since his presidency in the United States simply because they did not have access to healthcare.

Poverty is an invention of organized society and only exists when people are refused wages they deserve for the work they do, and while it’s admirable to help those in need they would not need that help in the first place if infrastructure, policy, and services were actually such as to address the fundamental needs of those most at risk of poverty. While these are fundamental problems with how our society operates they are not difficult to address, and many countries around the world have done so, and our priority should be to address the root causes of poverty. If you want to see these changes you might be interested in reading my other articles How to Change Politics and What Capitalism? and if you are also poor and struggling my article Money and Success in This Economy might help too.