Wealth, Poverty, etc...

I'm slowly moving through Voices from the Margin right now. This morning I was reading an essay titled Marxist Critical Tools by Jose Miguez-Bonino, in which he discusses reading the Bible through a Marxist lens. I don't really want to go into the actual essay right now as much as I would like to share one painful line he brings up about Western Christians and how we read scripture; particularly when it discusses wealth.

"The first thing that comes to mind are Jesus' sayings about 'riches' and 'the rich'. Even a cursory look to Biblical commentary in the Protestant tradition shows the almost uniform ideological train of thought: riches (in themselves) are good - therefore Jesus could not have condemned them as such, nor rich people as such - consequently the text must mean something else - this something else must be found in the 'subjective' sphere (intention, attitudes, motivations). Once this framework of interpretation is in operation, all texts gather around it in one coherent whole. Exegesis follows suit: Luke's version of the Beatitude of the poor, for instance, is interpreted through Matthew's 'in spirit'; this is in time disconnected from the prophetic-Psalmic relation of 'poor' and 'oppressed' or the whole is 'spiritualized' as devotion (humility before God). The ideological function of such interpretation is evident (however different the intention of the interpreter may have been), you can rest assured in your capitalist accumulation of wealth (or your attempt to reach it); religion (reverence for God) legitimizes and blesses your effort!" -p. 60

If that doesn't scream at Western arrogance, particularly when it comes to Biblical interpretation, I don't know what does.

I bring up this quote for a couple of reasons. First, because it is right and needs to be heard. Second, because it is awesome. And third, because I want to do something about it. My first step comes tomorrow. Starting tomorrow, I'm taking up a challenge that was recently posted in the Mustard Seed Association Newsletter: living on $2 a day. Since over 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day (and that's for everything, not just food!), it seems like a small but good start towards finding some sort of solidarity. So starting tomorrow, and going for the following 10 days (at least) I will spend only $2 a day on food.

If you're interested, I'll be blogging the whole adventure. So read up if you want!

Peace,
Matt