An Obligation

An Obligation

“Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all men are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all men and all countries—not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of mankind as civilized.”
                                                                             Albert Einstein
As soon as I’ve posted this I will be going to the Jesus festival held annually in our city. It’s a time when the predominantly smaller churches get together to celebrate Jesus in a park in the centre of our small city.
We give away free food and other things without obligation to anyone who comes.
As I prepared things for it I was curious to find out what Canada’s poverty level was. I knew it was in the teens.
According to the Canada without poverty website an anti-poverty website,
“1 in 7 (or 4.8 million) people in Canada live in poverty.... Marginalized Groups: Members of society that are especially vulnerable to poverty including persons living with disabilities, single mothers, Aboriginals, elderly individuals, and racialized communities
21% of single mothers in Canada raise their children while living in poverty (7% of single fathers raise their children in poverty).
People living with disabilities (both mental and physical) are twice as likely to live below the poverty line.”
The United States is not much better, according to one source
“In 2013, 45.3 million people lived in Poverty USA. That means the poverty rate for 2013 was 14.5%.” (That’s more than the population of Canada)
The same report says,
“Poverty does not strike all demographics equally. For example, in 2013, 13.1% of men lived in Poverty USA, but 15.8% of women. Along the same lines, the poverty rate for married couples in 2013 was only 5.8%–but the poverty rate for single-parent families with no wife present was up to 15.9%, and for single-parent families with no husband present over 30%.”
These are appalling statistics for two developed countries.
Sheldon Danziger  the director of the National Poverty Centre at the University of Michigan said  he was especially impressed by a figure showing Canada and the U.S. have the same relative child poverty rate -- 25.1 The chart also showed that after government taxes, benefits and other social programs, Canada's child poverty rate drops to 13.1, while America's barely budges, hovering above 23.1 percent.
The thing is be it 13.1% or 23.1% this is an horrible statistic. That no civilized society should stand for.
I believe it was Saki Knafo writing in the Huffington post in 2012 quoted, Jane Waldfogel, a professor of social work at Columbia University, who wrote about how the labour government in the United Kingdom approached the poverty problem, she writes
“that the Labour Government's efforts to combat child poverty in the U.K. were "larger and more sustained than in the United States." Shortly after he became prime minister in 1997, Tony Blair found himself staring at a UNICEF report similar to this new one, except that England's child poverty ranking was much higher.
So Blair's government instituted programs modelled after former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The U.K. developed Sure Start -- an early-care program for low-income children similar to the U.S. Head Start. British families could apply for the Working Tax Credit, similar to the U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit.
The Labour Party spent more on these programs, even as the U.S. spent less, and within five years the number of children living in "absolute poverty" in the U.K. had fallen by half. According to the UNICEF report, 12.1 percent of British children now live in relative poverty -- nearly half the percentage of American children.”
Twelve point one percent is still high but a step in the right direction and it shows if there is a government will poverty can be reduced if not eliminated.
We as individuals need to be speaking to our Government representatives and urging them to do more. After all what better way to spend tax money than directly on the poorest members of our society.
I as a Christian ask Christian to heed the words of James when he wrote in his Epistle,
“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?  
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  
If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.  
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 
You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?” 
                                                                                                          James 2:14-20.
The Talmud states,
“When a man appears before the Throne of Judgment, the first question he is asked is not, “Have you believed in God?”  Or “Have you prayed and observed the ritual?  “He is asked: “have you dealt honourably and faithfully in all your dealings with your fellow men?”
                                                                                                                      The Talmud
Whether we are a Christians, a Jews, someone of other faiths or for that matter atheist, is not showing compassion and helping the poor anyway we can only the humane thing to do?
Is not helping the poor of our society a way of dealing honourably with our fellow man?
Please think about it.