What Christianity Today Missed: The Best Way to get out of Poverty

Posted by Michael Matheson Miller

Take a look at Peter Greer's blog:"What Christianity Missed" analyzing the recent Christianity Today article on the best ways to help the poor. Greer gets it exactly right: The best way to get out of poverty is not to have someone from the US or Europe dig a well, give a child a laptop, or drink a cup of fair trade coffee. These may make us feel good but they don't create long term sustainable development. They are also focused on the wrong thing: alleviating poverty instead of creating wealth.

To get out of poverty what people need most of all is to be able to excercise their God-given potential and have the opportunity to create wealth and prosperity for their families and their communities. As Greer writes, " Job creation is doing more than just treating poverty’s symptoms. It challenges the notion that the poor are helpless, powerless, and voiceless." Exactly! There is often an underlying assumption that people in the developing world are somehow different from us. Indeed there are times when emergency aid is needed, but what the poor need more than handouts or the next trendy social venture are connections to networks of productivity and exchange. Take a look at an excerpt from my interview with Peter Greer here