We need to talk about poverty

Last updated on: June 4, 2015 at 8:48 am by Gill Robins

We need to talk about poverty 2015-06-04T08:48:16+00:00 Gill Robins

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The UK Evangelical Alliance this week published Good News for the Poor? its report on poverty, to an unusually controversial response. In a characteristically rumbustious blog, Archbishop Cranmer suggested that the EA was spinning its own research to attack the government, as the EA itself (rather disingenuously, I felt) heralded the report as ‘a stinging critique of the last government’s economic policy’.

I can’t say that I was able to draw that conclusion from anything I read in the report, but various things caught my passing interest, including the very different perceptions of the causes of poverty internationally and in the UK. Respondents see poverty as relational and spiritual, not just material (page 4) and it’s also interesting that apart from the high cost of living, people perceive the problem to be worse in the UK as a whole than in their own neighbourhoods (pages 14 and 15).

And then I got to page 16, which lists a range of ways of tackling poverty in the order of their perceived effectiveness. The top five all relate to long term solutions to the creation of social equity, with access to a good education and meaningful employment as the top priorities. Social welfare programmes such as food banks and the provision of furniture and clothes were well down the list, even though there is plenty of evidenc e that Christians are heavily involved in compassionate support of those in need. So what does that say? I think it says that first response action, however necessary in an economic slump, isn’t seen as a long term solution to the problem of poverty. ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day: teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’ seems to the principle at work. Christians, along with so many others in society, will give fish unstintingly, but they also think it’s important to teach people to fish.

Which brings me to education. Exactly how do we create a level playing field on which everyone has equal access to educational opportunity? Will tinkering with admissions protocols and forcing conformity to a liberal secular agenda really prepare all our children and young people for ‘life in modern Britain’? The government’s niftily adopted post-election mantra of a ‘core mission to deliver real social justice’ litters DfE press releases like so much confetti, but exactly what does it mean? And just how do exam factories (yes, you failed your phonics test in year 1 and year 2 so take it again in year 3) produce the rounded, creative, independent thinking adults with integrity that we need?

It all comes back to how we define education. The government chooses to use the very narrow measure of academic standards and yet, year after year, faith schools not only turn in the best academic results, they are also enduringly popular with parents, those with and those without faith. The demographic goes only a tiny way towards explaining this – I’ve taught in Catholic schools that serve some of the poorest parts of a city yet still top the league tables.

The reason is that faith schools are relational and they build a strong sense of community. Christian values aren’t just a concept to be discussed in PSHE lessons – they are lived out in community so that children learn about honesty, compassion, personal integrity, respect (of self and others) and stickability through the very messy day-to-day business of living and working in relationship with others, regardless of who they are or what they think and believe. Students flourish and so have the best possible chance of achieving their potential.

It’s sad that children are getting a very different message from the government – a message that would have been the same whichever party was in power. It’s a message which says that education is about consumerism, about children being potential economic units to be exploited to the full in the cause of building the biggest and shiniest golden calf (aka The Economy) in the world. David Cameron said as much this week when enthusing about the latest potential train wreck, his childcare policy: ‘if we want to be a great success, and we want to take on the world and win, then we need to make sure we are making the most of taking on everybody’s talents’.

That’s very true, but there’s a world of difference between respecting each and every individual in our society as a person created in God’s image and so deserving of respect, and annexing their talents to feed the endless appetite of a world-class economy. So lets talk about poverty, but not in simplistic terms, in a culture of blame. We need to be talking about the transformative power of education and the dignity that God’s work design affords. We need to be talking about the negative outcomes of a body politic driven by economic success not by the common good. And above all, we need to be talking about the kingdom of God, and the transformative power of God’s love for humanity. Being part of a transformed society won’t ensure financial comfort or even security. But it will ensure relational and spiritual richness as we build God’s kingdom in a fair and equitable society.

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