Real information and actual facts

Last updated on: April 6, 2011 at 5:00 pm by Fred Clark

Real information and actual facts 2011-04-06T17:00:57-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is how newspapers are supposed to work when they’re doing their job.

First, a reporter does his job, taking a look at the economic reality facing the paper’s readers and the actual effects that proposed government policies will have on that reality. Michael Symons’ article “As poverty rises in NJ, cuts target aid” did exactly that.

Poverty is rising, demand for food stamps has rocketed and the job market remains tepid at best, more than three years after the economy began to crater.

Against that backdrop of need is a harsh reality anti-poverty groups say they struggle to overcome: Much of the public doesn’t want to hear about it. Driven by Gov. Chris Christie here and tea partiers in Washington, the conversation is all about cutting government services — the faster the better.

Then the richest man in town does his job, writing a letter to the editor praising the reporter for telling the truth and — because this particular rich man isn’t like the millionaires that Gov. Christie and the tea partiers think should be the primary beneficiaries of government action — criticizing the governor for trying to balance the state budget by cutting vitally necessary aid to the poor while giving bigger tax breaks to people like him.

Here’s that letter:

Thank you for your March 27 front-page story by Michael Symons, “As poverty rises, cuts target aid.” The article is one of the few that highlights the contradictions between a policy of large tax cuts, on the one hand, and cuts in services to those in the most dire conditions, on the other.

Also, you’ve shone some light on anti-poverty workers and analysts such as Adele LaTourette, Meara Nigro, Cecilia Zalkind and Raymond Castro, among others, all of whom have something important to add to the discussion: real information and actual facts about what is happening below the poverty line.

These are voices that in our current climate are having a hard time being heard, not just in New Jersey, but nationally. Finally, your article shows that the cuts are eating away at the lower edges of the middle class, not just those already classified as in poverty, and are likely to continue to get worse over the next few years. I’m always glad to see my hometown newspaper covering these issues.

Bruce Springsteen, Colts Neck

And then, finally, the editorial board of the paper gets off the fence and sides with its reporter and with the “real information and actual facts” of the matter, publishing an editorial with the appropriately imperative headline “Help those who are falling behind.”

The famous line from the gospels, “The poor you will always have with you,” is as true today as it was thousands of years ago. Our front-page story in last Sunday’s Asbury Park Press, “As poverty rises, cuts target aid,” certainly confirmed that.

What also is true these days is that New Jersey is not doing nearly enough to aid the increasing number of those in poverty or those living on the margins, which now includes many who once considered themselves part of the middle class.

… State budget cuts, past and present, have contributed to the problem. In Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget now being debated in Trenton, there are actions the state can, and should take, to mitigate the pain for those least able to absorb more of it.

… There is no legitimate fiscal reason for the so-called “shared sacrifice” required to fix the state’s still faltering economy to fall so disproportionately on our most vulnerable citizens.

Bravo and well done, Asbury Park Press.

I do want to quibble, however, with that editorial’s misattribution and misapplication of that “famous line from the Gospels.”

“The poor you will always have with you,” isn’t from the Gospels. It’s quoted there, by Jesus, but that’s not where it’s from. It’s from Deuteronomy.

“The poor shall never cease out of the land,” Deuteronomy 15 reads in the King James Version. “There will always be poor people in the land,” is how the New International Version renders the phrase.

Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy for an audience that he knew would recognize those words as coming from the books of Moses. He knew that they knew the phrase was from Deuteronomy, so he knew they would know the context of the passage he was quoting. That audience, knowing that context, could be trusted to understand what was being said in a way that we American readers have demonstrated we cannot.

Because we love to quote this phrase — “The poor you will always have with you” or “There will never cease to be some in need” — and we almost always do so in a way that suggests that this is inevitable, that this is just the way things will always be and nothing can be done to change it. We almost never quote this passage in its original context — which suggests exactly the opposite. In its original context, “There will always be poor people in the land” is a bitter rebuke — a condemnation of an inexcusable, epic moral failure.

That rebuke was the essence of what Jesus was saying when he repeated this passage as a rebuke to Judas Iscariot. And it’s a rebuke that American Christians desperately need to learn to hear, because it’s also directed at us.

Go back and read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 15 and you’ll find that this fragment of it quoted famously by Jesus is part of a kind of syllogism, a conditional statement. The full idea, the full statement in Deuteronomy 15 says this:

There will be no one in need among you … if only you will obey the Lord your God by observing this entire commandment. … There will never cease to be some in need on the earth. (NRSV)

There shall be no poor among you … if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments. … The poor shall never cease out of the land. (KJV)

There need be no poor people among you … if only you fully obey. … There will always be poor people in the land. (NIV)

If you obey, then there will be no poor among you. But you do not obey, so therefore there will always be poor among you.

“This entire commandment” described in Deuteronomy included the Jubilee and Sabbath laws governing the forgiveness of debts, plus a whole host of other laws that made up the Levitical safety net. Taken as a whole, those laws really would have ensured that there would be no poor in the land. But those laws were never put in place, never enforced, never obeyed, never followed — not even during the reigns of the good kings.

The only time during which anything like those laws was in place was in the wilderness, when God was in charge of supplying an alternate currency. Manna, unlike gold, couldn’t be hoarded — only shared.

“The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said 2,000 years ago, quoting a scripture written many centuries before that. And for all those many hundreds of years this has been descriptively accurate. For all of that time, the poor have, indeed, always been with us — the living proof of our perpetual, perennial moral failure.

Mammon

money

Previous Post

April 5, 2011

Paul Ryan's "fundamentally immoral" plan to privatize Medicare

Next Post

April 7, 2011 North of Lineland

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who asked Jesus, "What is truth?"

Select your answer to see how you score.

Pilate Judas Peter Caiaphas