Poverty in God’s Kingdom
A Review of
Poverty in the Promised Land: Neighborliness, Resistance, and Restoration
Walter Brueggemann
Paperback: Fortress Press, 2024
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Reviewed by Ryan Johnson
It’s a “dog eat dog world out there,” so they say, and resources are scarce. We hear that narrative broadcast on TV, taught in our schools, and acted out in our workplaces. Ruthless individualism is king and so our default can often be to look out for ourselves at all costs. Then we take some time out on Sunday to worship a God who had no place to lay his head. We proclaim Jesus as king and his kingdom is at hand while being complicit in a system that oppresses the voiceless. We are angered when a joke is made at the expense of the church, yet are silent as billionaires and corporations trample the rights and lives of the vulnerable. We preach from the pulpit to follow Jesus with vague references to his upside down kingdom then honor those with the largest donations. With his usual eloquence, Brueggemann responds to Matthew Desmond’s important work Poverty by America. He takes the arguments in Desmond’s work and layers on a biblical understanding of who God is and what he wants for his people. In doing so, he gives a response that is at once convicting and humble and moves the reader to action.
Originally written as a series of blog posts, this book draws parallels from our current society to the themes of poverty and oppression found in scripture. Throughout the book, Brueggemann is having a conversation with Desmond where he invites us to journey with him. He points out that the various themes such as taking, coveting, and devouring are themes seen throughout scripture where people in power have abused that power at the expense of others. He points to Desmond’s work to see how those same themes are perpetuated and in fact celebrated in America.
He begins his work with a look at places in scripture that depict the exploitative use of people for their resources. He is clear that on the surface these ‘transactions’ appear to be just that– contractual agreements between two parties. The reality, however, is that they are entirely exploitative in nature. One side is often desperate while the other has all the power. This imbalanced relationship can be found throughout society where people of wealth and power see it as their right to acquire and take from those who have nothing. We see corporations lobbying to reduce their responsibility to their employees while getting tax breaks for themselves This theme of taking is coupled by the theme of devouring which points out how corporations move to keep minimum wage well below a livable wage, and reducing work to gig jobs that have no job security and no benefits, all the while ensuring the survival of an economic system that is increasingly stacked against those in poverty.
As if sensing the response from people who want to blame anyone but the billionaires and corporations for the system, he addresses the often cited ‘laziness’ of those in poverty. He points out that this language is used by Pharaoh to condemn the Israelites who worked for him so he starved them and increased their hours. The language here is used by the powerful to justify their place and convince others to believe that being poor is simply choosing inactivity. In linking it to the present, he says, “… poverty is not the result of laziness. It is the outcome of an economy that is designed to sustain an illusion.” He quotes Desmond to point out that there is no reason to believe that those who are in the 1% are more deserving than those living in poverty doing jobs that leave them with physical and emotional damage.
In one of his most powerful chapters, Brueggemann talks about the idea of private opulence vs. public squalor. This is the concept that as funds are drained from federal and state spending, the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ widens. By providing tax breaks for the rich, the programs that ensure the general welfare of everyone continue to diminish. The wealthy create systems that insulate them from the public. The resulting imbalance enables the wealthy to keep their privilege while those in poverty sink further and further. There are people who would suggest that this is due to the scarcity of resources but again Brueggemann points out that this is a lie fabricated by those who hoard resources. They use their vast wealth to control the narrative all the while continuing to drain resources from the economy.
Throughout the book, Brueggemann doesn’t hold back and calls out the church for their complicity. Despite the fact that scripture is very clear about the role of the church and its responsibility to care for the “least of these” we have fallen vastly short. He quotes Desmond in saying, “Every person, every company, every institution that has a role in perpetuating poverty also has a role in ameliorating it.” He then goes on to quote Desmond in one of the most moving lines of the book, “We don’t need to outsmart this problem. We need to out-hate it.” We as the church have a choice between going on as business as usual or taking a stand against the system that generates wealth at the expense of others.
There are books that we read that we are moved by, there are others that move us to action. This short, eloquent book is one of the latter. It is at once informative on the situation at hand in this country, while convicting us personally of our complicity. In the current political landscape, this book serves as a beacon for the church and a wake up call to resist those things that would oppress others. May we hear and respond to that call.
Ryan Johnson
Ryan Johnson lives and works in Nottingham, Maryland with his wife, son and new daughter. He is a former pastor who spends much of his free time reading and writing and of course playing with his son Judah and daughter Eliza. He can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjohn8hf/.
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