Claiborne on Capitalism

The debate between the evangelical left and right goes on: Does our market-based society undercut Christ’s calling to minister to the downtrodden?  Or does it represent an effective means for elevating millions out of poverty? 

A common ground – of sorts – was struck between these extremes at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, DC.  Representing the two camps were Shane Claiborne, the prominent and controversial spokesperson of the New Monasticism movement, and Peter Greer, president of the faith-based microenterprise organization HOPE International.  The event was organized to showcase the benefits of the market-based model in combating poverty, and in particular addressed the question of how Christ-followers can be good neighbors to the poor in a globalized economy.

Both panelists identified with each other strongly that love must be central in their interactions with the poor.  Claiborne began by promoting his oft-emulated Simple Way model in inner-city Philadelphia, where he and others live and work within destitute communities.

“Maybe the greatest tragedy in the world is not that rich folks don’t care about poor folks, but that rich folks don’t encounter many poor folks,” Claiborne said.  He added that as a Christian, it’s “suffering that we’re called to move closer to, rather than further from.”

Greer echoed Claiborne’s call to real, involved intervention on behalf of the poor.

“Action is required” when dealing with the poor, Greer said, “And action is messy. The guy who put the injured man on his donkey [in the parable of the Good Samaritan], he got blood on his saddle and it had to be cleaned.  Love is costly.”

Despite this similarity, their respective mechanisms for dealing with poverty were very different.

“Maybe we can agree that things like a really good education and good healthcare shouldn’t be things that you have to afford,” Claiborne said, implicitly advocating a stronger governmental role in meeting the poor’s needs.  “After you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to think, ‘Maybe we need to rethink the whole road to Jericho.’”

Greer countered that meeting people’s immediate needs is good, but ultimately destructive if they’re not equipped with the means to lift themselves out of their proverbial “ditch”.

Handouts may be received with gratefulness, Greer said.  But “there’s gratefulness with eyes down… and shoulders stooped…  with individuals slowly having the shackles of poverty increasing around their wrist[s], when they start to believe that if anything good is going to happen, it’s because someone from the outside is going to come in and take care of [their] needs.”

“If you really want to love your neighbor,” Greer contended, “A job is better than a handout.”

Claiborne was challenged by the moderator on whether his Simple Way model creates “a culture of poverty” within the neighborhoods in which he ministers, since it apparently offers no mechanism for upward mobility.  He seemed to deflect the question, instead expressing his worry of creating “a culture of complacency” that comes from “detaching ourselves from poverty.”

“In my neighborhood, there are some ugly things – I think there are some greedy poor folks just like there are generous rich folks, you know – but a lot of times we look at the symptoms of the disease rather than the disease itself,” Claiborne said. 

He brought up the fact that Philadelphia has lost two hundred thousand jobs due to the economic crisis.

“It’s no surprise that the number one source of income is public assistance, and number two is heroine,” he said.  “I can’t just tell a kid that sits on my corner all day, ‘Don’t deal heroine,’ if I don’t have another way to keep his feet [warm] this winter.”

Claiborne insisted that his model doesn’t advocate that everyone become “poorer,” but that rather it challenges the “immense amount of inequity” he sees as a systemic problem in the U.S. economy.

“To me the place to begin is with a change of heart,” said Claiborne.  “They [the poor] need more, but I’m not trying to make everyone middle class North American. I think we want people to be free to ‘have this day their daily bread,’ and that means those others of us shouldn’t be stockpiling for next year.”

“If someone’s hungry, while someone else has food, then they’re a thief if they don’t share it,” he added, citing as his example the early church’s model for eliminating poverty.

Claiborne historically has been antagonistic towards capitalism, particularly in his 2008 book Jesus for President, wherein he asserts that “when we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.”

When questioned on whether he felt capitalism would exist if everyone were Christian, Claiborne didn’t directly answer.  “I think in the whole of scripture we have an invitation not to conform to the patterns of this world that are out of sync with God’s heart,” he said.  “And I would say some of the patterns that we see right now seem to be pretty far from God’s heart.”

Claiborne also criticized ideologically driven policies that he says demand nothing of the public.

“To be pro-life, when you live in a neighborhood like mine… means we have to figure out what to do when a 14 year old girl gets pregnant,” Claiborne explained.  “That then becomes everybody’s responsibility.   So if we’re really going to be pro-life, then we’d better have some foster kids and we’d better have some teenage mothers living in our homes to show for it.  Otherwise all we have is ideology.”