Bishop John writes ...
Poverty or inequality?
Care for the poor is right by a deeply engrained element in Christian commitment from New Testament days onwards. Through agencies such as Christian Aid we try to provide help for those in deep poverty throughout the world. The events of this year have also given us the chance to reflect on inequalities within our own society. So we are alarmed at the size of bonuses in the financial industry. We are concerned at the level of MP’s expenses. Why?
Into that debate comes the work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in ‘The Spirit Level’, which I believe to be a seminal new book for our understanding, prayer and action. They look at over 20 comparatively wealthy countries and demonstrate that almost all measures of discontent and unease relate to inequality within a society rather than to levels of poverty. So some of the richest countries of the world have the highest levels of mental illness, highest rates of imprisonment and longest working hours, for example. These include the UK and the USA, where discontent is much higher, for example, than in the Netherlands or Denmark. We live in a society where the differences in income between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% have increased by about 40% since 1975, and measures such as mental illness or obesity have increased not simply for the poorest within our society but for everyone.
We live in a society where some are paid more for a day’s work than others for a year. We need to fight the assumptions behind that stark fact not by criticising individuals, but by our own ways of thinking and praying. The Church has a moderately good record in affirming equality – clergy are not paid more for bigger congregations or serving more churches. The chief blot on that record is the higher stipends paid to bishops and other so-called senior clergy, which I believe to be indefensible.
Amongst the best parts of ‘The Spirit Level’ are the cartoons. One of them has a supplicant looking helplessly at a vast gate marked, ‘Heaven, a gated community’. It illustrates a chapter demonstrating that levels of trust are lower where inequality is higher. That speaks to our society and to our churches. It is just possible that the present crises will lead to a reversal of the trends towards greater inequality – pray for that to be so for us.
+ John Packer
October 2009