Isaiah 61:1 (NRSV): The Oppressed Poor

The Oppressed Poor

Caution: Don't confuse symptoms for causes as most non-oppressed people commonly do including the brilliant David Brooks.

Every white, American church member, every Christian college graduate, every seminary trained pastor absolutely must have crystal clear biblical clarity on the oppression/poverty issue.  Begin with oppression, not poverty.

From the Noble Revised Version:

"You will always have the poor with you, in your community---unless---your church gives highest priority to releasing the oppressed (Isaiah 58:6 and Luke 4:18), to ending systems of oppression that create and maintain poverty."

More on the Biblical Perspective:

* the traumatized poor
* the mass PTSD poor
* the broken in spirit poor
* the spirit of despair poor
* the humiliated poor
* the dehumanized poor
* the damaged poor
* the working two jobs to survive poor
* the physically enslaved poor
* the debt enslaved poor

The white American perspective:

* the lazy poor---Senator Jeff Flake's "We Need Immigrant Skills.  But working hard is a skill"
                                                             Meet Manuel, a working machine, unbelievable work ethic.
* the stupid poor
* the inferior ethnic poor
* the dysfunctional poor
* the criminal poor
* etc.

The poor may be illiterate because of oppression, but they are not stupid.

Read Behind Mud Walls, an anthropological classic, covers 40 years in the lives of Indian peasant farmers, both before and after Indian independence, both before and after land reform.

Agricultural missionaries, a husband and wife team, who were culturally sensitive, worked for 20 years trying to introduce modern farming methods to the dirt-poor peasants---with little success.  Conclusion:  Indian peasant farmers were stupid.

But, after land reform, after the peasants owned their own land, the agricultural missionaries found out they were the stupid ones.  The hadn't fully understood the impact of the landlord-peasant system of oppression.  The peasants understood but did not implement modern farming methods.  Why?  Because the landlords would have taken the surplus production; the peasants would not have benefitted.  After land reform, the peasants eagerly implemented modern farming methods.  Land ownership which ended landlord oppression was the key to progress.