Here is a moral dilemma

About 1 of 6 Americans live in poverty. While the cynics bicker over how to define poverty and how much suffering should be required for sympathy, there is no doubt that too many live without hope. We have pockets of poverty that have spanned generations in every part of the country, from the neighborhoods of Chicago to the hollers of Appalachia to government-controlled tribal lands in the Dakotas.

One could ask why the number living in poverty has been steadily climbing in recent years. The federal government's "war on poverty" has not been won after fifty years of program funding. Of course, that funding is for food, shelter, medical care, and job training. The trouble is corporate "job creators" in America have outsourced living wage jobs to cheaper and cheaper and cheaper labor markets. It is difficult to escape poverty if there are too few ladders of economic opportunity. Pretty simple economics.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Living in poverty, even in a rich nation, takes a toll on your physical, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. You are subjected to a thousand indignities every week. Despair, substance abuse, broken relationships, and violence are all too common. Hope is in very short supply when millions are born, live, and die in poverty. It is not a life that anyone in their right mind would want for themselves.

Our political leaders have developed a nasty habit of disparaging the poor, calling them free-loaders, takers, frauds, thieves, lazy, stupid, and incompetent. It is the narrative they use to justify slashing government programs for the most vulnerable. The large funding cuts over the past four years will add substantially to the woes of people living in poor communities all across the nation. These same politicians are clamoring for even more draconian cuts and will almost certainly succeed.

So, as followers of Christ, as people of faith, what do we do? How do we respond to injustice piled on injustice? Their wounds are hardly hidden.

There is no shortage of Christian leaders expressing their outrage over issues of genital morality, but few take umbrage at the plight of the poor, sick, old, and disabled. Pope Francis is a rare exception. He has taken up the cause of the poor only to be called a socialist, communist, and Marxist for pointing out the deficiencies in capitalism and dangers of idolizing wealth.

Can people of faith succeed where our government and business leaders have failed to help people escape from poverty? Borrowing from Rabbi Hillel, if not us, then who? If not now, then when?