JBTM_10-2_Fall_2013

JBTM
The War that Cannot Be Won?
Poverty: What the Bible Says
37
Twyla K. Hernandez, Ph.D.
Twyla Hernandez is Assistant Professor of Christian Missions
at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Kentucky.
Introduction
have seen poverty. I have seen it in the small towns of Bolivia, in the slums of Ghana, and in
I the children’s faces of Cuba. I have seen pastors in other countries who do not have enough
food to feed their families and have no money to pay the bus fare to send their children to school.
I have seen poverty in the face of the woman washing her clothes with a bottle of dirty water on
a street corner in Buenos Aires.
But, I have also seen poverty in the United States. With all of our resources, it seems unlikely
that the citizens of our country would lack any basic need. But it happens. It happens in the
large cities, and it happens in the small towns. It happens in Appalachia, and it happens in New
York City.
On January 8, 1964, President Johnson famously declared a “War on Poverty.” He stated,
“Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope—some because of their poverty,
and some because of their color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace
their despair with opportunity.” 1
Johnson said that the war on poverty’s “chief weapons” would be “better schools, and
better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job opportunities.” It was an
underfunded war that was quickly overtaken by a more pressing war in Vietnam. But in the
years following Johnson’s declaration, several government programs were begun to help the poor,
such as Medicaid, the Job Corps, and Head Start. These programs now seem to be part of the
framework of our country.
Because of the fiftieth anniversary of the declared war on poverty, many political pundits today
are writing about what is going on in our country as it relates to the poor and how things have (or
have not) changed since 1964. There was less poverty after the programs of Johnson’s war were
put into place. Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post writes, “In 1964, the poverty rate was 19
1 Lyndon B. Johnson, “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 8, 1964,
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/640108.asp (accessed March 26, 2014).