Churches must lead fight against poverty

Edward Mpoloka | Wednesday February 19, 2014 17:33

 

This is because, as religious scholar, Professor Musa Dube of the University of Botswana (UB) put it, the church, at least in our context, has been working with the poor even before independence.

Besides, pastors not only work more closely with the grassroots but also seem to attract more respect from the community than politicians. Also, the church has both a moral and spiritual obligation to fight poverty not only among their members but also in the larger community.

Mainline churches such as the Roman Catholic, the Seventh Day Adventist Church (SDA) and others have got a history of not only taking care of the material needs of the poor but also build schools and hospitals for their benefit.

“In this way, they not only facilitated the empowerment of the people through the provision of skills, but enabled people to stay healthy and work for themselves and escape poverty,” said Dube. Her view is that government should not have taken over mission schools and hospitals.

“The schools should have been left in the hands of the church,” she remonstrated, citing the example of Zimbabwe where the church runs universities even.

According to Dube, the new Pentecostal churches, derisively referred to in Botswana as ‘fire’ churches, are fighting poverty by preaching the Gospel of prosperity.

“They teach people that God never wanted them to be poor.  This builds self-esteem in them,” she observed albeit admitting that, to her knowledge, no research has been done to determine the effectiveness of the message of prosperity on the receivers. Dube would like the church in general to reach out more instead of confining its message to economic liberation to its converts.

For his part, the deputy president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Botswana (EFB), Owen Isaacs, said that besides giving out food hampers to the poor, the church should continue to play its advocacy role by calling for equitable distribution of wealth.

“As EFB, for instance, we regularly analyse the budget allocation and make our observation. A budget allocation that is not balanced could breed poverty in the midst of plenty,” emphasised Isaacs.

He added that it was inconceivable for anybody to induce poverty in order to turn people into one’s objects of sympathy by giving them hampers. “There is nothing wrong with distributing hampers. What matters though is that people should be empowered to make a living for themselves,” he opined.  According to him, poverty is sometimes the result of laziness on the part of the concerned person.

“The Bible is against laziness,” said Isaacs. In its advocacy role, EFB, according to him, holds those looking after the national cake to account.

“We are against corruption as it distorts the economy,” he said.

Isaacs also revealed that his organisation was not only worried about the poor and unemployed, but is also worried by the working poor.

“People must not work for a pittance.  We advocate for decent pay as we believe it unjust for people to toil for nothing,” adds Isaacs.

It is not a Muslim who eats his fill and leaves his neighbour hungry, said Prophet Muhammad of the Islamic faith. According to Iqbal Ibrahim, an executive committee member of the Muslim Association of Botswana (MAB), Muslims usually contribute to the fight against poverty as individuals.

There are cases though where they are bound by practice. “For instance, there is compulsory tax for charity in an Islamic state. This money is used to change the plight of the poor,” said Ibrahim.  Islam, according to him, teaches people to find something to do for a living thereby become motivated to be gainfully occupied.

He also added that Muslims are not allowed to receive interest.

“If an interest is due to a Muslim, he or she must give it away,” he said.

The fact that most Muslims in Botswana run businesses and employ people is considered by many as an effort to defeat poverty. The Crescent Primary School and Al Nur School in Gaborone are associated with Muslims.  In addition to the above efforts, MAB is mulling the possibility of coming together to contribute to the Presidential Housing Appeal as a unit.