Social Sector

The Church Will End Extreme Poverty

by Scott Todd

Claiming that we can eradicate extreme poverty from the face of the Earth is incredibly bold. But Dr. Scott Todd believes it is also surprisingly realistic. The key, he believes, is to stop being naive about the incredible evidence of progress and raise our expectations of what God intends to do through us. Scott provides that evidence, offers a provocative argument that Jesus never said the poor would always be with us and calls for us to “live 58.”

Comments

John Shuker

"Blessed is he who considers the poor." Ps41:1

Dave Evans

This is a powerful and anointed presentation that compels us to believe, advocate and act until 26 becomes zero!

Angelina Dieleman

I'm so excited to see this message - I fully believe that I will be the last generation that bears witness to widespread extreme poverty. This is such an amazing opportunity for the church to rise up and be the best version of ourselves - compassionate, loving people in the pursuit of justice, healing and restoration, empowered by the Spirit, and following in the footsteps of our Saviour.

John Mulholland

May I recommend a good deal more humility and realism than is reported here, and a good deal more attention to the causes of extreme poverty in much of the world.

1] "Failed states" - the most recent issue of the journal Foreign Policy focuses on "failed states", 60 of them. Poverty and starvation are merely symptoms of this larger problem. If we do not begin to address this problem, we are only waving our hands and will not solve the problem of poverty.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/failedstates

Click on "Rankings" to see the global picture.

2] Drought - Katherine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian and climate scientist at Texas Tech, has a website on climate change that is worth studying as well as a book, written with her husband, an evangelical pastor. Starvation and poverty are intense in places now suffering from drought, combined with being failed states.

Take a look at Hayhoe's website here

http://temagami.tosm.ttu.edu/khayhoe/climate_slides/index.htm

and her book here.

http://climateforchangethebook.com/index.html

Thank you for your work, but I recommend a very strong dose of realism, otherwise we will fall prey to the problem of addressing the "veneer", not the substance - an issue addressed by several notes in recent weeks.

Ben Hammond

John Mulholland -

- I would read his book before you get too critical of what he thinks about ending poverty. I have not read his book either, but a book has a heck of lot more content that a 12min presentation, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is not ignorant of the information you are presenting.

Jeff Brown

Dr. Scott does begin his presentation with a nod to the skeptics. I wanted to add that the 58: organization is attacking the problem from many different angles. They are partnered with many different organizations that all work to solve different pieces of the causes of poverty, including political, environmental, financial... check out the list of partners on their website.

http://www.live58.org/home/#/what

Skepticism is not a good reason to sit on the sidelines; find something you believe in and get involved.

John Andrew, Jr.

How many Evangelicals do you know who even know what Isaiah 58 is about? And how many are content with their own salvation, but ignorant of the work we are all called to do? (See Matthew 25:31-46) Mother Teresa has said that when she ministered to the poor, she believed that she was ministering to Jesus himself, in his "most distressing disguise."

I appreciate this perspective very much, because it reassures us that we are not laboring in vain.

Brian Considine

I shared this presentation recently at the Perspectives Leader's Intensive in Dallas and the response was overwhelmingly positive, which should be the attitude we approach this subject with. Yes, humility is important, but humility is larging agreeing witth what God says and with God's agenda. The larger point I take from this presentation is that we need a new way of looking at God's world beyond the "fatalism" inherent in much Evangelicalism today that says we can't solve such problems. This fatalism arises out of the eschatalogical view that the world will get worse and worse until Jesus comes again. But is that really the proper perspective for the Church or should be be "repairers" and "restorers" like Isaiah 58 speaks of. Are all things possible with God or not?

Kurt Birky

Too often we Christians would rather sit and debate than take action. We quivel over strategies and data and approaches. We justify this inaction as attempting to be good stewards of our time and resources. And we should be good stewards - we are called to be good stewards - but we are also unquestionably called to act.

Can any Christ-follower argue that if we want to put our religion into practice, we need to care for the widows and orphans in their distress? We need to be active. We must end the rationalization that we use to justify our inaction.

I greatly appreciate Dr. Todd's enthusiastic, energetic and victorious call to action.

It is time for us to move!

Keri

Dr. Scott Todd is a compelling speaker, as you can see in this video. I highly recommend his book, Fast Living: How the Church will End Extreme Poverty. In it,he goes into greater depth about the progress already made in the war on poverty, and casts a vision for the work yet to be done.

Jesus called us to love our neighbors. In the world today, every person on the planet is our neighbor, and we've been entrusted with the resources to help them.

Visit http://live58.org for more on the book, the related movie which is being released this week, and on projects your can get involved in to help end poverty.

Josie

All the way from Kenya, i saw this piece of information with CBN news and it was incredible. every time i witness poverty around here or in the neighboring countries, i still have hope that one day it will all come to pass. We can all join hands. All is possible with God.

jen

great graphics, make the info more memorable and interesting to watch

merv witherup

scott--look forward to discussing this with you.

tracking these 21000 by country and trying to get more specific by by country

phone number in kona hawaii 509-389-2813

merv witherup

praying to cut this in half in 5 years--looking for top 10-20 locations within the 35 worst countries--any ideas?

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