Let me start with this quote:

We have astounding statistics like these: One of every six children in America is poor (13 million children in America!), 36 million people live below the poverty line (more people than live in any state, including California, 4 million families are hungry to the point where people in the household are skipping meals (and three times that number are “food insecure,” meaning at some time during the year they have difficulty providing enough food for members of their family), 45 million Americans are without health insurance - including 8.4 million children, and 15 million families have critical housing needs as affordable housing disappears, rents and housing prices soar, and homelessness is on the rise - especially for families in urban areas.1

If anything, these statistics underestimate the problem, since what constitutes the “poverty line” hasn’t been adjusted for forty years. In 2003, it stood at $18.810 for a family of four.

I have to say, that Wallis’ premise - that the poor have been reduced to pawn in the chess game of political power - is one I have felt. The campaign trail is the most obvious place. Candidates pull out names and stories, like John Hernandez, an assembly line worker in Iowa whose job has been moved to Mexico, and Elizabeth Johnson, a single mom in Pennsylvania who is trying to raise her three children while she finishes night school. (These two people are imaginary.) I assume that the people mentioned in the speeches are real, but something about the was they get mentioned seems deceptive. It seems like the politician is simply throwing them a bone, a 30-second sound bite they can tell their friends about, while making an emotional play for their own benefit.

Question: Can politicians talk about the poor without sounding like they are merely using the poor?

Wallis continues the pattern established earlier in the book. He attacks the false choices offered by Democrats and Republicans; and he exhorts people of faith to remain free while they pursue genuine solutions. He talks at some length about the present political discourse. Conservatives insist on personal responsibility as the solution to poverty, while liberals advocate public generosity. Wallis argues that this is not an either/or situation; instead it is a both/and. Personal responsibility must be taught and stressed, because unlike the rich, the poor do not have the resources to buy second chances and do-overs. Furthermore, public generosity must be available to give second-chances to those who make mistakes. This is grace, and it should not be a respecter of economic status.

Question: Is Wallis right? Are the options of personal responsibility and public generosity false choices? How can a society dispense grace without it becoming license? How can personal responsibility be encourages without falling into legalism?

Wallis going one further, in my opinion, addressing a deeper layer that seems to be ignored in the common political conversation. He talks about the systemic issues that must be confronted prophetically: the unbounded reign of corporations whose only motive is profit; the systemic racism that remains forty years after Civil Rights and 140 years after Civil War; rampant individualism and consumerism that isolates people from their neighbors. These sorts of problems are ignored, because they form the foundation of modern America. Addressing these problems would require a fundamental change in our way of living, of governing, and of doing business. Change of this magnitude is difficult. No one wants to rebuild the house when you can simply redecorate the living room.

Question: How can these foundational issues be addressed? I think back to Wallis’ earlier chapter on changing the wind (Chapter 2: A Lack of Vision). How can we change the wind, so that these issues will be noticed and addressed?

Finally, another quote from the book:

The poor have been virtually missing in action from American religion and politics. The shame of American poverty can be overcome, but not without first ending the liberal/conservative warfare and transforming the fruitless poverty debate with good theology and spiritual commitment. ignoring the poor has fundamentally distorted the theology and practice in the churches of the affluent nations and thus made any prophetic role impossible. In contract, the priority of the poor among the fat-growing churches in the developing world has been key to their success and their prophetic energy. The Bible suggests that the poor can literally save the faith of the churches, which could then help to “heal the nations” - perhaps the most critical spiritual and social task in a world so deeply and dangerously divided.