This talk by Dr Simon Duffy to the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield argues the Church must be committed to political action to fight poverty and ideally support #BasicIncome

1. Are we ready to send poverty to Hell?
Why the Church should support #BasicIncome

3. But he wishing to justify himself said to Jesus: But who is my neighbour?
ὁ δὲ θέλων δικαιῶσαι ἑαυτὸν εἶπεν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν, Καὶ τίς ἐστίν μου
πλησίον (Luke 10.29 - Good Samaritan) rooted in the word for ‘near’
σοῦ δὲ ποιοῦντος ἐλεημοσύνην μὴ γνώτω ἡ ἀριστερά σου τί ποιεῖ ἡ δεξιά σου,
When you perform acts of charity don’t let the left know what the right hand does
πάντοτε γὰρ τοὺς πτωχοὺς ἔχετε μεθ' ἑαυτῶν, ἐμὲ δὲ οὐ πάντοτε ἔχετε:
[Don’t criticise her for her good deed towards me] for you will always have
beggars with you, but you won’t always have me.
What does it mean to love your neighbour?

4. Which would Christ prefer?
(1) the Church develops an
increasingly ambitious
system of food banks OR
(2) the Church supports a
system of Basic Income to
banish poverty absolutely

5. Some facts & figures

6. Poverty in the UK

9. Poverty means
you lack what you need
to live as an equal with
others

10. poverty is at war with
citizenship

11. So why do we allow
poverty to exist?

12. Poverty is caused by
• War with Nature - The inability to find sustenance in the
world (Driven from Eden, e.g. the result of natural or man-
made disasters etc.)
• War with Man - The inability to get access to the means
necessary to live and thrive, because of power, property
rights and organised violence (Enslaved in Egypt, ie. as a
result of unequal power relations)
• Poverty is primarily political - this clearly the Biblical
perspective - but this is constantly being deflected and
poverty is instead treated it as the result of something else.

13. They use lies and vicious rhetoric, while dreaming up more schemes to
defraud the poor; while all the time the poor just cry out for justice.
fraudulenti vasa pessima sunt ipse denim cogitationes concinnavit ad pretends
mites in sermone mendacii cum loqueretur pauper in iudicium (Isaiah 32:7)

14. Cui bono? Who does it
benefit to treat poverty as…
• The result of individual moral failings - ‘You don’t work
hard enough?’
• An unfortunate side-effect of the modern economy -
‘Austerity is a necessary evil.’
• An illusion - ‘There’s no real poverty today, it’s only
relative poverty.’
• Special pleading - ‘All these charities looking for more
work to do.’

16. How should a Christian
respond to the existence
of poverty?

19. So why does the Church
provide food banks?

21. Does the Church needs
a different approach?

24. • What does the story of the good Samaritan really teach
us?
• Did Jesus really want to us to make sure the poor are
“always with us”?
• Is the Church keen to replace a welfare state which is
being purposefully degraded by the state?

25. My proposition
• Christians should seek to eliminate poverty primarily by
collective action (politics).
• Basic Income (which is to income security what the NHS is to
healthcare) is the best means to achieve this end.
• Any charitable action (e.g. food banks) that seeks to mitigate the
impact of political corruption (e.g. austerity) risks making the
Church complicit with injustice.
• Hence the Church must ensure there is no doubt in the minds of
recipients, donors, Church members and political leaders that
such poverty is wrong and unnecessary and that society has an
obligation to bring it to an end - by political means.

26. Sheffield-based think tank: www.centreforwelfarereform.org
UBI Lab Sheffield: www.ubilabsheffield.org