Drew in Contemplation

I think it’s about time that I write the follow up post to my Short-Term Missions blog back in March. In the first blog, I talked primarily about the Savior Complex. The Savior Complex is the idea that we as Americans/Westerners are the ones who are to “save” those in poverty, as if we have all the answers. As much as we might have good ideas and the know how to help those in poverty, the Savior Complex creates an “Us” and “Them” mentality, which, in my mind, is heretical according to the overall teaching in Scripture. Simply put, this teaching in Scripture is we’re all created in the image of God and everyone (regardless of income, education and culture) is need of a Savior, which should cause us to embody a radical sense of equality in cross-cultural Christian work. Christians are called to humbleness because, at the very core of our faith is the reality, Christ did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Humanity was in an unrecoverable mess without the intervention of...

If we're honest, people in poverty can frustrate us. Sometimes it's hard to sympathize with someone who seems to have a destructive lifestyle or doesn't embody a strong work ethic. It's easy have negative thoughts when we encounter someone in a financial crisis. Sadly, the ideal of the American Dream has taught us, whether consciously or subconsciously, that someone's financial state is a direct result of their ability to work hard. Therefore, people in poverty are often thought of, at least in the American context, as lazy. Although we know better than to give people in poverty such a narrow view, we should at least, I think, acknowledge these feelings and address them. So why do people in poverty sometimes get under our skin? We may not realize it all the time, but our attitudes toward certain people come from our own cultural practices. In sociology we call this  Social Norms. For example, here in Thomasville, it's a social norm to ride around town in ...