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| World Inequality Update 2022 |
According to the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM-5), individuals with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder exhibit many or all of the following traits: a sense of self-importance, a preoccupation with power, beauty, or success, a sense of entitlement, a need to be around people who are important or special, and a need to be admired. They are typically arrogant, lack empathy, and are exploitative for their own gain.
Applying that description to US citizens like ourselves may seem harsh, but are we becoming a nation of narcissists?
Imagine all of the world’s people around one table, over 7 billion of us, with some 27,000 children dying every day from hunger related causes. Yet we, like the rich man in Jesus’ story in Luke 16, “feast sumptuously every day.”
Here are just a few of the benefits many of us at the American end of the table feel entitled to:
• an unheard of level of personal wealth. Those of us with an annual income of $50,000 or more are in the top 1% of the richest people on earth, according to Richard Stearn, president of World Vision and author of The Hole in Our Gospel.
• the availability of state of the art healthcare unheard of in all of human history.
• exotic foods shipped to our supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores from all over the world, often harvested, packaged and transported by exploited and underpaid workers, and of which, according to some estimates, 40% is wasted.
• clothes closets packed with apparel manufactured in sweatshops in some of the poorest nations on earth.
• a national “defense” budget that exceeds that of the combined total spending on war, and preparation for war, of the next highest nine countries' expenditures in the world.
• a criminal justice system that, in the interest of “public safety,” incarcerates multiple times more people per capita than any other developed nation on earth.
• access to comfortable and efficient means of transportation, with more licensed vehicles in the US than there are licensed drivers.
• climate controlled comfort and a multitude of other energy driven amenities in our homes, schools and workplaces, with little regard for how our excessive use of fossil fuels is having disastrous effects on the climate.
• state of the art places of worship with an excess of pew space typically utilized only several hours a week.
• more firearms per capita than any country on earth, with correspondingly shocking rates of suicides and mass murders.
• expansive homes with well manicured lawns, beautifully furnished interiors, unused bedrooms and other under utilized space.
All of these marks of privilege are well in excess of what even royalty would have dreamed of throughout history, but which we have come to claim as our inherent right. And along with this level of entitlement we demonstrate a distressing lack of empathy, as evidenced by the fact that according to Stearn, the average US congregation designates only 2% of its budget to needs beyond our borders.
May it be said of us as of Job in the Bible, “I assisted the poor in their need and the orphans who required help. I helped those without hope, and they blessed me. And I caused the widows’ hearts to sing for joy." Job 29:12-13 (NLB)
The term “hyperindividualism” would also apply to many of us.
ReplyDeleteThe term “hyper-individualism” recently used in The Christian Century also applies to many of us.
ReplyDeleteVery true!
ReplyDeleteThis hits home. Startling statistics.
ReplyDeleteHarvey, good morning. I understand your deep desire to see the poor of the world given food to eat, clean water to drink, shelter and clothing to protect from harsh weather, ways to travel when needed, health care, comfortable, safe places to worship our Lord, places free from fear of violence by others, and the peace and joy of knowing that others who have an abundance of these things will care enough to meet the needs of widows and orphans. Job was certainly blessed with all these things in his day and understood the joy of giving. In Matthew 26:7-11 we read of a gift given to and blessed by Jesus that was condemned as a waste by his disciples. “a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” Why did Jesus say, “the poor you will always have with you?” That is reality! As much as we would like to meet the needs of everyone in our world, it is a fact that we will always have the poor with us. That does not mean we should not give where we can and sacrifice some of our comforts for those in need, but we will never meet the needs of all poor people. Jesus condemned the “rich young ruler” because he loved his money more than he loved God. He did not condemn Job, Abraham, Joseph, or Lazarus who were all wealthy men. Karl Marx would take all the riches of these men of God and give it to the poor and we would still have the poor. Many people today feel that if we take from those who have and give it to the poor that we can create a world of Utopia, but sadly that will not happen this side of Jesus reign on this earth. “The poor you will always have with you!” Sorry to see you have also bought into the far-left’s scam of climate change. How they love to see man in control of the weather, while denying the existence of the creator God! Genesis 8:22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
ReplyDelete