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Poverty Advocacy

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Comprehensive Poverty Reduction Plan Needed

Thanks to the efforts of many people across Ontario, the Provincial Government has promised to develop a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy.

Now it is important to let the government know that you want them to follow through on their commitment.

Background
Action Needed
Explore the biblical vision of a poverty free society.
Learn more about pathways towards a poverty free Ontario.

Biblical vision of a poverty free society

Some people may dismiss the notion of a provincial poverty reduction strategy. "Doesn't the Bible say there will always be poor people in the land?"

The Bible also instructs that "there should be no poor among you"(Deut. 15: 4) if we follow God's commands to do justice. It instructs us to be openhanded and generous to our neighbours in need. The Bible also laid out laws for the people of Israel to help ensure everyone had the means of livelihood, processes to lift people out of poverty and to prevent people from falling into poverty.

The Sabbatical laws required that servants be freed every seventh year. Not only that, it required their masters to provide them grain, wine and livestock - the means of livelihood in an agrarian society. Debts were to be cancelled.
The Jubilee, occurring on every seventh Sabbatical year, also required that ancestral lands be returned to those who had to sell them during the previous fifty years.

Jesus began his public ministry proclaiming good news to the poor and announcing the year of the Lord's favour - proclaiming jubilee (Luke 4: 18-19). The specific applications of Sabbath and Jubilee laws from ancient Israel may not be relevant in our own society. But they do offer a vision of laws and norms of public life to create a society free of poverty.

The task for us is to put that vision into practice in our own society. In a democratic society, it is up to us as citizens to help shape policies that will prevent poverty, lift people out of poverty and generously help our neighbours when they fall on hard times.