An Associated Press article that appeared in yesterday’s Springfield News Leader revealed that the wealth gaps between whites and minorities are at their widest levels in a quarter-century and possible even beyond. The article cited a study that The Pew Research Center conducted, which revealed that the median wealth of white U.S. households in 2009 was $113,149, compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks. No that’s not a typo. Those are the actual numbers. That means whites have 20 times more wealth than blacks and 18 times more wealth than Hispanics. Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in income inequality, stated that what’s pushing the wealth of whites “is the rebound in the stock market and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans who bought homes in the last decade – because that was the American dream – are seeing big declines.” What does this all mean? Roderick Harrison, who is a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, believes this pushes us back to being “two societies, separate and unequal.”
The Gospel And Wealth
As I process this article, I think I am more alarmed not at how little the median wealth for blacks and Hispanics is (though that is alarming) but how much the median wealth for whites are. I am reminded of Jesus’ pronouncement to the disciples having just witnessed a prominent, religious and rich young man reject the gospel, that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:25) According to Jesus, wealth can and does blind us to our need for the gospel as well as the needs of others. After all, it is not the rich in spirit (or even the middle class in spirit) that inherit the kingdom of God, but the poor in spirit. The kingdom of God is for the spiritually needy…those who know they have no leg to stand on, nothing to bring to Jesus except for their need. If I recognize my spiritual neediness and look to Jesus to cover that with the gospel, then I am more apt to see the physical neediness of others and look to cover their neediness with the gospel in very tangible and practical ways. Lord, give me eyes to see and a heart that’s free to love the needy around me even as you have done for me.
brett eubank | unfinished 