What a Quarter Can Do

When I was in college, I dragged my then-boyfriend-now-husband to CVS on an errand, where I hemmed and hawed for five minutes over whether to buy my preferred brand of shampoo (Herbal Essences), or the cheaper version (Suave). While the price differential was only a couple of dollars, a combination of immigrant thrift and my constant cognizance of global poverty made it hard for me to justify “splurging.”

I had been an impressionable kid of the ’90s and early ’00s, consuming news articles about famines and refugee camps, reading Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and taking to heart the vast number of preventable deaths from malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV. Underscored by time spent abroad where I witnessed patients dying of curable illnesses, I could not help but consider each quarter I spent: Would it be better used on life-saving medications, or on whatever I was pulling out my wallet to buy—a journal, a sundress, a house plant?

Though I maintain that’s a fair question to ask, it is a very difficult way to live. Hardly any purchase outside of bare necessities is justifiable when painted in such stark terms. And it’s especially difficult for those around me, as it’s exasperating to constantly question every quarter. So I’ve had to learn to adapt my perspective in order to keep from constantly being wracked with guilt. I’ve also recognized that a corollary to the authentic desire to alleviate suffering is the temptation of saviorism, judgment of others, and harsh asceticism.

But I wonder how much I’ve allowed callousness to take its place. Indeed, it may be healthy for us Americans to feel something about our complacency toward and complicity in global poverty.

Since those college days 20 years ago, my income has risen compared to my time as a student, but similar questions around money continue to swirl. When is frugality an admirable demonstration of simplicity, and when is it a manifestation of scarcity mentality? How much giving is “enough,” especially when the needs are endless? Is saving for retirement a responsible way to steward our resources so our children aren’t saddled with exorbitant end-of-life costs, or is it hoarding grain in barns? And perhaps most cynically, after witnessing firsthand some of the corruption and grift that can plague international NGOs and contribute to unhealthy local economies, is giving even good?

My husband and I have engaged in these types of questions as we’ve undergone Lazarus at the Gate twice with two different groups of close friends. Lazarus at the Gate is an economic discipleship curriculum designed to help Christians live gratefully, justly, simply, and generously in light of global poverty. It requires a high level of vulnerability—sharing incomes, budgets, and expenses with the entire group—but is radical in breaking the taboo of discussing money in our communities. Perhaps it’s not surprising that each time we went through it, we left with more questions than answers—but also with a renewed commitment to be intentional about our spending and giving.

This year I’m enthusiastic to be participating in Highrock Church’s upcoming Theology Lab series on God and Money, which hones in on some of these questions. I hope it, too, will normalize talking about money more frequently and honestly the way Jesus did. I’m especially interested in hearing Professor Jonathan Tran, author of the brilliant book Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism, and Professor Dwight Hopkins discuss whether capitalism should be condoned by Christians—or whether we should live into an alternate divine economy. Similarly, I’m looking forward to the conversation between David Brooks and Professor Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty, By America, which is another of my favorite books this year. I suspect they will start from shared values but diverge on practical solutions.

I’m hopeful that this series will help the church in the US consider seriously its complicity in economic structures that privilege the rich and keep the poor oppressed, and that it will prompt us as individual Christians to examine our hearts, to expand our scope of who we consider part of God’s family and where our dollars should go, and to question our relationship to capitalism.

There’s a Haitian proverb that I love: Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe. “God gives but doesn’t share.” That is, we live in a world of plenty; we also live in a world of profound inequality. It’s our job to share. When we recognize God’s abundance, freely given to so many of us—and also recognize that this abundance is not justly distributed—we can proceed down a joyful path to living simply and generously that does not veer into self-righteous austerity. I want more of this for my faith community; I want more of this for myself.