The Bottom Billion

Does God think differently than we do? This is of course a simple question. LOL. I am reading a book entitled The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier in which it details that 1/6 of the population of the world lives in "extreme poverty", which is below $1.00 a day. Extreme poverty is something which plagues our world, because the reality is that "it kills". The people who live in extreme poverty will die. In the 1800's, pre-industrial revolution, much of the world, especially Europe lived in extreme poverty. The growth since the 1800's until now has increased in the developed nations, at least in the U.S. Twenty-five fold. From 1820 to 1998, the U.S. economy grew at a rate of 1.7 percent per year with per-capita income rising from $1200.00 per person to $30,000 per person. African nations did grow, but only about .7 percent per year. (Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty) The two fastest growing economies in the world today are China and India, not the U.S., so this does mean that certain nations can grow their economies that were previously poor, also note that China is still Communist, but has embraced a globalized market, so it does not depend upon democracy as President Bush would have everyone believe. Always with the rise of a global market, there is a corresponding rise of global abuses, drugs, sex-trafficking, slavery, human rights abuses. Many in the U.S. will decry these real abuse's in China, but don't address them in our own nation. (Just a side note).

As I am finding out, economic growth in certain nations, is so dependent upon the neighboring nations. If a country in Africa is "landlocked", they are not able to export, nor import resources, (capital) because their neighboring nations, either will not let them, or they charge high tariffs, to allow goods to travel through the repective nation. Having a "United States", has helped in the transfer of goods and services to neighboring states. Could this have been done outside of the Civil War, I do not know. I struggle with this issue, because it seems as though war destroys, but also sometimes brings economic prosperity to a nation, but I CAN NOT support the killing of people, so I am stuck. I therefore do believe in the partnering with foreign nations to keep investments in the economies of poorer nations. Africa has the greatest amount of natural resources on the planet, so to see African nations being exploited for those resources causes me pain. This is why I entitled this post, "Does God think differently than we do?"

The World Bank has charted numerous statistics which detail economic issues involved in our world, but the most telling in my opinion is life expectancy, since the ability to function, i.e. work, live, have a family, enjoy the life God has given us, is reliant upon being alive, another reason that war is anti-Christ, since it takes away the one ability humans have to be in relationship with each other and God, life itself.

If you click on the World Bank link above, it will bring you to a map which shows the Life Expectancy at Birth/2002. In red are the nations where life expectancy is 55 years old or below. The African nations have the lowest life expectancy in the world today. There are numerous reasons why some of these African nations have low life expectancy, HIV/AIDS, disease (malaria), no clean drinking water, poor sanitation, no economic growth (food). I sometimes get angry because of after European nations left Africa, post-colonialism, the African economies now had to begin to survive without the assistance of Europe within the structure of a European market. It is the great paradox of colonization.

What strikes me is that Jesus said in Matthew 20:16 "The last shall be first and the first shall be last", but this ending statement of Jesus' was in reference to a parable which involved the economic practices of a landowner. (Click on link to read the parable, I would love to know what anyone else thought) There is much debate over whether Jesus is saying that the landowner had a right to do "whatever" he wanted with his money (denarius) or whether Jesus is using the parable to show that it is unjust in paying someone so little for doing so much work (greedy). Either way, I believe that God sees things differently than we do. God will one day "wipe away the tears from the eyes" of the poor and afflicted and has prepared them a place in the "bosom of Abraham", while those who had everything in this life will not be invited to this place of rest. It should cause us a little discomfort in not knowing who God will justify.