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Essay about Christian Response to Third World Poverty and Injustice

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Christian Response to Third World Poverty and Injustice

b) Every disciple, every authentic Christian, must be on the road: not yet arrived or perfect, but moving, striving, falling and restarting in hope, and this ethos applies to the tackling of Third World poverty and injustice. Over one billion people are living in poverty today.The gap between rich and poor is getting wider. All over the world, disparities between rich and poor, even in the wealthiest of nations is rising sharply. Fewer people are becoming increasingly 'successful' and wealthy while a disproportionately larger population are also becoming even poorer. The developed nations, by systematic spoliation of the non-renewable …show more content…

This statement should provoke Christians to use their riches to aid others, the people who have nothing. Organisations such as Christian Aid and Cafod are seen as ways for Christians to help fellow followers by dedicating a little money to help less fortunate people. This money echoes the saying of "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"-Matthew 19:19.What exactly does this mean? By the word neighbour, we are to understand any person who is near us. The Samaritan, when he saw the wounded man on the road to Jericho, felt that he was in his neighbourhood, and that therefore he was his neighbour, and he was bound to love him. Love thy neighbour was, in part, Jesus' answer when the Pharisees, the chief religious sect of that day, asked Him about the greatest commandment in the Law. These religious leaders had made almost an art form of classifying all the various laws and giving them relative degrees of importance, so in asking Jesus this question, their aim was to test Him. His answer stunned them: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as youself'. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commands. Jesus was summing up all the law in these two statements. If we love the Lord God with all our heart, soul and mind, loving our

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