Is there such a thing as a righteous rich person, and conversely an unrighteous poor? Is it that all poor people should be treated as innocent, and all rich people as wicked? Or is this not even a helpful distinction to make?
I wanted to write some thoughts on this after coming across some tweets by Doug Ponder (@dougponder) from August 2023. His concern was that “ideas springing from Marxist thought have led many to think in simplistic terms about poverty and wealth. In essence, we are taught that the poor are righteous and the wealthy are evil (unjust, greedy, etc.).”
I understand the concern that the “rich = evil, poor = righteous” approach is unbalanced. It is, indeed, unbalanced. But one issue that bothers me when people feel a need to vocalise the existence of ‘righteous rich’ and ‘unrighteous poor’ is that policy already agrees strongly with them. To those who disagree, it may feel like the cultural narrative of oppressor/oppressed – where oppressors can do little good, and oppressed do little wrong – is the dominant force. But in the UK and US, that is simply not the case for economic policy. And when it comes to money (rich people and poor people), it is economic policy that matters most.
If UK policy assumed that oppressed = good person, then our Social Security system would be far more accessible, generous, and lenient. It would trust that poor (oppressed) people have a desire to work and contribute to society and live peaceful, law-abiding lives. It would focus on giving these people enough money to not just survive but to also participate in society, build a career, and be in community. It would be merciful when people make mistakes or don’t quite live up to required standards. It would be generous in giving people space to take time and pursue what is good.
If UK policy assumed that oppressor = bad person, then we would tax rich people much more heavily. We would desire to constrain rich people’s abilities to influence politics, culture, society, the economy and the environment by reducing their ability to spend. We would also wish to constrain big business in the same way. We would worry about the distorting effect that large amounts of wealth and purchasing power has on the economy and society; the way that it buys political favour, enables exploitation of the poor, and supports an excessive lifestyle that the earth cannot sustain.
But however much some of us may worry about the impact of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion policies on our country, the fact remains that when it comes to economic policy our country is stuck firmly in the rich = virtuous, poor = scrounger narrative. The division between social (e.g. DEI) and economic (tax, redistribution, business regulation, welfare) policy allows each side to claim that the other is dominant and in need of rebalancing. But it is the economic policy that allows us to leave poor people in poverty whilst refusing to do anything to constrain rich people’s enjoyment of luxuries. DEI is just tinkering around the edges, letting rich people claim that policy has gone too far in being supportive of poor people, whilst actually continuing in policy that harms poor people and lets rich people keep excessive wealth to themselves.
Doug Ponder argued that the Bible has four categories: righteous poor; unrighteous poor; righteous rich; and unrighteous rich. I disagree.
I disagree because I would argue that for Christians, the only un/righteous distinction that we should make is between Christians and non-Christians. Everyone is unrighteous, except those who are clothed with Jesus’ righteousness through saving faith in his death and resurrection. So it doesn’t make sense for us, as Christians, to be using un/righteous labels outside of the context of salvation.
There is no ‘righteous rich’ for Christians. All rich people are unrighteous, by virtue of the fact that everyone is unrighteous. There is no scenario in which a rich person genuinely merits their wealth. However hard they’ve worked, however good and prudent they’ve been, they’ve also been lucky and they’ve also been sinful. They’ve been lucky because God gave them the health and the birthplace and the period in history and the skills and interests and support that meant they could do well. JK Rowling, had she been born before the printing press, would not have been so wealthy. And everyone has been sinful; everyone has made mistakes; everyone has failed. The biggest difference between rich and poor is not that the rich behave better (various evidence shows they can behave worse) but that they have the riches and networks to overcome the consequences of such behaviour.
Much wealth is inherently unjust. In such unequal countries as the US and the UK, the question of how much money one person can truly be said to have earned should be far more salient than it is. When I read Victorian novels that explore issues around the cotton industry, I wonder how many rich owners really appreciated how much of their wealth came from the hard, physical labour of the people underneath them – labour that they were not willing to keep doing themselves. And when there was a crisis and orders for UK cotton fabric dropped off, how many of the rich owners grieved over their inability to tide their workers over, because they had extracted so much money from the business and spent it on themselves? How many of them deeply felt the sinfulness of their greed and selfishness, and in repentance sold their homes and possessions for the sake of the poor? How many of them instead thought that they deserved to live in luxury, even as multitudes of other people made themselves seriously ill working to produce the profit that the owners lapped up?
Even as I wrote this, I had to go back and change the instinctive phrasing of ‘rich manufacturers’ to ‘rich owners’, because the real manufacturers were the ones literally making the fabric, not the ones merely owning the factory and at most ‘managing’ – a much nicer job – the people doing the physical work.
What about the unrighteous poor? Following the above logic, we would argue that just as there are no ‘righteous rich’, there also are no ‘righteous poor’. And this is true. Every poor person is sinful and undeserving of the goodness of God’s grace and mercy. But then if no-one is deserving of wealth, what is the reason for letting it be so unequally distributed? If rich people don’t deserve their wealth, then there’s no reason to let them keep it whilst others suffer.
This is especially so when we remember that every person is made in the image of God. There is nothing that anyone can do to lose their value and worth as a person made in God’s image. It doesn’t matter how ‘bad’ a person is. They never lose their worth. Consequently, no-one deserves to be impoverished. Everyone deserves to have enough resources to get by. It is unhelpful, therefore, to talk of the ‘unrighteous poor’. It implies that it is acceptable before God to leave such people in poverty. But it is not acceptable. No-one deserves to suffer from an insufficient access to basic necessities. No-one is that bad, because everyone is made in the image of God.
What about the Bible? Some people speak of certain Biblical characters as demonstrating the existence of the ‘righteous rich’. But again, I disagree.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all obtained their wealth through lies and deceit. There is no indication in the Bible that lying and deceiving others is okay. All three also experienced problems in their relationships with others because of their wealth, often having to separate or move away from family and community. Interestingly, none of them seem to have considered the possibility of giving up some of their wealth in order to remain in relationship.
Joseph controlled a great deal of wealth on behalf of Pharaoh, exacting interest on loans and taking permanent ownership of land when people were starving. But God clearly disagreed with Joseph’s actions, as he forbade the Israelites from charging interest on debt, and commanded them to redistribute property every 50 years. There was no scope, under that law, for the kind of profiteering off other’s misfortune that Joseph used to hugely enrich and empower Pharaoh.
David and Solomon were wealthy, but their wealth was tied up in their kingship. It was not inherently theirs as individuals. It also led both of them astray. David was led into adultery, conspiracy to murder, and an arrogant census. Solomon was led into the worship of false gods.
The only ‘righteous rich’ person who I think could fairly be said to merit that title is Job. And that is not because he ‘earned’ his riches in a fair way, but because he gave his riches away. The description of Job’s wealth is that he owned many animals and servants; in essence, a big business. Servants need paying and animals need husbanding. These are not mere assets or possessions, but living beings who cost money. Job, in fact, is not described as having ‘wealth’ as such (‘silver and gold’, as Abraham has), other than in his position as an owner/manager of a successful business. And he used the income generated from this business to help others. That is what makes a person ‘righteous rich’: when they are not, in fact, ‘rich’, because they have given it away.
And what of the ‘unrighteous poor’ in the Bible? I think it is informative that the only verses we really have in the Old Testament which castigate the ‘unrighteous poor’ are in Proverbs. The Law does not command people to work hard; the Prophets do not condemn poor people for being lazy. Indeed, if they do condemn lazy people, it is the lazy rich (e.g. Amos 2:8, 4:1, 6:4-6)! And in the New Testament, we must remember that the people being addressed are Christians, and that the command to ‘work hard’ includes ‘in order to give’, which implies the existence of people in need who have not been rejected for ‘not working hard enough’.
Proverbs is an interesting form of literature, because it speaks of generalities but not of ironclad laws. In general, one might expect the lazy person to be poor, because where would they get income or house or food from if they don’t work? But in practice, lazy people might actually more often be rich, because it is their alternative income – typically rent because they own what someone else needs – that enables them to be lazy.
Even then, it is one thing to note a variety of causes of poverty (oppression/injustice; illness or injury; natural disaster; laziness) and another to imply that laziness is a major cause of poverty today. For that, we need to look at the research. And the research tells us that poor people work very hard, and that poor people have a strong and tenacious work ethic even in the face of bad work and inadequate pay. Many poor people are sick or disabled, and in the UK the test for ‘incapacity for work’ is so harsh that many people who cannot earn enough to support themselves are denied crucial financial help, and instead have to make themselves more and more ill in an attempt to earn enough to live. There is no evidence that ‘laziness’ is an issue big enough to require policy action or an adjustment to Christian behaviour; in particular, there is no evidence that ‘laziness’ amongst the poor is a problem that justifies Christians refusing to give generously or supporting government policies that refuse to properly help the poor.
All poor people are unrighteous in the sense that everyone sins. All poor people are righteous in the sense that everyone is made in the image of God. But all rich people are unrighteous, because greed in keeping to oneself a wealth that God has intended for someone else is sinful and not condoned by the Bible.
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