Religious Reforms to Help Revive Progress Against Poverty
During the decades I served as president of Bread for the World, I helped organize Christians to urge Congress to contribute to the dramatic progress against world hunger that was underway. Poverty is now increasing here in the U.S and around the world. This reversal is largely due to the Trump administration—deep cuts in programs that help poor people at home and abroad, mass deportation, and policies on civil rights, voting rights, taxes, tariffs, and war.
To restore progress against poverty, we need to take action now—activism in this fall’s elections, demonstrations and legal work to protect democracy, and legislative advocacy. But we also need to cultivate long-term changes in American culture and religion. MAGA’s political success is partly rooted in American religion. More than 50 percent of white Christians voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Even among progressive Americans, poverty is not the most popular political issue.
Since I retired from Bread for the World, I’ve been thinking broadly about God and the politics of poverty. I’ve found sociological studies and survey data on religion and politics especially helpful. I’ve come to three somewhat surprising data-informed recommendations for reforms in American religion and spirituality that would make us a more generous nation.
Nobody decides what they believe about God or what religious practices to pursue on the basis of survey data alone. But evidence about practices and beliefs associated with commitment to economic justice is instructive, especially if you believe that help and opportunity for people in poverty is important to God or simply the right thing to do. My most important sources have been the Pew Research Center, Ryan Burge (Washington University in St. Louis), and Paul Froese (Baylor University).
Recommendations to shape a more generous nation
(1) Participate in a loving, justice-oriented religious community.
A study by the Pew Research Center in 2019 demonstrated that people who participate in a religious community tend to be happier, more charitable, and civically engaged. Recent data suggests that the decline of religious affiliation of recent decades has plateaued.
But there are risks as well as benefits in going to church. Many churches and churchgoers favor charity, but oppose government policies that are crucial to progress against poverty. Some churches and churchgoers have come to support MAGA’s white nationalist brand of Christianity. So it’s important to select a loving, justice-oriented religious community.
(2) Educated faith tends to be more progressive
Paul Froese and his colleagues at the Baylor Center for Studies of Religion spent years gathering and studying data on the connection between how Americans experience God and where people stand on public policy. They started with hundreds of one-on-one interviews, which led them to categorize Americans based on two variables: the extent to which we believe that God is engaged or remote from the world, and the extent to which we imagine God as stern or forgiving. Froese and Christopher Bader reported on this work in a book entitled America's Four Gods.
Data from a series of Baylor surveys showed that people who feel that God is actively intervening in their lives and the world are less inclined to support economic justice policies than people who think that God respects the laws of nature. This second group trusts science, and their faith often includes an element of doubt. Thus, they are more inclined to work for social change rather than waiting for God’s kingdom to come without much help from us. Notably, atheists are more supportive of both science and economic justice than any other category of people in American religious life.
These findings suggest two lines of action related to the politics of poverty. First, we should cultivate educated faith and education in general. Churches need to teach about both the Bible and the Big Bang, and we need to protect public schools and universities from political attack. Second, it makes sense for progressive religious people to work together with religiously unaffiliated people to shape a better world. Christians won’t be able to build the political will we need to revive progress against poverty by ourselves.
(3) Cultivate faith in God’s forgiving love.
Among Americans who believe in God or believe there might be a God, half think that God is like a stern father who strictly enforces his rules. Those of us who experience God as more forgiving or permissive than judgmental are more inclined to support progressive policies such as funding for food stamps and foreign aid.
Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, argued that the political polarization of our country is based, in part, on two types of morality. One is grounded in traditional authority and rules. The other responds to people’s needs. For example, rules-based morality defends the traditional roles of men and women. People-focused morality responds to what we’ve learned about the variety in sexual orientations.
The Bible says a lot about God’s forgiveness. In the Hebrew scriptures, sin has consequences, but the Lord forgives Israel and Judah over and over again. In the New Testament, the apostles preach Jesus’ resurrection as an opportunity for people to be forgiven for their sins and live in the Spirit. St. Paul’s epistles stress salvation by God’s grace and freedom from religious law.
In contemporary America, Evangelicals are especially likely to experience God as judgmental and uphold traditional morality. But many people in other religious traditions report similar ideas.
If more people come to believe in God’s forgiving love, our government’s policies would likely become more generous.
Religious change is long-term work, but foundational for us both as individuals and as a nation.
