Option for the Poor

Opting for the poor has a long tradition in the Judeo-Christian religions. Other religions, including Islam, also express special concern for the poor. One of the common themes of the Hebrew Bible is God's special concern for the widows, the strangers, and the orphans. The Hebrew prophets called for justice, with a particular emphasis on the poor and disadvantaged. The ministry of Jesus picked up many of these themes. Jesus quoted the words of the prophet Isaiah when he proclaimed good news to the poor and the liberation of the oppressed (Luke 4:18). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pronounced the poor blessed and the inheritors of the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20). According to Mary, the mother of Jesus, God satisfies the hungry and sends the rich away empty (Luke 1:53). Even the Apostle Paul emphasized that God chose what is lowly to challenge the powerful (1 Cor. 1:26–29).

While these themes are not hard to grasp, they have often been marginalized and neglected in the history of Christianity. One of the significant developments of the 20th century was therefore the rediscovery of traditional options for the poor and the further development of this topic. Beginning in the 1960s, Latin American brands of liberation theology promoted the option for the poor and restored it as one of the central tenets of the Christian faith. In 1968, the Second Conference of the Latin American Bishops Conference in Medellín, Colombia, publicly affirmed the option for the poor, thus reintegrating it into the official body of teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

One of the Latin American liberation theologians who pioneered the option for the poor was Gustavo Gutiérrez, a priest from Lima, Peru. Gutiérrez made clear the theological foundations of this option. The Christian faith opts for the poor not because of idealistic notions about poverty or the poor. Poverty destroys the life of the poor and of society as a whole in various ways and thus must not be romanticized, as has sometimes been the case in the history of the Christian faith. The reason for a Christian option for the poor, according to Gutiérrez, is not that the poor are good but that God is good, or in other words, that God cares about the struggles of the poor.

This option for the poor does not come naturally in a society that opts for wealth and top-down power. Gutiérrez notes that the poor themselves need to make an option for the poor; in synchronization with global capitalism, many poor people are lured into opting for the rich. In its original forms, the option for the poor was tied to notions of solidarity with the poor rather than to charity or social service. Solidarity implied a stronger option, since it placed more intense demands on those who made the option for the poor. Nevertheless, the option for the poor was usually called a preferential option, indicating that other options are not excluded. God cares about everyone, but with a distinct preference for the poor. It can be argued, of course, that God's preferential option for the poor includes all other options; an option for the poor includes an option for the rich, for instance, as opting for the poor can teach the rich about the destructive consequences of [Page 1061]their own status and behavior. The liberation of rich and that of the poor are inextricably related.

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