Poverty, Theology, and Justice Fifty Years After the War on Poverty

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the social, historical, and contextual background for the book. Social scientific data on rural, regional, and national poverty demonstrates the entrenchment of poverty, particularly in the rural South—the context of the case study. After laying out the landscape of poverty, the church’s articulation of its responsibility to the poor is discussed. This sense of responsibility has its foundation in the theological traditions that shape churches’ economic ethics. Thus, a historical overview of predominant theological traditions within the Black Church is offered as an illustration of the church’s engagement, or lack thereof, with economic justice and as a demonstration of the ambiguity that marks Black churches’ praxis related to economic justice.