FROM THE; PULPIT; Big spenders can slam the door on the poverty trap

Martin Hill has been a captain in the Salvation Army for 10 years. He runs of one of the organisation's churches and community centres in Belfast.

He believes that everyone in society must play their part in tackling deprivation.

NO more Mr nice guy! I'm fed up with being pleasant, reasonable, polite and understanding. My patience has run out. I am suffering from compassion fatigue.

Why should I feel responsible for everybody's problems? I am going to do what everyone else does - blame someone else.

Let me start with the woman who telephones every few weeks saying she has no money. Her benefit payments are already spent. There is no food in the house. The children desperately need clothes for school. Can we help?

The next time she phones perhaps I should put the blame on her by saying: "If you were a good mother and really cared for your children you would not be in this mess. Cut out the drink and drugs and you will have enough to live on.

"Find a job, earn some money and have less time on your hands."

Or maybe I should blame the Government. The welfare benefits should be more generous. How can someone expect to live properly on what they give? No wonder people turn to addiction.

Or should I blame the fat cats - the rich who keep others poor. In the battle for money and power, there have to be losers so that there can be winners.

There has to be people who are low paid and unemployed to provide a cheap labour market to make more profits. We used to call it the class struggle.

I blame the finance and money men. And I blame the multi-national companies. They create the consumer demand and image which the poor cannot live up to.

Then again should I blame God? If there is a God, and if He is loving, then why does he allow all this to happen?

If God is powerful enough to change things then why does he just stand by and let it happen?

He must know that poverty is a very vicious circle. It traps you. You have no choice. Money brings choice.

You can choose your house, your car, your leisure pursuits, your holiday destination, your designer clothes, your labour-saving devices and to some extent your friends.

With money comes status. You can look good, feel confident, walk tall and be respected. People are polite to you. With money comes power. People listen to you and your opinions.

So where does God stand on the question of poverty? Is belief in God merely the opiate to dull life's pain?

Then I remember that when Jesus lived on earth His life was one of relative poverty. He was born in a stable, apparently illegitimate and became a wandering teacher who relied on others to support him.

WHEN he died they had to borrow a grave. He owned nothing more than what he wore and even that was taken from him.

He taught us that it was difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, telling one wealthy man that he needed to sell up all he owned and give the proceeds to the poor. He was the spokesman for the underdog.

In the Old Testament we find the rule that every 50 years property reverted to its original owners, debts were cancelled and those enslaved for debt were released.

There was a new start. This was God's anti-exploitation legislation. But did people keep to it?

Of course not. This idea is being taken up again with calls for cancelling Third World debt at the Millennium. Fat chance.

The trouble is that although God created the world, He left it in our hands to run.

We can choose how we run our lives and how we run the world.

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