Last year the Washington Post conducted a poll asking the question, “Does poverty result more often from lack of effort on an individual’s part, or from circumstances beyond that individual’s control?” The Post found that Christians are twice as likely as non-Christians to blame poverty on lack of effort. For every non-religious person who believes that the poor are primarily responsible for their condition, you can find three white evangelicals who agree.
This is not shocking. White evangelicals tend to emphasize the role of individual responsibility. And there is solid Scriptural support for this attitude: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” wrote the Apostle Paul, words John Smith quoted* at Jamestown as he set his group of loitering noblemen to plow the fields. Proverbs exhorts the sluggard to observe the ant, and warns him of the poverty that will result from his apathy. Later Christian tradition numbered “sloth” among the seven deadly sins.