it is simply “bad family values” that keep the poor enslaved to poverty (as though economic and political structures had nothing to do with the cycle of poverty) or that in helping the poor we ought to distinguish between the worthy, who ought to be helped, and the unworthy, who ought not to be (as though people need to deserve their own survival by the quality of their character). Rather, talk about the need for the victim’s repentance has to do with creation of the kind of social agents that are shaped by the values of God’s kingdom and therefore capable of participating in the project of
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