The Joint Public Issues team writes:
The Cost of Living Crisis
"In 2022, the cost of living is of major concern for many. Rising prices in food, fuel and transport are forcing people to make hard choices over how they spend their money. The least well-off are the worst affected, with those choices being narrowed to heating or eating, or skipping meals to feed their children."
In the briefing they say :
"The Methodist ‘Church at the Margins’ programme has at its centre the belief that God is already at work in communities at the economic margins, that people battling poverty are wonderfully created in God’s image, and that without hearing that voice our vison of God would be diminished and incomplete.
People at the economic margins are experts at understanding their poverty and should be listened to, not out of charitable instincts, but because that expertise is vital in understanding how we can best end the injustice of poverty. Perhaps the most important and profoundly counter-cultural thing that churches can do in response to the cost of living crisis is to demonstrate day by day that people experiencing poverty have value. If people experiencing poverty were genuinely valued, then it would lead to some very different priorities and policy choices. It is hard to leave someone you value out when making decisions that affect their life. You wouldn’t leave someone you value without enough money to keep warm, or eat, or live in dignity.
Convincing our churches, communities and decision makers that people battling poverty are valuable and made in God’s image has the power to create change that will last well beyond the cost of living crisis."
And they quote Proverbs 14:31: “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God.”
They ask "How did we get to this point? And what can churches do in response?"
JPIT resources on the cost of living crisis are on this page
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