the only permanent solution to the poverty of this world

We sorrow with those who struggle to have the necessities of life. The Church recently donated 54 million US dollars to provide relief to vulnerable children and mothers across the world. And with the offerings from your monthly fast, our good bishops help thousands each week who temporarily need food on their tables, clothes on their backs, and shelter over their heads. The only permanent solution to the poverty of this world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. (see Moses 7:18  And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.)

Neil L. Andersen

"Tithing: Opening the Windows of Heaven," General Conference October 2023

where is there to go after you have been around?

Evil has no positive worth of its own. It is always a parasite, a terrible absence of goodness that seeks to draw all things that are good into its own emptiness. This emptiness is the real nature of the world in all its guises. The world has nothing to offer; it can only consume and destroy. Its synthetic smiles and frantic entertainment cannot conceal the void within. On the streets at night, around gambling tables, at bars, in airports, in boardrooms, on golf courses – in countless places the world reveals its true poverty, always in the same way. The eyes of the world are glazed, hard, empty. The sparkle is gone, the innocence is gone, the spontaneous excitement in the new moment is gone. Weary but not from service, old but not with wisdom, they scan the space before them. Perhaps there is still one thrill untried. Perhaps things would be better with a new job, a new house, a new husband, a new wife. Where is there to go after you have been around? 

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Four, “Whom Shall I Send?” p.44

most richly blessed

Perhaps no prayer written on the Civil War battlefield had such lasting resonance as the one recovered from the body of a dead Confederate soldier, found in Devil’s Den after the Battle of Gettysburg.

I asked You, God, for strength that I might achieve,
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey;
I asked for health that I might do greater things,
I was given infirmity that I might do better things;
I asked for riches that I might be happy,
I was given poverty that I might be wise;
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men,
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God;
I got nothing that I asked for,
but everything I hoped for;
I am among all men most richly blessed.


One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, Jr. Doubleday, 2005. p.176

peace shall be taken from the earth

The Lord knew there would be only a few who would accept that message. The majority would reject it. He provided for the few a refuge of peace; but so far as the world is concerned he said (I am reading from the 1st Section of the Doctrine and Covenants):

And again, verily I say unto you, O inhabitants of the earth: I the Lord am willing to make these things known unto all flesh;

For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion.

And also the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst.

Peace taken from the earth, and the devil having power over his dominion. During the last one hundred years, or since these words were spoken, more light and knowledge has come into the world in the realm of science, through the laboratory, and otherwise, than in all the ages that have preceded it, and if this were all used for the alleviation of human suffering, peace and prosperity could be here, and poverty abolished.

But when we see men and nations spending their wealth to use the gas engine, the laboratory, the air plane, as means of human destruction, surely the devil has seized the blessings and privileges the Almighty intended to use to bring about peace, and is using them to destroy that which he presently shall lose the right to rule over. If the devil is not in the character of warfare that goes over the front line trenches, swoops down upon the poor helpless women and children, drops its deadly bombs and assassinates them, then I do not know anything that has ever happened in this world that is so like the work of the devil as that. He is ruling in the midst of men.



Melvin J. Ballard, Conference Report, October 1928, p.105-6, as quoted in Latter-day Prophets and the Doctrine & Covenants, Volume 1 compiled by Roy W. Doxey. Deseret Book. 1964. p.14

poor and needy

There is a difference between being poor and being needy. The needy might lack money, employment, or some other temporal thing. It is usually easy to solve their need. The poor may be poor in spirit, manner, habits or lifestyle. If they are given money, food, or clothing, they may remain poor. They have difficulty handling their money or managing their homes. They are usually remiss in their church attendance. Their needs require assistance from compassionate people, and even then, a long healing process is often required. Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. . . . And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them" (Mark 10:14, 16). The poor of the Church are in some ways like little children. They may be unwise in their judgement, easily distracted, and a little self-centered. Even their faith is like a child's - they go to their bishop when thay have a need and expect to get just what they ask for. They are usually unaware of their own responsibilities. The poor of the Church need leaders who are understanding and patient. Charity, the pure love of Christ, must be in the heart of every bishop and Relief Society president. 

Glen L. Rudd

Pure Religion: The Story of Church Welfare Since 1930 by Glen L. Rudd. 1995. P.314. See also D&C 44:6

a dearth of human capital

The most insightful way to think about poverty, in this country or anywhere else in the world, is as a dearth of human capital. True, people are poor in America because they cannot find good jobs. But that is a symptom, not the illness. The underlying problem is a lack of skills, or human capital. The poverty rate for high school dropouts in America is twelve times the poverty rate for college graduates. Why is India one of the poorest countries in the world? Primarily because 35 percent of the population is illiterate (down from almost 50 percent a decade ago). Or individuals may suffer from conditions that render their human capital less useful. A high proportion of America's homeless population suffer from substance abuse, disability, or mental illness.


Charles Wheelan. Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan. W.W. Norton & Company. 2002. P.101

Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That's where it will be. When schoolchildren go with their teachers and tour the poverty museums, they will be horrified to see the misery and indignity of human beings. They will blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition and for allowing it to continue in such a large segment of the population until the early part of the twenty-first century.


Muhammad Yunus. Former head of Economics at Chittagong University. Founder and managing director of the Grameen bank, a micro-credit pioneer. Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. 1999. Public Affairs, New York. P.236

Experts on poverty alleviation insist that training is absolutely vital for the poor to move up the economic ladder. But if you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty. Profit is unashamedly biased toward capital. In their powerless state, the poor work for the benefit of someone who controls the productive assets. Why can they not control any capital? Because they do not inherit any capital or credit and nobody gives them access to it because they are not considered credit worthy.


Muhammad Yunus. Former head of Economics at Chittagong University. Founder and managing director of the Grameen bank, a micro-credit pioneer. Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. 1999. Public Affairs, New York. P.133

If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn't care for them, but because you and I didn't give, were not an instrument of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise, in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.


Mother Teresa - (b. 1910), Albanian-born Roman Catholic missionary in India. A Gift for God, "Suffering" (1975).