Willard and poverty

Surprisingly, toward the end of Spirit of the Disciplines, Willard takes a stand against the idea that poverty is spiritually desirable. He doesn’t go into a text-by-text refutation, but he shows in many ways how poverty is destructive to human life. Rather than give all away and seek to be poor, he says, we should seek to gain and control all we can under the reign of Christ. We care for it as part of our stewardship of the earth; giving it all away only allows others to rule the earth, and they will not do it on God’s terms. Willard is careful to point out the value of and the need for giving, but focuses much more on stewardship. He says we’ve failed to teach the rich an appropriate way to handle their wealth; we just tell them to give everything away, which misses the opportunity they have to excercise positive influence for good with their position.