ORBUS
  • About
    • Projects >
      • Photo Journal February 2023
      • Building Program 2022
      • Photo Journal 2017 >
        • Secondary School Building
        • MAY 2017
        • JUNE 2017
        • JULY 2017
        • AUGUST 2017
        • SEPTEMBER 2017
        • OCTOBER 2017
        • NOVEMBER 2017
        • Secondary school buildings 2017
        • Orbus Mission Secondary School - Opening Ceremony
        • First Week of the Orbus Mission Secondary School 25th to 29th September 2017
    • Board
    • Partners
  • How you can help
  • Orbus Future Projects
  • Donate
  • Newsletters
  • Chichewa Language Guide
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Malawi Links
  • Helpful Information on Malawi
  • Malaria Prevention Information
  • Reflections
  • Videos of Orbus

MAN'S ENORMOUS CAPACITY FOR SELF-CENTREDNESS IS A MAJOR CAUSE OF POVERTY

5/4/2015

0 Comments

 
By Craig Manners

After decades of billions upon billions of dollars, and multiple ship loads of sea containers carrying goods for the poor of Africa, nothing changes. Why is this? One (among many) reason is that much of the aid does not get to the poor. It is intercepted by the influential, the powerful and rich.

The giver in the developed country still gets the warm feeling of having done a good deed, and they may get a thank you and a photo or two from the receiver, but the intended recipient of the goodwill gesture, the desperately poor, mostly never see the bulk of the cash or goods. And some of it even ends up back in Western bank accounts held by wealthy Africans, thus not even trickling through the local economy.

Why is this? Human corruption stops the poor from escaping from their poverty. How could a human being keep such things from the desperately poor? Human corruption has a remarkable way of creating justifying excuses to appease one's conscience.

Man has an enormous capacity for egotism, self-absorption, and regard for their own interest over those of others.

Talking of Robert Louis Stevenson's book, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," New York  based theologian Timothy Keller says something of Edward Hyde which can so easily be applied to all mankind and which can be attributed as a major reason for continued poverty in the world:

"He thinks solely of his own desires; He doesn't care in the slightest who he hurts in order to gratify himself."

"Self-aggrandizement is at the foundation of so much of the misery of the world. It is the reason the powerful and the rich are indifferent to the plight of the poor. It is the reason for most of the violence, crime, and warfare in the world. It is at the heart of most cases of family disintegration.”
(Timothy Keller, Pg 175, The Reason for God)

Having said all this, it is not altogether surprising is it? After all, mankind's corruption is the reason for Jesus. It is what our Messiah saves us from, paying the price for us to free us from our corruption, redeeming us from slavery, defeating death for us and giving us true and eternal life.


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture


    March 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    May 2022
    November 2021
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    February 2019
    February 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    September 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Location

Contact Us 

    Sign up for our newsletter!

Submit
Picture
​
​Copyright 2022 Orbus Ministries Australia Inc. 
(ABN 14 458 768 638) Australian registered charity. Public Benevolent Institution endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR).