Engaging poverty: The church as an organisation for change

Abstract

This paper argues that while the church as a civil society role player is well-situated to effect social transformation in many contexts of poverty, engagement with the reality of South African society is currently not occurring at all levels and in all parts of the Body of Christ. Many churches continue to wrestle with social apathy over twenty years after the church was identified as an “Organisation for Change” by the Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa. This essay again examines the challenges posed to the church by dualism and its effects in a rapidly changing South African reality that demands holistic action. The essay further examines the harnessing of the local church in partnership as both a generator of community and a catalyst of transformation in communities facing the challenge of poverty in a global society increasingly characterised by inequality.