Is poverty a pre-condition of religion? The biblical saying that a rich man can never enter the kingdom of God seems to point to that. There are people who say that it is only that it is only the poor who are interested in religion. The argument seems to be that rich people don’t need religion, for they have a fair amount of things they want and are able to ignore religion altogether. Poor people, on the other hand, have to have the solace that religion can give them  in the absence of material goods they need but do not at the moment possess. The argument seems to imply that really speaking, religion is only a hoax, but poor people imagine that religion will give them nobler things than material goods, though what these nobler things are remain rather vague.

If somebody is poor by choice, no one can object to it. For instance, a scholar may say that to him the first priority is knowledge and not money. He is happy if he has the bare necessities of life in order that he may concentrate on his intellectual pursuits. Similarly, a religious man also may spurn wealth if he finds it is a hindrance to what he has set heart on-moral and spiritual perfection. But can money stand in one’s way to God? It may, for money is such a thing that it can become an obsession with a person. Just as having no money is a problem, having too much of it is also a problem. In this sense, the saying that no rich man can enter heaven presents only one side of the picture. A poor man also cannot the kingdom of god if he is a person whose interest in religion is only to the extent that it may help overcome his financial problems. Such a man will invariably turn his back on religion as soon as he has enough money not to have to depend upon the mercy on the that mysterious power called God.

Does it them mean that no rich man can be religious? Is wealth incompatible with religion? It is wrong to think that one has to be poor to be religious. Anybody in distress, rich or poor, can clutch at religion for support, but if a person turns to religion only from a sense of helplessness, it is only likely that he will reject religion as soon as his condition improves. Religion is for everybody, not necessarily for the poor only or for those who are in distress. A truly religious man love God not for money or relief from trouble, but just because he cannot help loving him, like one cannot help loving one’s parents. It is not that God has to prove that he is capable of helping man in order that people may pray for Him. The purpose of prayer, in fact of religion itself, is not to get something but to be something.

What is that something? It is being perfect, in other words, being in the kingdom of God. Rich or poor, everybody can enter the Kingdom of God, given that he fulfills the conditions. Love of God is the essence of those conditions. Where there is Love of God, there is less love for money, less love for one’s self, less love for sense-pleasure. When Christ praises poverty, he praises not the state in which you have no money, but the state in which you care less for money and more for God. A beggar is not necessarily a religious man. Destitution is no hallmark of a saint. A true saint may or may not have money, but he loves God above everything else.

                 -Poverty, born out of love of God, is a virtue; otherwise a dubious distinction-