Table of Contents
- The history of Christianity
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The Christian community’s response to the questions of property, poverty, and the poor may be sketched in terms of four major perspectives, which have historically overlapped and sometimes coexisted in mutuality or contradiction. The first perspective, both chronologically and in continuing popularity, is personal charity. This was the predominant form of the church’s relationship to the poor from the 1st to the 16th century. The second perspective supplements the remedial work of personal charity by efforts for preventive welfare through structural changes in society. This concern to remove causes of poverty was clearly expressed in the Reformation but was soon ...(100 of 123600 words)