Your leader (23 August) states that “Promises don’t put food on the table.” The uncomfortable question is: to what extent are the Churches complicit in the poor becoming much poorer? The demand for food banks and credit unions can only increase until the Churches apply the preferential option for the poor, understand their circumstances and tackle the cumulative impact of decades of structural injustice.Perhaps our ineffectiveness is because so many members of Christian congregations do not understand the impact of being made homeless by a local authority, moved into private rented accommodation and being obliged to move eight times since 2002. That happened to a single mother with three young children I have met. Or the impact of having their benefit income capped at &p