"We have confused, as a society, wants and needs, and a lot of people have raised up their wants way above their needs and way above their abilities to support all those wants," Fuller said at the University of Arkansas Clinton School for Public Service. "What we have got to do is get back to the basics in difficult economic times like this and explain to people that you will not wither up and die if you don't have that wide-screen TV."
Fuller's life story is a parable. After he graduated from the University of Alabama law school in 1960, he went into the marketing business with his friend Morris Dees, who later founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. Fuller made and spent a lot of money. At one point he owned 2,000 acres and was worth $1 million. But as his business prospered, his personal life suffered.
Fuller and his wife said their personal and spiritual crisis led them to Koinonia Farm, a Christian community in rural Georgia, founded by farmer and New Testament scholar Clarence Jordan, famous for his "Cotton Patch" renderings of the New Testament. "A big part of my motivation is that, through Clarence Jordan, I came to understand that the mandate of Christ is to minister to the poor in his name.
http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/004/An%20Interview%20With%20Millard%20Fuller_004_6_.htm
Fuller gave up his business and wealth and developed a non-profit housing ministry for the poor, which in 1976 became Habitat for Humanity International. Habitat, made famous by Fuller's friend, former President Jimmy Carter, relies on volunteer labor and donated or subsidized materials (often provided by church groups) to build modest, affordable houses for low-income families. Habitat groups have built more than 300,000 houses around the world. In 1996, President Bill Clinton gave Fuller the Presidential Medal of Freedom and called Habitat "the most successful continuous community service project in the history of the United States."
Fuller and Habitat's board clashed in 2004 over a number of issues, including an allegation that Fuller sexually harassed a female colleague. The board decided there was no evidence to support that allegation, but they fired Fuller in January 2005 for his "divisive and disruptive comments." Fuller then started another ministry called the Fuller Center for Housing in Americus.
In recent years, critics have said that Habitat's low-income homeowners are vulnerable to predatory lenders and its house-by-house approach fails to address broader, underlying causes of poverty and neighborhood deterioration. Before he was fired, Fuller himself questioned Habitat's "creeping affluence."
But while Fuller's methods were open to debate, few questioned his religious motivation. "Faith must be incarnated," said the man who spent most of his life putting his faith to work for others. "Faith must become more than a verbal proclamation or an intellectual assent. True faith must be acted out."
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