Archives For charity

Repaso: May 3, 2013

May 3, 2013 — Leave a comment

madonna-malawi

1. Ugly humanitarianism
Rachel Marie Stone (@Rachel_M_Stone) wrote an excellent piece on Madonna’s recent humanitarian debacle in Malawi:

If churches and mission agencies can learn anything from the Madonna-Malawi flap, I think it’s this: people in the poorest countries that rely heaviest on aid are human beings—quite often, very thoughtful human beings—with equally valuable and important places at the table of God’s mission in the world as anyone else. To refuse to engage with them as such, while demanding to be treated as more important, to assert that our agenda for them is superior to their own, is to deny their full humanity and equality before God and, often and unwittingly, to engage in a kind of benevolent oppression. Jesus was not known as one who dished out meals to prostitutes and other vulnerable sinners. He sat with them and ate with them. Doing mission, then, probably needs to look more like a shared meal than a soup kitchen, with none of us bound in gratitude except to God alone.

2. The secret faith of Washington
Joshua DuBois (@joshuadubois), the former director of faith-based initiatives at the White House, challenges myths about religion in DC (and lack thereof):

It’s a constant struggle to maintain a personal relationship with God in a place that is so relentlessly public, to wrestle with deep concepts of the eternal in an arena whose daily pulse is the here and now. It can be exhausting, and many of the people I spoke with said they failed at that intellectual and spiritual challenge more often than they succeeded. But still, thousands of believers in Washington keep at it most days—away from the cameras and well out of view.

3. Orthodoxy and secularism
Mary Eberstadt of the Ethics and Public Policy Center writes:

Small wonder, given the harrowing times recently, that news about a long-running property fight over a picturesque church in northern Virginia escaped most people’s notice. But the story of the struggle over the historic Falls Church is nonetheless worth a closer look. It’s one more telling example of a little-acknowledged truth: though religious traditionalism may be losing today’s political and legal battles, it remains poised to win the wider war over what Christianity will look like tomorrow.

4. Tools of the trade
The legendary singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn (who recently agreed to this photo) has announced he’s donating his archives to McMaster University in Canada. Among the items are “notebooks, musical arrangements, gold records, letters, scrapbooks, nearly 1,000 recordings, and even three guitars.” Here’s what Cockburn had to say about the decision:

These are my tools, my rough drafts, my mementoes and my trophies. Together, they form the roadmap of my working life. I’m pleased they will have a safe and permanent home in a place where they may be useful to others.

5. “Spotlight” by LEAGUES
I’ve been enjoying You Belong Here by LEAGUES, which came out this week. Here’s the first music video from the album.

[Photo: ultramadonna.com]

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Repaso: September 21, 2012

September 21, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Capitalism and charity
Dan Pallotta had a fascinating piece last weekend in the Wall Street Journal arguing that charity and business ought to play by the same rules. One may not agree with his introductory assessment of Puritan and Calvinist motivations, but the article is good stuff to ponder nonetheless:

It’s time to change how society thinks about charity and social reform. The donating public is obsessed with restrictions—nonprofits shouldn’t pay executives too much, or spend a lot on overhead or take risks with donated dollars. It should be asking whether these organizations have what they need to actually solve problems. The conventional wisdom is that low costs serve the higher good. But this view is killing the ability of nonprofits to make progress against our most pressing problems. Long-term solutions require investment in things that don’t show results in the short term.

2. Nonprofits and “quasi-journalism”
My friend Jin Noh passed this one along, about how nonprofits and advocacy groups like Human Rights Watch are getting into the “quasi-journalism” business, and what this means:

Media from nonprofits has boomed in recent years. But that doesn’t just mean the ProPublicas and Texas Tribunes of the world — nonprofit advocacy groups are also inching their way into the media business. Instead of relying on news organizations to transmit their messages to an audience, some are focused on making that connection themselves.

3. Praying for Native people
Mark Charles (who I featured earlier this year) offers some suggestions for those interested in praying for Native American, and particularly Navajo, people:

When you pray for us, I ask you to pray that we will have the strength, the courage and the confidence to be who God created us to be. Also, please pray for the rest of the country and for the broader Church. Pray that their eyes will be opened and they will realize what they are missing when they embrace the worldly value of assimilation instead of celebrating the Kingdom value of diversity. For in the Kingdom of God every part of the body is unique and every member is necessary. It is only when the parts of the body are diverse that the body is able to function.

4. Soccer in the USA
Roger Bennett writes for ESPN’s Relegation Zone blog about the question of the future of soccer’s popularity in the U.S.:

The sporting tectonic plates have shifted. America’s cultural diversification, increasingly globalized outlook, and widespread access to the Internet all have benefitted soccer more than the other more traditional American sports… The impact of these factors has been as powerful as they are simple. “Kids growing up today gain cachet and social currency by knowing about the sport,” Luker said. The old stigma has fallen away. Pride and esteem have become attached to the game for the first time as Americans have collectively undergone a “now we understand what it is all about” moment. It is only a matter of time ’til we see soccer take off in a big way.

5. The Hobbit
Yep, I’m really looking forward to this one around Christmastime.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: urbanchristiannews.com]

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Repaso: Byron Borger on Cockburn’s legacy; Ross Douthat on heresy; social entrepreneurship & faith; peacebuilding & the “war on drugs”; poverty & charity in the early church

April 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Byron Borger talks Bruce Cockburn
You may recall that two months ago I posted a review of Brian Walsh’s Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination (Brazos). Bookseller Byron Borger has been praising the book for some time (and wrote a blurb on the back cover), but he has just now posted some extended reflections on the importance of Cockburn as an artist who grapples honestly with matters of faith:

One does not have to like every Cockburn song or album, let alone agree with every view he seems to express, to appreciate his exceptional gift as songwriter and musician and to be aided by his observations, rendered in song.  And one need not agree with every line in every Brian Walsh book to appreciate his preacherly gospel call to be faithful to the Biblical narrative, and to reject worldly accommodation to the idols of modernity.

2. CT’s interview with Ross Douthat
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has a new book out called Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press). In it he argues that Christianity in the U.S. has a heresy problem and that we need to return to more traditional beliefs and expressions of faith. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s generating a lot of buzz. Here’s a snippet from Christianity Today’s interview:

[T]he nature of heresy is not that it takes a Christian teaching and gets it completely wrong. Instead, it takes a Christian teaching and emphasizes it to the exclusion of anything that might counterbalance it. It isn’t wrong to suggest that there are biblical passages that state that God blesses his servants in this life as well as the next. There are biblical passages that suggest a link between a nation’s morality, a nation’s religious beliefs, and its historical fate. But Christian orthodoxy always counterbalances those emphases with other truths.

3. Social entrepreneurship and Christian faith
Though I wasn’t able to attend in person, I enjoyed watching a bit of the livestream of the Q DC event last week. I was especially inspired to see presentations from three Praxis Fellows — social entrepreneurs building high-impact organizations as embodiments of the gospel in all spheres of life. Dave Blanchard and Josh Kwan of Praxis have a piece in the Washington Post about their work:

We are inspired by Jesus’s example, and we started Praxis to help other Christians who are trying to restore society and culture so that a hurting world may be whole again. Praxis is an accelerator program for social entrepreneurs and innovators compelled by their faith to create new ventures that advance the common good.  Each year, we provide Praxis Fellows with the knowledge and networks needed to build world-class organizations that address key social issues.

4. Ten Stories from mewithoutYou
I’m really looking forward to the new album from mewithoutYou, due to release on May 15. I never cared for them as a band until last time with It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All A Dream! It’s Alright. We’ll see how this one feels, though, listening to it now on the other side of the country, far from the band’s native Pennsylvania.

5. Rhetoric and reality at the border
The Washington Office on Latin America has released a new report focused on security and migration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, looking at the data rather than the partisan talking points. Here’s the executive summary and here’s the full report (both are PDFs).

6. Peacebuilding and the “war on drugs”
The MCC Latin America Advocacy Blog has a post on the connection between peacebuilding and the “war on drugs” and puts forward some good questions:

Addressing root causes; the need for a just peace, not just controlled peace; looking at the problem through a public health lens rather than a public security lens; doesn’t this sound like a discussion of conflict transformation and peacebuilding? Are there other contributions that a peacebuilding model can offer in this debate?  An emphasis on human relationships and an analysis of power dynamics? Working simultaneously at multiple levels from the community to the nation state? Striving for justpeace, “an adaptive process-structure of human relationships characterized by high justice and low violence” (Lederach)?

7. Philadelphia’s homeless feeding ban
My friend Paul Burkhart, who lives in Philadelphia, has some interesting (provocative?) thoughts on the city’s new ban on giving food to homeless people in public areas. He shifts our attention from hunger (which he says isn’t the big issue here) to dignity:

All humanity has dignity because it is made in the image of God. We all are well-aware by now (hopefully) that when it comes to our choices, we so often want things that are not good for us. We frequently want to engage in things that in the end rob us of this dignity as the highest of God’s creatures. How does God honor our dignity? I propose that it’s less about letting us do what we want, and more about acting for our good, sometimes even in spite of our choices.

8. Poverty and charity in the early church
The Gospel Coalition has shared this video featuring John Dickson from the Centre for Public Christianity and Macquarie University, produced as part of The Faith Effect from World Vision Australia:

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: UK Study Tour blog; "Stairs in Canterbury Cathedral, Worn from Pilgrims crawling to pay homage to the murdered Thomas Becket"]

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Christianity Today tackles poverty and development

February 20, 2012 — 4 Comments

This month Christianity Today‘s cover story is focused on international development. CT’s editor-in-chief David Neff introduces the issue by mentioning the unique historical moment in which we find ourselves, exemplified by the 58: campaign, a collaboration of Christian relief and development organizations making the bold claim that we as Christians can end extreme poverty. I praised and critiqued the campaign’s book here.

The 58: campaign raises some important questions, and so does CT’s two-part cover story. For instance, What sorts of development initiatives really work? And as Christians, how do we understand the proper roles of governments and individuals in alleviating poverty? Those are good questions to consider.

First, the roles. Mark Galli, CT’s senior managing editor and author of several books, writes in “The Best Ways to Fight Poverty — Really” that while good macroeconomic policies have lifted millions out of poverty in places like India and China, as Christians we shouldn’t underestimate the significance of small, relational acts of neighborliness toward those in need wherever we are. This, of course, is something the state is too clumsy to do, though he suggests governments do have a role to play in creating good economic environments, and I’d agree. The government getting out of the way is essential for economic growth in many ways, but the state also has a responsibility to uphold justice, particularly for the vulnerable, and this has definite economic implications. Finding that balance is a source of contention for many on both sides of the aisle, but it’s essential that we try. While I wouldn’t consider Galli a development expert (and I don’t think he’d claim to be one), I do think he gives all of us some good food for thought nonetheless.

Second, the practicalities. Bruce Wydick, an economist at the University of San Francisco, writes “Cost-Effective Compassion.” Wydick is a development expert, and a Christian too. He surveyed a number of fellow development economists at places like Duke, Yale, Stanford and the World Bank, asking them to rank in terms of cost-effectiveness and impact ten approaches to poverty intervention that ordinary donors are commonly asked to support. The findings may surprise you: providing clean water, funding de-worming programs for children, and providing mosquito nets ranked as the three most effective approaches, with child sponsorship coming in at number four. Buying fair trade coffee and providing laptops for children were the two that came in with the lowest rankings.

At the end of the piece, Wydick offers some good take-aways — things that all of us should keep in mind when seeking to do the most good with the money we give. Most important, I think, is his point that great marketing doesn’t necessarily mean any given anti-poverty strategy is a good one; so it’s always good to do your research before giving. Additionally, judging organizations merely on the basis of the percentage of donor money spent on programs (as opposed to funds used for marketing and other overhead costs) isn’t enough; we need rigorous, independent scrutiny of programs to show whether those programs actually do any good, and whether they might also do some harm.

I’m grateful that a magazine like CT would give this topic such prominence, and I do hope you’ll read both parts of the cover story in full. As Wydick emphasizes, it’s good to be educated about which initiatives and campaigns work and which ones aren’t as good of an “investment.” But it’s also important to be reminded that an over-emphasis on pragmatism — an obsession with “what works” — can paradoxically be dehumanizing. People shouldn’t be viewed as projects, after all.

What are your reactions to these two perspectives on development from CT? Does any of it change how you’ll engage with issues of poverty? Does it change which projects or organizations you’ll support? Do you think it’s possible for NGOs to pursue “what works” while also keeping front and center the need to honor the dignity of those they serve?

[Photo credit: Blood Water Mission via permissiontoperuse.com]

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Thoughts on doing no harm

December 6, 2011 — 19 Comments

“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.” – the Hippocratic Oath

*****

A couple of years ago a book called When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Yourself  gained a good deal of traction among Christian do-gooders. It was a bit surprising, at least to me, that a book about unhelpful — and yes, harmful — charity would catch on like that. After all, it’s not about someone who died, went to either heaven or hell, and then came back to tell about it. It’s not about sex. It’s not about the prosperity gospel. And it’s not an Amish romance novel. For all of those reasons, it was surprising to me that it gained the attention it did. Or maybe it just gained traction in my circles, which may not be all that representative of broader Christian culture. But regardless, I’ve seen copies of the book on a somewhat surprising number of bookshelves and coffee tables, and it’s come up in a variety of conversations.

I think the book’s authors, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert from The Chalmers Center, have struck a nerve with so many because as more and more Christians volunteer, donate to, or partner with local and global ministries or participate in short-term mission trips, there are all sorts of unanswered questions about the merits of all of it. I’m guessing you generally know what I mean. I think these questions are good to be asking, and I’m glad experts in the field of development are beginning to provide some good, helpful answers. WHH is a book I often recommend to friends who are church leaders or anyone else seeking to understand how to be both compassionate and wise, whether individually or as a ministry.

I recently read another book along very similar lines. It’s Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by urban ministry guru Bob Lupton, who has been working in inner city Atlanta and elsewhere for decades. I first became acquainted with Lupton through a fantastic (and just recently re-released) little book of his we read in grad school called Theirs is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America.

Toxic Charity is vintage Lupton and not a mere WHH spinoff (as the subtitle may understandably lead some to believe), but the two do have a great deal of similarities. And while I’m a big fan of WHH, this new one might become what I start recommending as the preferred introduction to the common pitfalls of ministry to the poor, as well as some of the best practices. Comparing my fresh impressions of TC with my admittedly less-than-fresh recollections of WHH, here’s why I’m leaning towards making TC my go-to recommendation (if I had to choose just one, something I’d prefer not to have to do).

  1. It’s more accessible. WHH isn’t all that inaccessible by any means, but it certainly packs a lot into its 230 pages, and while it’s all good stuff that I’d love everyone to read, I think more people who are looking for an introduction to these issues would track with the stories and clear principles of TC (which checks in at around 190 pages), but may lose heart with the density (hmm… richness?) of WHH.
  2. It’s more positive. Of course, TC’s title sounds fairly alarmist, but trust me, it’s not all critique. Whereas WHH is thorough in its warnings and critiques, TC  seems to include a better balance of what works and what doesn’t, told through personal stories. Both books make clear that when it comes to charity and development, “good intentions are not enough” (as a leading aid blog puts it). But I’d hate to see people with good intentions be turned away entirely by overly zealous critics of what doesn’t work. I think Lupton does a fairly good job of affirming the compassionate impulse and redirecting it in positive ways, rather than just stopping with decrying what’s toxic.
  3. It’s more applicable. After reading WHH, one may very well conclude that in order to help the poor without hurting them, one ought to simply support microfinance organizations. And that’s well and good. But there’s a lot more to alleviating poverty than simply providing small loans to microentrepreneurs, as important as I think such work is. TC is applicable to those engaged in any variety of charities and development organizations, both within the US and beyond, and I doubt if anyone would finish TC without a good idea of how to get started.

Once again, I’d love everyone to read both books, and to value the unique contributions both books make to a better understanding of what makes charity toxic, and what to do to ensure that in our efforts to do good, we do no harm.

If you’re not sure you’ll read either book in full, I want to at least have you consider Lupton’s proposed “Oath for Compassionate Service” — modeled on the Hippocratic Oath of the medical profession. If you have a hand in leading any sort of ministry to poor people, or ever participate in such ministries, these are great principles to keep in mind as you do so. If you discover dissonance between these principles and the realities you experience, that may just be the impetus you need to pick up and read both When Helping Hurts and Toxic Charity.

Here is the six-part oath:

  • Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves
  • Limit one-way giving to emergency situations
  • Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements
  • Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served
  • Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said — unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service
  • Above all, do no harm

If you’ve had experiences related to harmful charity, or better, experience with creative alternatives, I’d love for you to share them in the comments. And if you’ve read either Toxic Charity or When Helping Hurts, what are your thoughts on how I characterize them? Anything you’d want to clarify or add? Any other books or resources on this topic you’d recommend?

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