Archives For poor

Repaso: April 26, 2013

April 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

entrepreneur-speech

1. The poor are not the raw material of your salvation
In a “letter to a young social entrepreneur” Liam Black (@LiamABlack) issues this important word of caution to do-gooders about their motivations (if you read the full thing, pardon his French):

If you’d asked me in my twenties and thirties what my driving motivations were I would have said a strange hybrid of leftie politics and option-for-the-poor Catholicism filtered through the liberation theologians of Latin America and the inner cities… But looking back I can see clearly that a core part of what drove me was the seeking of approval of an absent father (long story) and a huge enjoyment at the attention which came with being in the vanguard of the UK social enterprise movement. It feels very good to be talked and written about and even better if there are awards and baubles. And yes, of course, I am having my cake and tweeting it by writing this blog.

2. Sex, drugs, and Calvin College
During his talk at the recent Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College, bestselling author Chuck Klosterman – a self-described religious “nothing” –  urged those in the audience to become lifelong questioners, rather than either becoming galvanized in their faith tradition or leaving it completely. In response, Tom Becker (@desertbrother) writes:

Can I claim two categories, please, please, Chuck? I am more devoted than ever to the story of Jesus in the Scriptures. I’m neither ashamed nor flamboyant in my testimony: I love Jesus. And yet I still ponder, learn and question the dominant paradigms foisted on me by my culture and especially the evangelical culture in America… I’ve always assumed we humans were capable of good deeds and bad crap. I just needed the Scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to codify what I saw all around me. And I needed a savior to pluck me from the fire and get me moving toward the good, something I couldn’t arrive on my own.

3. Crouch interviews Keller
Andy Crouch (@ahc) spoke with Tim Keller (@timkellernyc) about being a pastor in a city where people live in order to work, and what we can learn from different Christian traditions about faith and work.

4. Integral mission and excellence
The Accord Network has released a document outlining eight core principles of excellence in integral mission, which one of my Eastern professors, Beth Birmingham (@BethBirmingham), helped to create. Anyone working at or supporting a Christian NGO, or involved in a church’s mission programs, will find these principles really helpful.

5. G-Dog
If you’ve read Tattoos on the Heart (I blogged about it here), the book by Father Gregory Boyle about his work among gang members in LA, you’ll want to see this new documentary film.

[Photo: endeavor.org]

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Repaso: October 26, 2012

October 26, 2012 — 1 Comment

1. Liturgy among the poor, illiterate, and uneducated
Pastor and blogger Zac Hicks has a great post on “overt liturgy” and the question of whether it should be seen as the exclusive domain of well-educated people:

I was recently in a friendly yet passionate dialogue with a pastor-friend of mine, for whom I have a lot of respect. We were wrestling through whether a more overt liturgy (one with readings, congregational responses and prayers, etc.) worked with more “simple” folk–people who think simply, need things simplified, and aren’t attracted to high-level theological abstraction.  My friend contended that his context was one where high liturgy would not thrive because people weren’t interested in heavy theology, antiquated language, and dense readings.  These “blue collar Christians” needed something simple, simple, simple.  I began asking myself the following questions: Is a more robust liturgy only appropriate for the white-collar intelligentsia?  Is liturgy unable to connect with uneducated or lower-income folks, or more simple-minded, non-doctrinaire Christians?

2. The Book of Common Prayer turns 350
When the New Yorker dedicates an article to the 350th birthday of the Book of Common Prayer, it is just asking to be included in Repaso, and I’m happy to oblige:

Despite the quality of language that strikes us nowadays as majestic and grandly alienated, the words of the Prayer Book are notable for their simplicity and directness. C. S. Lewis called this quality “pithiness”; I would add “coziness” or “comfortability.” The Prayer Book was a handbook of worship for a people, not for a priesthood, and its job was to replace and improve the ancient collective rites of worship that bound people together in the English Catholic Church. The marriage service, for instance, was a medieval liturgy that long predated the final form it found in the Book of Common Prayer. It availed Cranmer nothing to invent a liturgy that threw out that history and erected a verbal screen or altar between the priest and his congregation. Cranmer’s prayers use ordinary phrases and familiar Biblical similes.

3. Soccer as respite from drug violence
The New York Times covered the Homeless World Cup, held recently in Mexico City, and what the tournament means for Mexico’s own players:

Mexico’s teams… reflected a struggle less tied to living on the streets than to the dangers they produce. They represented the particular pain of this country in this moment: drug violence… Ranging in age from their teens to their mid-20s, they were chosen through a series of tryouts and interviews over the past year. Not surprisingly, in a country that both loves soccer and frequently mourns the dead from the drug war, more than 15,000 people applied.

4. The value of retreat
Drew Larson has a post on the InterVarsity blog, written primarily (but certainly not exclusively) for college students, about the value of routinely taking  spiritual retreats:

Retreat grounds us firmly among our brothers and sisters, both now and ages past, whose temperaments and foibles don’t change. They were a distractible people. We are a distractible people. Retreat, therefore, is neither an antiquated practice nor a recent theological necessity.  It roots us between the invariable nature of culture and the unchanging responses of God’s people everywhere.

5. Celebrating Lancaster’s creative community
This week a few Facebook friends from Lancaster shared this great short video about the city’s rich history and how creatives continue to shape it.

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: sacred-destinations.com]

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Theological reflection for community development practitioners

September 19, 2012 — Leave a comment

The good folks at the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) have been helping Christians to engage their cities and communities holistically for nearly 25 years, especially through their three Rs: relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution. And they’ve just taken another step to engage us further in thinking about what it means to seek the shalom of the places God has called us.

For those less familiar with CCDA, the network was formed in 1989 by John Perkins, an evangelical leader who was active in the Civil Rights movement. In Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community (IVP), Perkins argues that after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the movement largely lost touch with its deep Christian roots. He writes:

Only as long as the Civil Rights movement remained anchored in the church — in the energies, convictions and images of the biblical narrative and the worshiping community — did the movement have a vision.

Robust theology, in conjunction with the importance of thick Christian community, has been a core tenet of CCDA since its inception, and I think that’s a significant part of what’s kept this movement on track for these 25 years.

In keeping with this key value, CCDA has just published the first edition of its very own theological journal:

The Theological Journal is designed to enable our practitioners to capably integrate theological concepts into their practice. The articles are written by CCDA members and will challenge us to go deeper theologically, while giving us language that will allow us to dialogue outside of The Academy. Theological reflection and engagement among practitioners and with our neighbors can often be strange bedfellows, but this should not be the case. A significant focus of this first edition will speak to why we need more theology and dialogue, giving historical and Biblical precedent for engagement, helping us explain who we are and why we do what we do. Building on that foundation, the journal will then address the theology and practices of reconciliation, shalom, self-perceptions of the oppressed, and multiculturalism within churches. Contributors include Vince Bantu, Soong-Chan Rah, M. Daniel Carroll, Chris Jehle, Sydney Park, Randy Woodley, Chanequa Walker-Barnes and Curtiss Paul DeYoung.

The journal is available for free as a PDF, and can also be viewed online using Uberflip.

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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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