Toxic Charity: Book Review

After reading Generous Justice by Tim Keller I decided my next stop in learning more about  how to respond well to all the needs around us was to read Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton. It's a quick, fascinating read and so challenging to the ever such easy methods we slip into in mercy ministry. It made me think through how we do things from food distributions, to paying for medical care, to being quicker to accept things from poor people, to avoiding dependency and moving on from emergency aid to development. Lupton summarises his book at the end: 

Toxicity in the compassion industry is epidemic.

It is exciting to imagine the dramatic changes that would take place in this world if the enormous reserves of compassionate energy were channeled into wise, well-conceived efforts. Think of the transformation that would occur if mission trips were converted from make-work to development work; if soup kitchen servanthood were redirected to afford homeless men the dignity of securing their own food; if Saturday service projects shifted from pity to partnership; if government giveaways became accountable investments. Charity would become empowering. Victimhood would become a temporary status. Development would become the norm.

Actually, this does not call for drastic change. All it requires is for caring people to ask an honest question before they engage in service: is the need crisis or chronic? Then simply insist upon the appropriate course of action. Our hearts will continue to respond to the plight of those in dire emergencies, but our care will become more discerning as the immediate crisis passes and the time for rebuilding arrives. We will begin to require this level of candor and responsibility from those who would direct our aid.

Perhaps the most intractable aspect of such a change is mind-set. Service seeks a need, a problem to fix, an object to pity. But pity diminishes and respect emerges when servers find surprising strengths among the served, strengths not initially apparent when the served are seen as the nameless, needy poor. Perceptions change when servers discover unseen capacities, like the amazing ingenuity required to survive in harsh environments, or the deep faith that depends upon God for daily bread, or the sense of community that sacrificially shares meager resources so that those most vulnerable can survive. Authentic relationships with those in need have a way of correcting the we-will-rescue-you mind-set and replacing it with mutual admiration and respect.

If there is one take-away message that this book can offer to those in service work or supporting it, it is this: the poor, no matter how destitute, have enormous untapped capacity; find it, be inspired by it, and build upon it.