Meet the Author
Robert D. Lupton is founder and president of Focused Community Strategies (FCS) Urban Ministries. In that role, he writes “Urban Perspectives,” monthly reflections about life and faith in the city. Additionally, Lupton is the author of several books, including Renewing the City: Reflections on Community Development and Urban Renewal (2005), Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life: Rethinking Ministry to the Poor (2007), Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help and How to Reverse It (2011).
Book Basics
Robert D. Lupton’s Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help and How to Reverse It should be required reading anyone who follows the way of Jesus and supports, with monetary contributions and/or volunteer efforts, ministries that seek to help the least of these. Based on over four decades of experience working in and beyond inner-city Atlanta, Lupton effectively communicates important rarely examined information about how hundreds of millions of dollars given to the groups that serve the poor often do more to create a permanent underclass than to help lift those who are in need. Even worse, some efforts actually harm those they seek to help.
Framing his suggestions with a version of the medical field’s Hippocratic Oath, Lupton begins with an Oath of Compassionate Service for those in the charity profession:
- 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 (p. 8-9).
For those serious about serving the poor, Lupton proposes the best way forward is through asset-based community development. His approach to this endeavor is shaped as much by his experiences as by his Christian faith. Readers will be challenged to reconsider how to effectively reach the surrounding community, how travelers and locals are impacted by short-term mission trips, the differences between free food distribution and food co-ops, and how to strengthen capacity rather than simply providing goods and services. In short, Lupton wants his readers and the many congregations and Christian nonprofit organizations they lead to move beyond a focus on betterment toward the possibility of development.
So What?
Toxic charity is far more prevalent in society than most realize. Most people have indirect connections to these endeavors through affiliation with one or more congregations and/or parachurch ministries.
- How well do you do in living by Lupton’s Oath of Compassionate Service? What about your local congregation?
- How does your local congregation determine which local organizations receive mission dollars? What safeguards help limit or eliminate your congregation extending financial or human resources to toxic charitable endeavors?
Robert D. Lupton. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help and How to Reverse It (HarperOne, 2011). ISBN: 9780062076212.