{"id":26354,"date":"2015-11-25T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=26354"},"modified":"2015-11-25T10:13:37","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T15:13:37","slug":"july-3-2014-rebuilding-urban-neighborhoods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/11\/25\/july-3-2014-rebuilding-urban-neighborhoods\/26354\/","title":{"rendered":" Rebuilding Urban Neighborhoods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urban activist and Christian community developer Bob Lupton challenges common conceptions about modern charitable work by arguing that most charity is ineffective and does more harm than good. He advocates letting the poor learn to help themselves and encouraging the well-off to live alongside the poor. Lupton is the founder and president of FCS (Focused Community Strategies) Urban Ministries and the author, most recently, of \u201cCharity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results.\u201d Writes Lupton: \u201cWe cannot serve<\/em> people out of poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read an excerpt from Charity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results<\/a><\/em> by Robert D. Lupton (HarperOne, 2015):<\/h2>\n
\n

\"bookexcerpt-cover-charity-detox-280\"<\/p>\n

Do we really want the poor to thrive?<\/p>\n

Conducting tours for concerned suburbanites through my inner-city neighborhood is a routine part of my PR and fundraising responsibilities for our nonprofit organization. Visitors expect to see boarded-up houses, trash-strewn vacant lots, dangerous-looking drug dealers hanging out on street corners. So when I drive visitors down attractive streets with nicely landscaped bungalows, past my house with rockers on the wide front porch, I frequently hear comments such as, \u201cWow, this is pretty nice\u2014not what I expected in a poor community.\u201d To which I reply, \u201cIt should look nice after thirty years of community development work.\u201d My temptation, of course, is to show them the roughest blocks so that they will be moved to become involved with our ministry. The streets that are thriving don\u2019t seem to touch hearts in the same way.<\/p>\n

We are moved by need. Volunteerism, so huge in our culture, is propelled by meeting need. Does this mean, then, that we have a subliminal motivation to perpetuate poverty so that we always have someone to serve? No, I would never suggest such a thing. It would be unfair, cruel even, to question the motives of caring volunteers who sincerely desire to make a difference in the world. Yet there is some reason that we seem content to invest our billions in aid and millions in volunteer work-hours year after year despite seeing almost no positive change in poverty rates. I choose to believe that the reason is a lack of knowledge rather than a lack of heart.<\/p>\n

We have been led to believe that our volunteer service alleviates poverty. We have accepted this as fact. This is wrong. If there is one message that this book attempts to drive home, it is that we cannot serve people out of poverty. And yet our massive service industry is based upon this false premise. If we truly do want to see the poor thrive, our entire way of thinking, of believing, must change.<\/p>\n

So again: Do we really want to see the poor thrive? If we can honestly answer yes to that question, if we can affirm that it is God\u2019s desire that all people share in the abundance of our world, that shalom (peace, prosperity, well-being) is the divine design for humanity, then we can embark with confidence on a mission to transform the highly popular yet tragically flawed compassion industry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOur ministry is different because we focus on development as opposed to just relief. We want to end poverty more than just relieve people from the pain of poverty. We want to change communities,\u201d says Katie Delp, executive director of FCS (Focused Communities Strategies) Urban Ministries. More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":26370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[5942,5764,6069,1201,1374],"class_list":["post-26354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","tag-atlanta","tag-charity","tag-inner-city","tag-poverty","tag-rebuilding","topics-ethics","topics-humanitarian","topics-us-domestic-issues","faith-christian"],"yoast_head":"\nRebuilding Urban Neighborhoods | July 2, 2015 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bob Lupton is a veteran community developer who says charity as practiced by many church groups is deeply flawed.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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