Reddit reviews When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself
We found 9 Reddit comments about When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
This isn't true but it's how some libertarians approach the subject. For instance yesterday a guy I know said, "Poor people choose to be poor, this is America, nothing is stopping you from making something of yourself."
Sure some people are lazy, but not all of them are. We need to show a better job showing liberals how policies that are intended to help the poor end up hurting them, such as business licenses, professional licenses, minimum wage laws, ect.
Why can't a black women set up a hair braiding business in her own home, where she can multi task and babysit her own children? Because she doesn't have a business or beautician license? Because she didn't pay 3k to go to school for 2 years? Who the fuck cares. Government is making some poor people like this poor because of stupid barriers to entry that are intended to "help" people. And then when these people can't find employment they become dependent on government welfare; which destroys their self worth exponentially makes the problem worse.
Show liberals that government creates the very poverty its trying to prevent and show When Helping Hurts and libertarians will do a better job communicating that we do care about the poor.
Being new to the Reformed tradition, you should absolutely start Jamie Smith's excellent book Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition. It's a quick easy read best digested in small parts. It does a great job of providing an overview of the Reformed tradition that is accessible, theological, and pastoral and is the best antidote to the "cage-stage" that I know of.
Other general books on the Reformed tradition I would recommend:
If you are looking for a topical treatment from a Reformed perspective I recommend:
Once you are ready to dive into heavier works consider:
Helping the poor is an incredibly, incredibly complex issue. At times, it is best for the church to step out of the way and let the people who are working for the places where resources are and who have training to be the source of help.
I was recently involved with a congregation who, seven nights a week, served a meal for the homeless out of their building. Good, right? This caused a HUGE number of (often unforseen) problems. The church was partnering with another organization, who was serving the meals out of the facilities.
When these meals were served at this location, obviously, the traffic from the homeless people increased. This changed the dynamics of the neighborhood, and people started to feel "less safe." Who is the church's neighbor in this case - the local business owner who has had a good relationship with the church for the last 15 years, or the homeless people? I would argue both. Yet helping one in this way ended up hurting the other.
While it's one thing to say, c'mon, they're just homeless people, get over it, the church had some legitimate safety concerns. There was a stabbing outside of the church by people who were associated with the free meal. There were people being panhandled in the church parking lot on the way in and out of meetings at night. It changed the environment for the church, and for midweek services, the church ended up hiring a security guard to ensure that the church was a safe place.
One prime example - in the middle of the day, two people were seen copulating outside in the church cemetary. Also, people using the bathroom on (not in) church premises.
When people started hearing that the church was thinking about discontinuing its partnership with the other organization and discontinuing using facilities for meals, people who were unfamiliar with the problems were wondering "why would we stop this? It's such an important part of the community?"
The list goes on. I 100% am with you that helping the poor is an incredibly important part of Christianity; however, it's not nearly as easy as most people think it is. If churches are slow to act, in a lot of ways it is most likely because it is not a simple thing to do. I would suggest reading When Helping Hurts. It's a really good book on the topic.
> how do Christians justify purchasing and owning extravagant possessions that go above and beyond utilitarian needs?
> Isn't Jesus clear with his teachings? Isn't it obvious that we should value helping others over helping ourselves?
Wow, what excellent questions! I will try to tackle these concisely but it's going to be very difficult.
Based on your question I'm going to define extravagant as "above and beyond utilitarian needs."
Now, the first question we should ask is "how low does utilitarian go?"
Sure I could downgrade from an iPhone 5 (ok, I don't actually have a 5, but if I did) to a 3GS. But when so much of the world lives on less than $1/day, if I don't need that 3GS for work, why shouldn't I downgrade to a free phone that comes with the cheapest contract, no data, almost no texting?
Sure I could downgrade from a 60" to a 40" because one meets The Jones' criterea for "extravagant" and another doesn't, but why not use a $20 monitor I found on craigslist? That extra $100 different between the monitor and the 40" could feed 100 people who live on $1/day, right??
Or you can downgrade from your Audi to a corolla, but if you're a single guy who lives close to where he works, why not downgrade to a bicycle? That's another $5,000 you can give. Why should you pat yourself on the back for not spending $20,000 on a used Audi when you still spent $5,000 on the Corolla? You only gave $15,000 instead of $20,000.
To someone living in Timor Leste, a $5,000 Corolla might seem be a fortune—worth several years wages.
So first of all, if we live in the first world, if you live in America and are even sort of middle class, even if you're poorer than everyone around you, we're quite rich. I know there's poverty in America, I've seen it and been in it (albeit very briefly). But we're still a fabulously wealthy nation, and setting an arbitrary point for "extravagant" is almost pointless because even low-middle class to poor in America is wealthy by the standards of many others.
However, I don't mean to be dismissive. I think your question is really good. I used a bike during my first year in DC. I didn't see a reason to own a car. I don't own a TV. But I do own an expensive laptop. Last spring I bought my first car. I wanted to mildly used (<100k miles), boring, toyota or honda. When I found a Honda with less than 70k for around 11,000 I almost bought it, then I found a little SAAB with 5k more miles for only 10,000. Test drove it, loved driving it, bought it. But a while after I bought it started to feel uneasy about it. See a Honda is practical, but a SAAB? That's a luxury car, right? I started thinking about how much I was giving from my paycheck—I wanted to give more. I started thinking about how much churches spend on building projects and wondered why they don't build crappier buildings and give away more. I started a conversation with a pastor back in my hometown and we started talking about radical generosity and I said 'I could go back to using my bike, if I could be a witness that Jesus is more valuable than money by giving away my car I think I'd be willing to do it. Do you know anyone in the church who really needs a vehicle and can't afford one right now?'
He gently turned the question aside, but said that he had seen church members get cars for others who needed them. When I asked him directly, "shouldn't we be impoverishing ourselves to give to the poor and be better witnesses?" his answer was fascinating.
He told me he's seen Christian churches overseas (specifically in India) supported by American ministries that have lost their dignity because all they can do to support themselves is ask for money from wealthier supporters. There is no point in asking their congregations to be sacrificially generous because the amount parishioners can give doesn't compare to what they can get from American ministries. And their congregations internalize the message that their generosity and their sacrifice is irrelevant because a wealthy American congregation overseas wants to play superhero and give lots of money to the poor people overseas.
Wow. I'd never thought of it that way. Incidentally, this has been studied in depth: http://whenhelpinghurts.org
http://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-Yourself/dp/0802457061
Isn't Jesus clear with his teachings?—you ask.
First of all, we should absolutely value helping others over helping ourselves.
But how did Jesus live, teach, and help?
When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray he taught them to pray for their "daily bread," not the leather cough or 60" TV. But Jesus didn't only eat bread, he enjoyed fish, he drank wine, he ate in the homes of the wealthy (like Zacchaeus, Luke 19 http://www.esvbible.org/Luke+19/) even allowed Mary to pour an expensive perfume (worth about a year's wages) on his feet. A tremendous extravagance. (John 12 http://www.esvbible.org/John+12/). In this instance, Jesus deflects Judas' question about not giving the money to the poor.
What does this teach about money? What does it teach that some of the most fabulously wealthy and powerful men in the old Testament were extremely Godly (Job, Joseph)? What does it teach us when Jesus lauds Zacchaeus for promising to give away much of his money in restitution for what he unfairly took?
Here is the thing: Money can do a lot to help people, but if the Bible is true it will never ultimately satisfy people's deepest longings. How can I sleep at night when I drive a SAAB and my Christian brother in Christ living in Etria drives a rusting moped? Because I believe that he is every bit as fulfilled and happy in his life because he knows Jesus as I am. I trust God will challenge him to be generous with his money in the context of his community, and abroad as God enables him. I ask God to give me a generous heart too. When it comes to giving, the Bible is not hard and fast on 10% giving in the New Testament. I try to give more than that (and have been consistent in that so far, as far as my math skills tell me).
In general, I try to follow a principle CS Lewis wrote about: "I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them."
But here's the thing, it's awfully hard to judge other people arbitrarily if we follow this standard. For a billionaire philanthropist like Bill Gates, living in a $1M home and owning only 1 car (even if it is a top-of-the-line 2013 Mercedes) would be incredibly modest given his means. It would almost certainly not be modest for a doctor who makes $150,000 per year to live this way.
But God calls the doctor, the grocery clerk, and the billionaire to generosity. Their standards of living will be different, and Bill Gates would not be a "hypocritical cunt" (the words of someone below) for having a home theater if he happened to convert to Christianity.
After all, doesn't Paul quote Jesus as saying "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (emphasis mine)? (http://www.esvbible.org/Acts+20%3A35/)
So being generous is an even bigger blessing than keeping money to yourself? Wait, do only the rich people get that blessing? Does God discriminate based on our standard of living? No! Every Christian is called to generosity. One day maybe that will mean giving away my car. For now, while I don't feel called to do that I thank God for the gift of a nice car and try to be generous enough with my paycheck that I don't feel "safe." And I'll say this, the Bible's word has held true. It is an absolute joy to practice generosity.
TL;DR:
1. The Bible doesn't universally call all Christians to absolute poverty and completely utilitarian living.
2. The Bible does call all Christians to practice sacrificial generosity (and with wisdom, so that we don't tempt others to forfeit their dignity or self-reliance in the long run)
3. Not because money is evil, but because valuing money above Jesus is evil and hypocritical, and generosity to others reflects (in a small way) how God has been generous towards us.
4. Experiencing the spiritual blessing of being generous is open to all believers, regardless of how much material wealth God has blessed you with.
5. If I have seemed wishy-washy, I want to say that this is not completely arbitrary. We are not in a position to judge everyone, but sometime we see hypocrisy or are hypocrites ourselves. Ultimately, the way we use our money should reflect the fact that knowing Jesus is our highest treasure. If the way I use my money shows that to the world, and I follows God's commands to be generous (http://www.esvbible.org/1+Timothy+6%3A18/, http://www.esvbible.org/Ephesians+4%3A28/) then I'm doing what God asks of me with respect to money. It's helpful to remember that I couldn't satisfy everyone even if I had an infinite amount of money to give away, because it's not owning money, but rather knowing Jesus that makes life full—"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -Matthew 6:19
edited because I'm new to reddit and don't know how to format.
I don't have any specific advice. It's more general. I've been reading a book called "When Helping Hurts". It goes into detail about specific types of poverty, such as spiritual, emotional, spiritual (I'm not sure if those are the specific names, but it's a similar idea), and how to help each type of poverty. It makes some interesting points, like the fact that people in America view poverty as mostly material poverty, since Americans are very material minded, when this is not always the proper way to approach all situations. I 100% recommend it. Here's the link to it on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-Yourself/dp/0802457061/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
As a habitat volunteer you are distinctly poised with their training and experiences regarding paternalism - concepts that your typical western christian church probably doesn't realize.
While you sound supportive of mission trips, do be aware that, the less we are part of a culture and the less that we understand it the more likely we are hurting instead of helping.
http://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-Yourself/dp/0802457061
http://pippabiddle.com/2014/02/18/the-problem-with-little-white-girls-and-boys/
This is sort of a localized version on the missions debate about whether to send in a foreign missionary or to just send money to local ministries.
One thing I don' think this article really discussed was the quality of the churches that were already there. There may be some great ones, but to use my town as an example, a lot of the urban churches are through and through full on prosperity gospel. Many of the rest are watered-down, no gospel but yay social justice only churches. I know people that have left both types. There are a few great urban churches, too, and we support those with funds and volunteers. When possible, we do come along existing ministries or pastors that are preaching the Gospel. But to assume that just because a 'church' is there doing work it is a good church is dubious. And this isn't specific to urban areas - can (and has) happened just as much in suburbs.
That said, I have seen churches come in like benevolent parent and try to fix all the (implied) stupid, poor people. It is painful to watch. I think you have to find a way to walk that line between interfering with authentic churches/ministries and bringing a church plant to where one is actually needed.
Related-ish: I really recommend reading the book When Helping Hurts. If nothing else, it will definitely make you re-examine yourself and your motives.
I think you fail to see who got that person rich. Most likely the average consumer buying the product and those people are probably the family of the hurting. I'm one of them.
I don't give my incarcerated family members money but it hurts to see them go without while not having down anything morally wrong. Just bad decisions and almost no help from society.
When Helping Hurts
This could not be closer to the truth. I read a book call When Helping Hurts and in it talked about how dangerously free giving can be and how you take the right approach to helping those in need and herein lies the problem with how American society works (and I am sure other countries as well).
The typically answer to poverty is to throw money at it, or provide an instant gratification. The correct response, teach the person or group to go out and find work on their own or teach them the life skills that will better equip them to deal with life. A prime example was those who are providing cooking ideas on a low budget.
There is a tipping point though, when providing instant relief is required due to dangers to someone’s well being. That would probably be the toughest determination of it all.
When Helping Hurts - I have no ties to this book or authors but I feel it is a great read for those who deal with low-income or poverty stricken people on a day-to-day basis. WARNING: Yes this is a Christian book.