When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves by Steve Corbett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When Helping Hurts is a helpful and necessary book that I’d recommend to others interested in the best practices of mercy ministry and community development from a Christian perspective. Coming out of a reformed worldview of creation, fall, and redemption, the authors see the purpose of mercy ministries as restoring people to right relationships with God, one another, creation and having a healthy and biblical view of themselves. They have many years of experience and research to share and great examples of applications both in the US and abroad.
The basic theology of ministry and paradigm shift for readers from relief to development and also how to evaluate short term mission work, are worth re-reading regularly. I took the Chalmers Center’s Foundations & Principles of Holistic Ministry distance class a few years ago, so much of the groundwork was familiar to me, but I still appreciate having it all together in one succinct package.
A few things perplex me. Though the authors mention that we should not be paternalistic and that we all have poverty in our lives and relationships even if we are not materially-poor, this wasn’t as well fleshed out as I would have liked, especially in the examples. I think people are at a loss as to how to have equity in relationships with the materially poor and this book won’t help much.
The tone is very instructional, almost to the point of being condescending. Though I do see many doing ministry in ways that hurt the poor and themselves, I also see the way God uses those who act out of compassion, even when their efforts aren’t always perfect. I wanted to tell Brian, “stop beating yourself up!” Best practices are excellent to strive for, but I have felt paralyzed by the thought, “am I doing this right?” Readers need to be told that the mandate to care for the poor is worth putting yourself out there and making mistakes. (8.5/10)
enjoying your book reviews, and completely astonished (and impressed!) by your list of books read in 2010. well done!
Thanks! I have been hovering at 50 books a year for about as long as I’ve kept track (seven years?) so it is a lot for me. I have mandatory warm baths to fall asleep several nights a week to thank. I post more reviews on goodreads, I need to get back into blogging so I keep making lame attempts at sharing them here. Maybe in 2011!