Review:
When Helping
Hurts is an invaluable book for group discussion by North American mission
teams, mission committees, groups taught by mission pastors, all those committed
to God’s kingdom agenda for the poor and those involved in the outreach and
missions budget of a church. The
authors’ thesis highlights their challenge:
“We believe the local church has a unique role to play in
poverty alleviation and we are delighted to see the recent resurgence in
church-based holistic ministry to the poor at home and abroad. At the same time
we are grieved when we see churches using alleviation strategies that are
grounded in unbiblical assumptions about the nature of poverty and that violate
‘best practice’ methodologies developed by theorists and practioners over the
course of many decades” (p.15).
One of the chief reasons for this “violation” lies in a
fundamental difference in understanding poverty. The authors say, from their
extensive research and teaching experience, that many middle class North
American Christians think of poverty materialistically “in terms of lack of
food, clothing, sanitation, medicine, money and clean water. But when the poor in the Majority world have
answered the question [what is poverty?], they mention shame, inferiority,
powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation,
and voicelessness” (p.53). This is a
“poverty of being” which is also “a problem for the economically rich who often
have god-complexes, a subtle and unconscious sense of superiority in which they
believe that they have achieved their wealth through their own efforts and that
they have been anointed to decide that is best for low-income people, whom they
view as inferior to themselves” (p. 65).
The problems are compounded, the authors say, by a
blurring of distinctions between relief, rehabilitation or development. “The failure to distinguish among these
situations is one of the most common reasons that poverty-alleviation efforts
often do harm” (pp.103-104). “Relief is the urgent and temporary provision of
emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering from a natural or man-made
crisis…Rehabilitation seeks to restore to people the positive elements of their
pre-crisis conditions [by] working with the victims as they participate in their
recovery…Development is the process of on-going change where the ‘helped’ are
better able to fulfill their calling of glorifying God by working and supporting
themselves and their families…It’s an empowering process... [We] North American
Christians often project our own idea of what is an acceptable standard of
living into a situation and are quick to take the relief approach, doling out
money in ways that the local people would consider unwise and
dependence-creating. And in the process, we can undermine local judgment,
discipline, accountability, stewardship, savings and institutions.” (pp. 103,
104, 108).
Problematically, many North American Christians also
approach poverty alleviation from a needs assessment base which focuses on what
is wrong in a poor community (p. 125). This approach can feed into paternalism as the
donor wants to “help fix the problem.” The authors insist that paternalism with its
many faces is “poisonous” between North American middle and upper class
believers and Majority world believers because it leads to Americans doing “for
others what they can do for themselves” and a tendency for Americans “to take
charge and run things” (p. 119). The
authors note that “the poor do not need to take charge because they know that we
will take charge if they wait long enough; they have internalized the messages
of centuries of colonialism, slavery and racism: that Caucasians run things and
everyone else follows; and they [also] know that by letting us run the show it
is more likely that we will bring in the money and other material resources to
give to them” (p. 119). As a result,
North American paternalism and its relief approach violates “best practice
methodologies” (p. 15).
Instead, the authors advocate asset-based community
development, where the poor people involved are empowered to use their gifts and
strengths and “participate in all aspects of the project, proposing the best
course of action, implementing a chosen strategy, evaluating how well things are
working and determining the appropriate behavior modification” (p.144). “Middle to upper class North American
believers who step in for relief poverty alleviation (based on their
understanding of the nature of poverty), have to accept that our power has
silenced their brethren at home or abroad more than we realize” (p. 172).
The authors illustrate how well-intentioned short term
mission teams sent out from the middle and upper class North American church
aggravate this problem. Citing statistics in 2006 - that 50% of short term
mission trips from the U.S. were for under a 2 week period of time but totaled
212 million participants and cost $1,600,000,000 (p. 161)- the authors lament
that:
· often the teams are not versed in
cross-cultural engagement issues;
· they come to materially poor communities
experiencing chronic problems that need long-term development not relief
· they generally have a needs based approach
not an asset based approach to the community
· they come with a task they hope to achieve
in their brief stay without understanding or sufficiently involving the
indigenous people they hope to serve (pp.162-166).
One example illustrates the harm that is possible:
“An American staff member who works with an indigenous
organization trying to bring development to poor communities in a Latin American
country noted: ‘The indigenous staff in my organization lead weekly Bible studies with children in low-income
communities. These Bible studies are
just one aspect of my organization’s over-all attempts to bring long-lasting
development in these broken communities.
After a short term team (sent by a North American middle class church)
conducts a Bible study in one of these communities, the children stop attending
the Bible studies of my organization…because we do not have all the fancy
materials and crafts that the short term teams have and we do not give away
things like these teams do. The children have also come to believe that our
staff are not as interesting or as creative as the Americans that come on these
teams’” (p.169).
Therefore, the authors suggest to the
churches or mission organizations who send out short term teams:
· “Make pre-trip learning a requirement
(including a summary of the major concepts in this book);
· have a substantial presentation of at least
several hours for perspective team members to clearly explain what the trip is
and is not about;
· be sure prospective short termers are
already actively involved in their church’s local outreach efforts;
· require short termers to pay at least a
portion of the trip from their own pocket;
· design the trip to be about “learning” and
“being” as much as about “doing”;
· ensure that the “doing” portion of the trip
avoids paternalism;
· and do both on the field and post trip
reflections for at least a year following the trip” (pp. 175-178).
· The authors even suggest renaming a “short
term missions trip” a “Vision Trip” or a “Go, Learn, Return and Respond” trip
(p.176).
Corbett and Fikkert’s book is replete with examples of
North American middle class believers’ good intentions for poverty alleviation
gone awry. But in all the chapters in
the book the authors also give practical guidelines for what ‘best practice
methodologies’ do work. Each chapter is also bookended by excellent
reflection questions that will help small groups grapple with people’s own
preconceptions and methodologies. That
makes the book invaluable to all churches intent on responding to God’s kingdom
agenda globally.
Wisely, the authors say their book is only the beginning
of the learning cycle. They close the book encouraging readers “to pursue even
deeper learning through the Chalmers Center for Economic Development (www.
Chalmers.org)” (p.219). It is hoped
their advice will be more fully utilized in the near and distant
future.
Reviewed by Mary Lou Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 1/27/12