Additional social justice reviews
from Joe Ginder:

Brief introduction to each of
the four books reviewed

Welcoming Justice
by Charles Marsh & John Perkins

Social Justice Handbook
by Mae Elise Cannon

When Helping Hurts
by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert

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COMPASSION, JUSTICE, AND
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
by Robert D. Lupton

See this item in the bookstore...

review by Joe Ginder

This is a book about community development. It is not really a book about ministry to the poor as you may have experienced it. It is, in fact, a strong argument that community development is the best way to minister to the poor. The book distills practical lessons learned in the author’s experience at FCS Urban Ministries in Atlanta. Lupton is associated with Christian community development as practiced by the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). This book grew out of his efforts to explain the “NIMBY” (Not In My Back Yard) attitude displayed by urban neighborhoods when a ministry desires to move in. Places where social services are offered and even churches (if they are commuter churches) are not necessarily assets in developing a community, from his perspective. Lupton explains that he is a community developer first and a social service provider second. He desires that Christians would advocate for both the community and the most vulnerable at the same time, finding a balance that serves the interests of both. It seems like this book is his attempt to say that, generally speaking, community development is the best social service that can be offered. (Those are my words; I don’t recall him ever saying it exactly that way.)

The book is organized in a logical fashion, laying groundwork in the earlier parts for the later parts. There are four main sections in the book following a foreword by John Perkins and an introduction by the author; each section has several chapters. Each chapter is a very quick read, but deserves time for reflection, particularly if the concepts and ideas Lupton presents are new to you.

Part 1—What’s wrong with this picture?
There are tough issues to face when it comes to helping those called in scripture “the least of these.” Part one explores some of these issues and challenges assumptions that hinder a biblical approach. This part of the book establishes essential principles for working with the poor, giving the biblical basis for each.

The most unexpected chapter for some will be the chapter on community churches. Challenging the prevailing trend toward commuter churches, Lupton considers the impact such churches have on communities in which they locate and the greater loss of community in American society that is reflected in the church at large. The combination of practical experience and scriptural teaching is a powerful witness that should be heeded. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Part 2—Is it time to consider a change?
“Doing for others what they can do for themselves is charity at its worst.” This section explores how to serve those who are poor in ways that avoid damaging the poor and their community. A dominant theme of this part of the book is the idea of “exchange.” Exchange, as Lupton describes it, is a way of establishing dignity for those who are assisted by offering goods that help the poor in exchange for some sort of “payment” they can afford. In addition, by having an appropriate “price,” many common problems associated with giving away goods are avoided.

One chapter considers the merit of “doing good” in the form of various free types of assistance, and again compares these to mechanisms considered better by Lupton. In my experience, Lupton is surely on to something important when he says “when our feeding programs value order and efficiency over the messiness of personal involvement, good has become the enemy of best.” The idea of exchange and setting up systems of exchange promotes this ideal more effectively than giving things away, generally speaking.

Lupton includes a chapter in which he advocates the ideal of mixed income housing (as opposed to exclusively low-income housing), drawing from his own painful past experience. This is a foreshadowing of what he has to say in part 4. He goes on to describe instances of commuter churches that find themselves in conflict with the communities in which their facilities are located. Lupton disdains parking lots that are empty six days out of seven as a poor use of community real estate.

The last chapter in part 2 discusses the pitfalls of having a “servant attitude.” Too often, what is intended to be serving others is embodied in a form that says “I know better than you what you need.” It becomes “parental” (my word) or one-sided rather than embodying the ideal of exchange among partners with equal responsibilities to the community. Domination and control characterize the ragged death-dealing end of this spectrum of how it is possible to “serve.” Another dark side of “serving” is the commercialization of helping the poor. Lupton does not use this term, but here in my neighborhood certain “helpers” are known as the “homeless pimps.” This is the reputation one gains in the community when it is clear that one is helping others with the root motivation to gain financially for oneself.

In contrast, “Friends are people who know each other, who care, respect, struggle and are committed through time.” In friendship, “we” are in this together. Those called into the community by God form solidarity with the indigenous residents of the community, working together. I cannot begin to emphasize enough how important are the concepts taught in this section of the book for Christians who feel like they should get involved in working with the poor and broken. (For a fuller treatment of this issue, see When Helping Hurts.)

Part 3—Toward responsible charity
This portion of Lupton’s book is key to his thinking; the introduction to it summarizes important ideas in just a few sentences. Quoting: “Everyone must pull his own weight. That is the key to responsible charity—which is not to say that everyone has equal capacity—just equal responsibility. When individuals, like communities, assume responsibility for their own destiny, when they abandon self-pity, self-indulgence and blame to face the hard work of building (or rebuilding) their lives, they have taken a giant step toward health.” The first chapter in Part 3 explains and amplifies these ideas, and the later chapters work out their implications in a process that leads to a community development paradigm. The strength of these chapters is in how Lupton walks the reader through the circumstances and reasoning from where everyone seems to start to end in understanding the need for development.

Part 4—Final thoughts
Part 4 takes up the topic of gentrification. “Gentrification with justice—that’s what is needed to restore health to our urban neighborhoods.” Gentrification, for those unsure of the term, is the trend toward moving into and restoring urban property by the middle-classes. It is a broad demographic movement of wealth back into the centers of U.S cities, re-making them in the pattern of most world cities, where wealth is concentrated in the center of the city and the poor are pushed to the periphery. Lupton views gentrification as the reality to be faced in American cities. What are the implications of gentrification for community development in the inner city?

Lupton believes gentrification is a trend that will come and that cannot be resisted. His reaction? Make the best of it. Even more, he believes that the influx of new residents with means and education is necessary to rebuild inner-city communities. He may be right, though I am attracted to a paradigm of community-building from within. The problem with my preferred approach is that gentrification is a trend that gives every appearance of building steam, give or take a recession or two. Start making an inner city neighborhood safer and better to live in, and people will move in from outside. Lupton’s acceptance of the new reality and advice on how to live and work justly in the new gentrification environment is invaluable, whether I like the phenomenon or not!

Lupton does more than submit to gentrification, however. He also offers good advice on how to work for justice in the face of this new reality. Those looking at the future of ministry to the poor should, I believe, pay careful attention. The face of inner-city ministry is changing and will change much more in the years ahead. How should Christians work for justice as gentrification takes place? This section of the book is a good resource from someone with long experience, intellectual capacity, and a desire to be faithful. As usual, Lupton is not just talking theory; he’s speaking from hard-won experience and the perspective gained from past “mistakes.”

Lupton closes his writing with a challenge to the entrepreneurs and business leaders among Christians. Good! And yet, there is something that bothers me in this. I’ve learned from experience and had confirmed to me through my interaction with other CCDA practitioners the value of building a community over time with some influx of people called to the work, but more importantly through building up the indigenous young generation over time to be the core of the new, developing community. I treasure this idea as a practical reality! In this challenge I perceive an edge of “they can’t do it without you” that goes down like dry dust. But don’t let that keep you from this book.

I suppose, being a Quaker from long-time Quaker roots that the utopian ideal of building a new and just community came in my DNA. Quakers in the U.S. have a long history of moving (mostly westward) and starting new communities: building towns and schools. Let’s get it right this time! The ironic truth is that this has mostly been accomplished by people moving to an area for a new community. However, my call has been to build a new community in the inner city, raising up a new generation of leaders as the foundation for that community. The thought of materialistic “heathens” from the 'burbs moving in and messing with that community is not a thought I relish. (How selfish is that? Pretty selfish, I suppose. I’m thankful God is in charge.)

Lupton’s book embodies so much valuable hands-on experience at community development that ignoring the lessons he has learned would be foolish in the extreme. And yet, it seems to me that there is a focus on the techniques and idea of development that leaves some important relational realities unaddressed. This criticism is, I think, more a reflection of what I value than any failed intention of Robert D. Lupton. Lupton does a great job of introducing the essential ideas and gives them good traction through real-life examples. Please read this book if you are thinking of getting involved in ministry to the poor, particularly if you will be working as a community developer.

Be warned. The temptation for those new to this type of work may well be to jump right to the final stage of development. Lupton describes a process that starts by moving into a community and working in fairly traditional ways and eventually led to a community development approach. I do not believe this is an accident. There is a learning process that not just the incoming workers in a new location go through, but that a community must go through. Surely there is benefit to knowing the destination before you start the journey; but knowing the destination does not substitute for the journey. I am learning the virtue of allowing those whom God has called to a work to go through the stages of learning that lead to mature ministry. There is no need to take what we know to be a mistaken approach or let others make obvious mistakes. There is, however, a need to work in a community and earn trust and establish context and understanding and trust through which the more difficult tasks of community development can be undertaken. Sometimes that trust is earned by allowing the learning process to take its natural course.

The last section of the book is an appendix in which is reprinted a CCDA article by Wayne Gordon. Gordon is another leader with decades of experience in faithful obedience to a call from God to an impoverished community in Lawndale, Illinois. Lawndale is on Chicago’s west side, and has now reached legendary status in Christian community development circles. Read this section of the book. Digest it. Read it again. Get the audio from a CCDA conference workshop where Wayne Gordon or John Perkins explains these principles and listen to it. They are right on target! This is vital information.

The title of the appendix is "The Eight Components of Christian Community Development." The eight components are:
1. Relocation: Living Among the People
2. Reconciliation: to God, to People
3. Redistribution
4. Leadership Development
5. Listening to Community
6. Church-based Community Development
7. A Wholistic Approach
8. Empowerment

You can guess at the fleshed out explanation of the components from their titles, but don’t. Take time to study this core philosophy of Christian Community Development. It has been developed through decades of experience and serious engagement with Jesus’ teaching. This appendix article is also available online at http://www.ccda.org/philosophy. CCDA is the organization that brings together the best Christian practitioners in this area of ministry.