Toxic Charity, Robert D. Lupton
Toxic Charity, Robert D. Lupton
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Toxic Charity
How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It)

Author: Robert D. Lupton

Narrator: Patrick Lawlor

Unabridged: 5 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/06/2015

Synopsis

In his four decades of urban ministry, Robert D. Lupton has experienced firsthand how our good intentions can have unintended, dire consequences. We fly off on mission trips to poverty-stricken villages, hearts full of pity and suitcases bulging with giveaways—trips that one Nicaraguan leader describes as effective only in "turning my people into beggars."

In Toxic Charity, Lupton urges individuals, churches, and organizations to step away from these spontaneous, often destructive acts of compassion and toward thoughtful paths to community development. He delivers proven strategies for moving from toxic charity to transformative charity.

Proposing a powerful "Oath for Compassionate Service," Lupton offers all the tools and inspiration we need to develop healthy, community-driven programs that produce deep, measurable, and lasting change. Everyone who volunteers or donates to charity needs to wrestle with this book.

About Robert D. Lupton

Robert D. Lupton is the author of numerous books, including Theirs Is the Kingdom, Return Flight, Renewing the City, and Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life. He is the founder of FCS Urban Ministries, and he has invested over forty years of his life in inner-city Atlanta. He is a Christian community developer, an entrepreneur who brings together communities of resource with communities of need. Through FCS Urban Ministries, Robert has developed two mixed income subdivisions, organized a multiracial congregation, started a number of businesses, created housing for hundreds of families, and initiated a wide range of human services in his community. He authors the widely circulated "Urban Perspectives," monthly reflections on the Gospel and the poor. Robert has a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia. He serves as speaker, strategist, and inspirer with those throughout the nation who seek to establish God's Shalom in the city.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Matt on February 09, 2014

I found this book incredibly infuriating, especially in the first sections-- there's a lot of talk about the inherent dignity of work that is just right wing red meat, some pathologizing of the poor and people in third world countries and an insistence on the right way to develop that I thought was......more

Goodreads review by Scott on April 30, 2012

This book reads like sitting in your living room across from a veteran mercy minister and you simply ask him "I see there's a problem and I want to help, tell me how to help." Lupton spends the rest of the book doing just that. Identifying the problem and then proceeding to tackle it. One of the thi......more

Goodreads review by Alaina on February 01, 2014

Lupton fails to address the systemic issues that precede the toxicity of charity. Without addressing racism and its evil twin, paternalism, charity will continue to be toxic.......more

Goodreads review by Erin on August 27, 2012

Huh...so basically 95% of the charity work I do (and probably most of us do) could be considered toxic: doing for others when they could do it for themselves, charity leading to attitudes of superiority and condescension on the part of the giver, charity work making the giver feel good, regardless o......more

Goodreads review by Kirk on July 15, 2013

Author is a Dr. Lupton, who has 40 years of working around inner-city Atlanta including moving into impoverished neighborhoods and turning them around. His basic thesis is the same thing Sowell argued in Basic Economics, that welfare and other social aid programs create a stagnate social class. Givi......more

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