Chapter 2, part A, because, why finish chapter 3 too soon??? This chapter is all about the problems with Charity/Direct Service, part A is that we don't get to know each other.
Saul Alinsky and Robert Lupton are each interested in improving the life people living in poverty, Lupton by encouraging Christians to engage in community development, Alinsky by encouraging community organizing. Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals, originally published in 1946 and his Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, 1971, are the foundational handbooks for community organizers today. Lupton’s 2011 Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charity Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) is a addressed to a more evangelical Christian audience. Both are arguing against direct service charities and in favor of more systemic change, although I expect they would agree on little else. Each of them have significant critiques of direct service charities that are important to my argument. (Chapter 3 addresses the challenges of Lupton’s community development language).
As the name of his book emphasizes, Lupton finds direct service food ministries to be toxic. He argues that handouts are both ineffective and damaging to those who are served. The Christian commitment to service leads us to look for problems so that we can fix them. “Service seeks a need, a problem to fix, an object to pity. But pity diminishes” (Lupton 190) those we aim to serve. While it is clear that we (usually) are not intending to pity, and certainly not intending to diminish those we serve, because we don’t know them, and because we start with our need to serve, our ministries do diminish those we serve. At the end of serving those of us with enough to give away ask how many people we served, and how we feel about our chance to serve, but not whether the actual life of people who do not have much is improved. Often the end result is more about our own satisfaction more than community improvement.
Unless we know these dreams of people in need, and unless we know the resources they bring, our solutions will necessarily be more about us as givers than about those who are the receivers. It is rare that a congregation creating a soup kitchen or food pantry knows the people they are intending to serve. People who do not have enough food are in fact fully developed people—like us they have ideas of how to solve their problems; they have relationships with others; they have resources to offer to the problems of hunger. Lupton emphasizes that most importantly people who are poor have dreams and visions of what life could be: “longings for a better life for their children, hopes that their labor will someday produced a more prosperous future” (Lupton 113).
Saul Alinsky’s community organizing strategies begin with knowing the dreams of the people. To create change in the world he argues that we must first of all see what is really happening (Alinsky 1971 12). We who have enough must open our eyes to parts of the community that may not be our usual places to look, places where we may not feel welcome, or at least may not feel comfortable. At a meal program, or at food pantry, or a community garden, we have to look to see the fullness of the world that the people who come to eat are a part of. The world of poverty and of not having enough is a significant part of our community, of the United States. When we can see that we will also see that we who have plenty need that world to change as much as those with not enough need change. Alinsky insists that “[a] major revolution to be won in the immediate future is the dissipation of man’s illusion that his own welfare can be separate from that of all others” (Alinsky 1971 22). We are in this together. When we think of getting ahead as an individual activity, or worse, that we are competing with others and can only get ahead if they stay behind, than we will continue the status quo. We must see the people who have little, and see them as people, and we must also see that our own future is contingent on their successful future.
When we know the people who need food, and begin to see ourselves as connected to them, and our future as connected to their future, we begin to desire changes in our systems and strategies around food. Alinsky reminds us we should not, indeed we cannot do that work without the involvement of the people who have little. “If you respect the dignity of the individual you are working with, then his desires, not yours; his values, not yours; his ways of working and fighting, not yours; his programs, not yours, are important and must be followed” (Alinsky 1971 122). By starting with knowing people who need food, we become a people who want to respect the dignity of those who need food.
For Alinsky an organizer is someone who comes in and helps a community overcome their own apathy, and then follows their lead in what is to be done to improve their community. This will not work if we have not built the trust of the people by engaging fully in community. “It is difficult for people to believe that you really respect their dignity” (Alinsky 1971 122). It is rare for people to be listened to, and so rare that you will need to listen again and again before people in need will trust that someone with enough cares about, or indeed even understands, their needs. Alinsky sees the organizer as a motivator, so that the people can act, rather than an actor, helping the people to follow.
While I agree with Alinsky’s point I think that the language is different when Churches speak of this. We do not begin as organizers, or even motivators, but rather as neighbors. We invite people into our space as guests, but as Christians it is our intent that every guest should become eventually a neighbor. Our intent at the start is nothing more than love—we are called to love our neighbors and to do that we begin by getting to know them. Jay Pathak asks “[w]hat if [Jesus] meant that we should love our actual neighbors? You know, the people who live right next door” (Pathak 15). I will say more about Pathak’s exploration of how we have made neighbor a universal, rather particular concept below, but here we notice that meals ministries sometimes invite people into our buildings without recognizing that they are our neighbors. If we invite people in and then treat them as strangers we are failing at our Christian commitment to love our neighbor. In Lupton’s language, our charitable instinct becomes not one of love, but rather toxic charity that fails to give people the respect they deserve.
Alinsky, Saul D. Reveille for Radicals, (New York: Vintage Books, 1989.)
Alinsky, Saul D. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, (New York: Random House, 1971.)
Lupton, Robert D. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charity Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It). (New York: HarperOne, 2011.) Kindle.
Pathak, Jay, and Dave Runyon. The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door. (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2012.) Ebook.
Saul Alinsky and Robert Lupton are each interested in improving the life people living in poverty, Lupton by encouraging Christians to engage in community development, Alinsky by encouraging community organizing. Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals, originally published in 1946 and his Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, 1971, are the foundational handbooks for community organizers today. Lupton’s 2011 Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charity Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) is a addressed to a more evangelical Christian audience. Both are arguing against direct service charities and in favor of more systemic change, although I expect they would agree on little else. Each of them have significant critiques of direct service charities that are important to my argument. (Chapter 3 addresses the challenges of Lupton’s community development language).
As the name of his book emphasizes, Lupton finds direct service food ministries to be toxic. He argues that handouts are both ineffective and damaging to those who are served. The Christian commitment to service leads us to look for problems so that we can fix them. “Service seeks a need, a problem to fix, an object to pity. But pity diminishes” (Lupton 190) those we aim to serve. While it is clear that we (usually) are not intending to pity, and certainly not intending to diminish those we serve, because we don’t know them, and because we start with our need to serve, our ministries do diminish those we serve. At the end of serving those of us with enough to give away ask how many people we served, and how we feel about our chance to serve, but not whether the actual life of people who do not have much is improved. Often the end result is more about our own satisfaction more than community improvement.
Unless we know these dreams of people in need, and unless we know the resources they bring, our solutions will necessarily be more about us as givers than about those who are the receivers. It is rare that a congregation creating a soup kitchen or food pantry knows the people they are intending to serve. People who do not have enough food are in fact fully developed people—like us they have ideas of how to solve their problems; they have relationships with others; they have resources to offer to the problems of hunger. Lupton emphasizes that most importantly people who are poor have dreams and visions of what life could be: “longings for a better life for their children, hopes that their labor will someday produced a more prosperous future” (Lupton 113).
Saul Alinsky’s community organizing strategies begin with knowing the dreams of the people. To create change in the world he argues that we must first of all see what is really happening (Alinsky 1971 12). We who have enough must open our eyes to parts of the community that may not be our usual places to look, places where we may not feel welcome, or at least may not feel comfortable. At a meal program, or at food pantry, or a community garden, we have to look to see the fullness of the world that the people who come to eat are a part of. The world of poverty and of not having enough is a significant part of our community, of the United States. When we can see that we will also see that we who have plenty need that world to change as much as those with not enough need change. Alinsky insists that “[a] major revolution to be won in the immediate future is the dissipation of man’s illusion that his own welfare can be separate from that of all others” (Alinsky 1971 22). We are in this together. When we think of getting ahead as an individual activity, or worse, that we are competing with others and can only get ahead if they stay behind, than we will continue the status quo. We must see the people who have little, and see them as people, and we must also see that our own future is contingent on their successful future.
When we know the people who need food, and begin to see ourselves as connected to them, and our future as connected to their future, we begin to desire changes in our systems and strategies around food. Alinsky reminds us we should not, indeed we cannot do that work without the involvement of the people who have little. “If you respect the dignity of the individual you are working with, then his desires, not yours; his values, not yours; his ways of working and fighting, not yours; his programs, not yours, are important and must be followed” (Alinsky 1971 122). By starting with knowing people who need food, we become a people who want to respect the dignity of those who need food.
For Alinsky an organizer is someone who comes in and helps a community overcome their own apathy, and then follows their lead in what is to be done to improve their community. This will not work if we have not built the trust of the people by engaging fully in community. “It is difficult for people to believe that you really respect their dignity” (Alinsky 1971 122). It is rare for people to be listened to, and so rare that you will need to listen again and again before people in need will trust that someone with enough cares about, or indeed even understands, their needs. Alinsky sees the organizer as a motivator, so that the people can act, rather than an actor, helping the people to follow.
While I agree with Alinsky’s point I think that the language is different when Churches speak of this. We do not begin as organizers, or even motivators, but rather as neighbors. We invite people into our space as guests, but as Christians it is our intent that every guest should become eventually a neighbor. Our intent at the start is nothing more than love—we are called to love our neighbors and to do that we begin by getting to know them. Jay Pathak asks “[w]hat if [Jesus] meant that we should love our actual neighbors? You know, the people who live right next door” (Pathak 15). I will say more about Pathak’s exploration of how we have made neighbor a universal, rather particular concept below, but here we notice that meals ministries sometimes invite people into our buildings without recognizing that they are our neighbors. If we invite people in and then treat them as strangers we are failing at our Christian commitment to love our neighbor. In Lupton’s language, our charitable instinct becomes not one of love, but rather toxic charity that fails to give people the respect they deserve.
Alinsky, Saul D. Reveille for Radicals, (New York: Vintage Books, 1989.)
Alinsky, Saul D. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, (New York: Random House, 1971.)
Lupton, Robert D. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charity Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It). (New York: HarperOne, 2011.) Kindle.
Pathak, Jay, and Dave Runyon. The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door. (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2012.) Ebook.
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