What a chapter. Bob Lupton has hit the mark on balancing compassion and justice. He starts with a two categories: Betterment and Development. (for those who are used to my teaching on this, use the words Emergency and Empowerment ministries). But I think I like Lupton’s better. Betterment: improvement done by an outside source. Development: self-improvement done by one’s own community. The former is necessary sometimes. It almost always feels better for the “giver” in the situation. It’s easier all the time. It is more efficient in the short run. You can do it in a single workday. But it’s not as good as we might think. Betterment is too temporary and sustains a cycle of give-not give and take. It’s not companionship, but parenting, benevolent dictatorship. It’s not necessarily empowering but is almost always resulting in enablement. As Lupton says, “betterment improves circumstances; development improves capacity.”
For years, I was taught that to go and be among the poor was what is called “incarnational”-referring to Christ taking on flesh for his people. This is a great way to talk about our posture-humbling, present, and speaking the same language. But it has an unfortunate undercurrent for us-it places the “giver” or “minister” in the place of God…typically creating a messiah complex. Unintentional-but subliminally and all-to-often it creates God complexes.
I think a better approach to this is to think of ourselves as the recipients of the incarnation-recipients of God’s loving and just kingdom. And now believers in that kingdom are gathering to bring that love and justice to bear on the world. The second verse of the famous mini-hymn “They will know we are Christians by Our Love” really helps here.
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
Our manner is to be less about being incarnational and more about working side by side to guard dignity and pride (of course not hubris, but good pride).
This is why Lupton is so revolutionary. He demands respect-not of and for himself alone…but for those with whom he interacts. We need to be on guard for the transactions of dignity and respect that occur in our attempts at ministry. We need to trust that the kingdom has the power to come and bring healing and development (theologically speaking healing and sanctification) to people holistically.
Here’s the challenge. Think of the ministries that we do that require no exchange of dignity and lets try to figure out how to make the more developmental. Any ideas?
