Robert D. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Ministries), writes this book to show a different perspective on the charity work people, churches, and organizations do. In Chapter 1, he presents the characteristics of something that he calls “the scandal.” Lupton is conscious that American are generous and want to contribute to charitable causes. However, he sees that much of the money people donate is either wasted or becomes harmful to the people that is supposed to help. Two of the reasons for this harming effect are that charity sometimes makes people dependent on receiving money or things for free. Another reason is that we disempower people by doing for them what they are capable to do by themselves. In Chapter
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Sometimes the free gifts and donations that wealthy people give to the poor might reduce the recipients to a lower state that they had before. It could happen because the work of charity can be seen as an action that demands gratitude and humiliates the receiver because of the superiority of the giver that is affirmed by that action. Lupton considers that there is a different way to do charity without disempowering people. He suggests that we could create a system by which people can get a job and obtain stuff they need, not for free, but by a bargain price accessible to them. In this way, charity would promote jobs and empower people by allowing them to earn benefits by their own work. The author presents this model because it has into account two features that must be present in doing charity: mercy and justice. He says that mercy is the door, an invitation, but not the destination. Most people feel moved to contribute to a charitable cause, but the real goal of that cause should be a sense of justice, that these people find a real and lasting solution to their needs. Thus, mercy combined with justice would create immediate care with a future plan and short-term interventions would become long-term developments for the person or the community in
Sometimes the free gifts and donations that wealthy people give to the poor might reduce the recipients to a lower state that they had before. It could happen because the work of charity can be seen as an action that demands gratitude and humiliates the receiver because of the superiority of the giver that is affirmed by that action. Lupton considers that there is a different way to do charity without disempowering people. He suggests that we could create a system by which people can get a job and obtain stuff they need, not for free, but by a bargain price accessible to them. In this way, charity would promote jobs and empower people by allowing them to earn benefits by their own work. The author presents this model because it has into account two features that must be present in doing charity: mercy and justice. He says that mercy is the door, an invitation, but not the destination. Most people feel moved to contribute to a charitable cause, but the real goal of that cause should be a sense of justice, that these people find a real and lasting solution to their needs. Thus, mercy combined with justice would create immediate care with a future plan and short-term interventions would become long-term developments for the person or the community in