Is Our Charity Creating Dependency?

Bob Lupton offers some warnings about How Charity Can Be Toxic.

There is a difference between crisis intervention and chronic poverty. The Good Samaritan is a story about crisis intervention. Gleaning is about how to share our assets and protect the world's poor. Don't reap to the competitive edges of your field; leave room for the poor to work so they can harvest where they haven't planted. In your grace don't strip the vines; leave some for the poor so that everybody can work at harvest.

The point is, let's examine the outcome of care. When I talk about the progression of one-way giving, first you elicit appreciation. You do it twice, you elicit anticipation. What's more, you do it three times and it becomes expectation that he's going to do it again. Four times and it's an entitlement. By the fifth time it's dependency. They've done it every year and we count on it. If anybody has been doing this kind of work, they begin to see that pattern. There is a chronic poverty issue and it calls for a chronic intervention, which is enabling people.