When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself
Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
Moody Publishers, 2009, 208 pp., $14.99, MoodyPublishers.com
A truly remarkable book, Corbett and Fikkert have produced what seems to be a more readable and more optimistic version of William Easterly’s seminal work on the same subject, The White Man’s Burden. It can be used in group discussion as a resource and as a profound individual read.
Evangelicals want to help and we do help; but do we really help? The authors weave together firsthand accounts, biblical perspectives and thought-provoking questions. This book has the potential to make a difference! Broken systems, broken individuals and the potential for redemption and restoration in our own backyard and abroad should give us motivation for ministry to the poor for the foreseeable future. I usually ignore “reflection questions” and amateurish graphics, but these guys had me from the first page. This is one of the best books I have read on the subject; and you should read it, too!
