Book review: Peter Greer & Phil Smith- The poor will be glad

The poor will be glad
Peter Greer & Phil Smith
Buy: Koorong, Amazon, Book depository, christianaudio

The poor will be glad addresses how Christians can help the poor escape poverty through microfinance and employment based solutions.

This book does cover some of the same ground as When Helping Hurts (see review). When helping hurts is more comprehensive in regards to a theological foundation for poverty relief so I would recommend reading that first. The poor will be glad also does deal with theology and the unhelpful ways Christians sometimes try to assist but the main focus of the book is on microfinance and related programs. Microfinance is the giving of small loans to the poor at fair interest rates to facilitate the starting or development of interest generating businesses. Many consider microfinance a good way to help the poor leave poverty and be able to provide for their families. The authors temper their enthusiasm with some much needed warnings including issues particularly affecting church run or Christian microfinance projects.

The book is full of beautiful photography from communities where microfinance is having an impact.

This book will be useful for those involved in running or supporting microfinance organizations. It will also be of interest to anyone interested in exploring the ways the church can help solve the problem of poverty. I recommend it.

Learn by listening

I've long been a podcast listener and have more recently become hooked on audiobooks. Both provide a great way to learn something new while doing non-brain intensive tasks like cleaning, walking or commuting. Here's 2 resources I like-

Worldwide classroom
Worldwide classroom provides free access to lecture audio and course notes for all the lectures of 20 seminary level theology courses from Covenant Theological Seminary. Some content does require registration to access but this is free. Course topics include apologetics and outreach, biblical theology, christian ethics and old testament history.

Librivox
Librivox provides free audiobooks of works that are in the public domain (eg. no longer covered by copyright). The books are read by volunteer narrators but generally the narration quality is good. Christian authors available on the site include C.S Lewis (unfortunately only one of his books), Saint Augustine and John Calvin. In regards to fiction, I've been enjoying the Anne series by L.M Montgomery.  Some librivox recordings are available in more file formats at Project Gutenburg

Featured song: Francesca Battistelli- Beautiful, Beautiful

Book review: Mark Driscoll- Religion saves and nine other misconceptions

Religion Saves and nine other misconceptions
Mark Driscoll
Buy- Amazon, christianaudio

In Religion Saves and Nine Other Misconceptions, Mark Driscoll answers a series of questions submitted and voted on by members of his church and people who listen to his podcast.

As you would expect from a book whose content is decided in such a manner, the content is eclectic. The book includes such diverse topics as the tension between faith verses works, a Christian approach to humor, whether Christians are permitted to use birth control and how we decide what can be included in a church service. Because the chapters aren't really connected to one another you could read the chapters in any order or skip chapters without any problems.

It is clear Driscoll has thought and researched a lot about the questions he answers in the book. Even if you don't end up agreeing with his conclusions, you will at least have learned a lot of interesting historical and theological information on the topics. The one chapter that seemed a bit over-researched was the chapter on the emerging church movement. The excessive quoting from various people in the movement was more than was really needed to make the point that the movement has problems, making the chapter drag on a bit. Other than that chapter, the book made for compelling reading. Driscoll is often rather funny.

While not being crass, Driscoll does deal frankly with the topics of sexual sin and birth control making this book suitable for mature audiences only.

I think most Christians could find something of interest and value in this book. I recommend it.

Commenting problems

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Book review: Brian Fikkert & Steve Corbett- When Helping Hurts

When Helping Hurts
Brian Fikkert & Steve Corbett
Buy: Amazon, Koorong, christianaudio

Helping the poor is increasingly becoming a priority for many Christians. When Helping Hurts is a guide on how Christians can assist the poor in a way that leads to long term positive change.

I appreciate that the authors try to provide a solid theological framework for helping the poor. To call a chapter focusing on Jesus help for the poor "Why Did Jesus Come to Earth?" is maybe a little overstated since there are a lot of important aspects of why he came that don't really get covered. Regardless, there is still a lot of good theological content to be found in this chapter and throughout the book.

The authors talk about how incorrectly conducted attempts at helping can hurt not just the people getting helped but the people doing the helping as well. I found this very thought provoking as I hadn't thought a great deal about how our help could hurt the poor and certainly hadn't thought about how it could hurt the helpers by developing superiority or patriarchal complexes.

Especially worth reading is the section where they talk about how the poor understand poverty as this provides important insights into what help is needed. The authors argue that poverty is not just a lack of material goods but has social and spiritual dimensions as well.

After establishing where things have tended to go wrong, the authors lay out how to helpfully assist the poor in both in our own communities and in the developing world. They do a good job of explaining the approaches without slipping too much into international development jargon. Some of the advice about helping the poor in our own communities was a little America specific but people elsewhere should be able to learn from it too. Of particular use to many churches will be the chapter on short term missions trips as huge numbers of these trips take place and huge amounts of money is poured into them.

Whether you are helping people in your local community, planning a mission trip or just giving money, this is a book you'll find valuable. Considering we all should be doing something to help the poor, this is a book all Christians should read.



Review copy provided by christianaudio.com reviewers program 

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Visiting a Christian bookstore I noticed a common trend. There is lots of books with titles or subtitles like “Lord, Teach Me To Pray In 28 Days ”, “40 Days To Discovering God's Big Idea For Your Life” or “Grow Spiritually Strong In 28 Days”. It seems that book which promise to advance your spiritual development in a certain set amount of time are a hit. I don’t wish to be critical of the content of these books- some of them have some worthwhile things to say.

What has got me wondering is what these kinds of titles and subtitles say about our approach to spiritual life. For publishers to keep using them, they must be selling books. We live in a quick gratification society. I admit I sometimes have a problem with that- I’ve been known to get frustrated that my microwave meal isn’t heating as fast as I’d like. I think these books are tapping into that tendency. We want a timeframe for our spiritual growth and we’d like that time frame to be short.

The problem is spiritual growth doesn’t work that way. We can’t decide that we are going to advance spiritually a set amount in a set amount of time anymore than we can decide that we’d like to be half a foot taller in 2 months time. Certainly we can and should do all the right things for developing spiritual health but we shouldn’t expect quick fixes. The title of a book about discipleship by Eugene Peterson, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” captures something of the reality of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is a lifelong pursuit in which sometimes we will have growth spurts and sometimes we might not seem to be growing much but if we are spiritually healthy we will be moving at least a little in the right direction. We must be careful to not get disillusioned when the pace of growth isn’t what we have in mind. Our task is not to wear ourselves short sprints of attempting to grow spiritually but to run as steadily as we can in faith and obedience so we will still be going at the end of the race.

Featured song: Switchfoot- Hello hurricane