The Tragedy of American Compassion: Learning From History

 

Jeff Lofting
Director of Education
Read more from Jeff

 

 

Jump to:

The Purpose of the Book | The Perspective | The Key Points | Details We Love | Considerations | Who Should Read This?

 

This book can be read digitally at no cost by clicking here, courtesy of Dr. Marvin Olasky and World News Group, though we strongly encourage you to buy your own copy.

The Purpose of the Book

Photo of Dr. Marvin Olasky

Marvin Olasky

Are strategies that seek to go beyond the handout model of charity new?  No.  On the contrary, Dr. Marvin Olasky’s book The Tragedy of American Compassion demonstrates that charity which promotes challenge, relationship, and spiritual growth was the norm for effective methods of addressing poverty.  Olasky’s book is a classic that has been formative for countless individuals looking to produce true results in their work alongside the poor.  It is one of the few, if not the only, book of its kind exploring the history of poverty-fighting efforts in the United States.  Olasky, who is editor-in-chief of World Magazine and a journalism professor, spent an entire academic year compiling and analyzing stacks of previously untouched research material and published his conclusions in this book.  (Olasky describes this experience in an episode of WORLD’s Effective Compassion podcast.) His book provides a review of both effective and ineffective charity in the 1800s, the transition to our current welfare state today, and how we can incorporate universal principles of effective charity in our communities today.

 

The Perspective

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  This famous passage from Ecclesiastes in the Bible is a great reminder that there is a time to study heavier material to inform our practices.  This is one such book, and it provides great fodder for reflection and growth.  Dr. Olasky did much of the most challenging work for us, though, in sifting through the stacks of literature, statistics, and other records from charity work in the 1800s.  He moves chronologically from charity in colonial America to the change of society in the years before and including the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century, from a Christian perspective.  Within this walkthrough of those periods of American history with poverty-fighting as its focus, the reader can compare and contrast what worked and what did not and how we arrived where we are today.

 

The Key Points

Communities and Churches Abdicated Their Role: How did we arrive at the current state of government and its welfare system in which $22 trillion was spent in the 50 years between 1964 and 2014 combatting poverty with no measurable improvement?  A combination of rapid technological advances, resulting in massive population shifts, and cultural changes in the mid-1800s led to an increasing physical and relational separation of those with means from those without, as well as a belief that simply giving materially to the poor will solve poverty.  As these changes occurred and efforts became more challenging, communities and churches, who had already given into the changing tide of impersonal care for the poor, or “charity with tongs,” placed the role of “charity” into the hands of government bureaucracy.

Intelligent Giving and Intelligent Withholding: Olasky quotes an organization in the late 1800s that instructed volunteers, “Intelligent giving and intelligent withholding are alike true charity.” That might sound uncompassionate, but Olasky contends that true compassion that produces successful outcomes “suffers with” each individual to identify the actual roots of their poverty and walks with them, insofar as they are willing, to overcome those causes.  When we give without discernment, we likely do more harm than good to that individual, and thus society as a whole.

Charity Must Be Challenging, Personal, and Spiritual: Because poverty is more than simply material, it cannot be resolved by simply material distribution.  Olasky sifts his research on effective practices of charities in the late 1800s into what he calls “seven marks.” These are discussed below in more detail, but they can be summarized as challenging, personal, and spiritual.

 

Details We Love

It is usually a large leap for a reader to transform academic research and narrative into practical points, but Olasky assists with this task in the form of “7 Marks of Compassion.”  These are easily remembered as an alphabetic mnemonic: Affiliation, Bonding, Categorization, Discernment, Employment, Freedom, and God.  These prove helpful in examining our own modern charity.  In fact, they have become a major component in the development of charitable methods for True Charity-certified organizations.  We have also developed a course set, entitled 7 Marks of Effective Charity, which goes into greater detail on how these seven marks can be and are being implemented today.

 

Considerations

While this book touches on a few policy recommendations, it does not lay out a specific plan on how to systematically change the trajectory of how we care for those in need.  Interestingly, it laid the rational foundation for a push to move the government, and its red tape, out of the way of local private charities.  When Olasky’s book came to the attention of former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, it became the impetus for the faith-based initiative of the George W. Bush administration.  (More about how this push failed to accomplish what Olasky had hoped can be found in the podcast episode found here.)  Consider Olasky’s follow-up works, Compassionate Conservatism and Renewing American Compassion, for further practical recommendations and policy discussions.  (These are available to read for free, courtesy of World News Group, at the links in the previous sentence.)

Additionally, Olasky makes the point that, for early poverty fighter, compassion was not simply the giving of a handout – it was about effectiveness.  Olasky makes statements and provides examples that some might term “tough love.”  These might initially cause some uneasiness, but we encourage you to continue reading and allow Olasky to make the case.

 

Who Should Read This?

We recommend this book for charity leaders who desire to use the past to inform their policies and practices today, in addition to those who simply love to learn the background and context of the world today.  This is a foundational book for the principles that have been successfully implemented within True Charity-certified organizations.  Some contend, “We have to do something – anything!”  Olasky, though, provides evidence that just doing “something – anything” is not compassionate and has led to the continued, and unnecessary, plight of many Americans.  More recent writings, such as Toxic Charity and When Helping Hurts, have expanded on this point, which we would recommend for charity leaders and workers who desire a lighter and more practical read.

We believe that philosophy undergirds sustained practice.  This is also true of historical background and context – we must have a full understanding of past efforts to inform those of today.  Although this is a weighty book, literally and figuratively, it provides what is needed to develop strong charitable methods.

 

More in-depth reviews of this book can be found at the following links:

 

The Tragedy of American Compassion can be purchased at Amazon. If you purchase the book through this link, True Charity will earn a small amount as an Amazon Associate

 

 

 

 

This article is just the tip of the iceberg for the practical resources available through the True Charity Network. Check out all of the ways the network can help you learn, connect, and influence here.

Already a member? Access your resources in the member portal.

 

Review: The Human Cost of Welfare by Phil Harvey & Lisa Conyers

 

There is a great deal of material from the conservative perspective about the failure of welfare, and a great deal from the liberal perspective about the moral imperatives of a safety net for America’s vulnerable citizens. But little has been written about how welfare impacts the lives and happiness of welfare recipients themselves.

What is the cost of welfare in America? If we just consider the 13 biggest “Safety Net Programs,” the cost of welfare to tax payers in 2016 alone was 740 billion dollars. If we were to include the multitude of other programs funded by the government which are for the alleviation of poverty, the cost is even greater. But is there another cost of welfare we have not considered? A cost far greater than money? Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers propose just that in their book, The Human Cost of Welfare: How the System Hurts the People It’s Supposed to Help. To understand this cost, the authors interviewed more than 100 men and women around the country who are or were dependent on welfare. They asked questions about happiness, health, and the future, and found that welfare has an unintended negative effect on those it is supposed to help.

In 168 short pages, Phil and Lisa cover topics such as “What Does Work Have to Do with Happiness?” “A Housing System Leaves the Needy Out in the Cold,” and “WIC: Missteps with Women and Children.” Each of these topics includes personal experiences from those receiving government benefits and a wealth of research to support their findings.

One of the most compelling chapters is titled, “Marriage, Childbearing, and Teen Pregnancy.” This chapter outlines what might be the greatest human cost of welfare. Each year there are more than 300,000 babies born to teenage mothers. 90% of these teens are single and 80% of those young, single mothers end up on welfare. Today, 40.6% of the total births each year are to single mothers. Compare this to 1940 when only 3.8% of total births were to unmarried mothers. This is especially distressing when you consider the fact that single parenthood and poverty rates are strongly linked. Over the last decade, as the number of births out of wedlock increased, the poverty rate for mother-only families has climbed to 42%.

You may question, “But, what does that have to do with welfare?” The current welfare system encourages single parenthood by reducing benefits to married couples. These penalties can be substantial, especially to families claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, and Child Tax Credit, or CTC. For many families, it doesn’t make financial sense to get married, as a result, most are choosing to forgo marriage, and with it, the opportunity for future prosperity.

Current welfare programs, such as TANF, also encourage single women to have more children by increasing the benefits received for each child added to the household. “More kids equals more assistance,” Phil and Lisa state (see chart below).

The damage done to the family unit alone is a costly price for welfare, but when you count the loss of happiness, health, independence, freedom, and overall wellbeing of those on governmental assistance programs, the human cost of welfare is far too great to accept.

The cost of welfare goes far beyond dollars. There is a human cost to welfare that must be considered. To learn more about “The Human Cost of Welfare” pick up Phil and Lisa’s book, The Human Cost of Welfare. It’s time to rethink how we help those in need; it is clear that welfare is far too costly.

The Human Cost of Welfare can be purchased at Amazon. If you purchase the book through this link, True Charity will earn a small amount as an Amazon Associate

 

 

 

 

This article is just the tip of the iceberg for the practical resources available through the True Charity Network. Check out all of the ways the network can help you learn, connect, and influence here.

Already a member? Access your resources in the member portal.

 

 

Beyond Charity – The Call to Christian Community Development

by John Perkins, 1993

 

A brief summary with excerpts by James Whitford

In Beyond Charity, Dr. John Perkins calls for the church to exercise solidarity with the poor through incarnational ministry as the pathway to development and true alleviation of American urban poverty.  Repeatedly, he points out the state’s failure in helping the poor and calls the church to step up and fill the void:

“Despite good intentions, AFDC has helped to forestall and break up more black families than anything since slavery’s auction blocks sold husbands, wives and children in different directions.”

“In confronting these conditions, it is much easier to build a new prison or enact a new welfare law or give someone a handout then it is to develop the person. So far, we have settled for the impersonal and the bureaucratic. But, as we are seeing now, in the long run these Band-Aids will be much more expensive than we ever imagined.”

“Ultimately, however, we cannot look to the government to solve the problems of the urban poor. Rather we should take that as the responsibility of Christians.”

And Dr. Perkins certainly doesn’t pull any punches concerning that responsibility.

“It is time for the church, yes, the whole church, to take a whole gospel on a whole mission to the whole world.”

“Our mission is to open doors and invite pain and suffering in; Jesus did not absorb pain from a distance and neither can the church.”

“If the church will ever authenticate its claim to be “the answer, the way, the good news,” then we will prove that claim, as Jesus did, among the poor and oppressed.”

“Not only is the slum dehumanizing to the people who dwell there, but a failure to respond to the slum is an indictment on the church.”

And he quotes Robert Lupton concerning the church:

“It is ordained to give itself away, yet without loss. The church, above all earthly symbols, bears the responsibility for declaring in the outpouring of resources, the utter dependability of God. To preserve its life is to lose it.”

But he does not neglect fair warning for the church concerning proper stewardship of that charity. Rather he exhorts her to go beyond “feel good” charity:

“… acts of charity can be dangerous because givers can feel good about actions that actually accomplish very little, or even create dependency.”

“Undisciplined giving can be just as destructive as the poverty it was meant to alleviate.”

“We cannot hope to find our self-worth through our work. If we do, we are actually using the poor to advance our good feelings about ourselves.”

Neither does Dr. Perkins disappoint the reader hoping for “how to” direction. The book goes beyond philosophy as he works to instruct and equip the reader with technique.  Certainly his three R’s are a take home: Relocation, Reconciliation and Redistribution. Concerning the last of the three, this reviewer wouldn’t consider Dr. Perkins a “redistributionist” in the classical sense. Although he does make one reference in advocacy of a nationalized health care plan, he is more so a redistributionist in the purest sense; that in which one’s giving is compelled through Christian conviction and obedience:

“Christ calls us to share with those in need including our skills, technology, and educational resources in a way that empowers people to break out of the cycle of poverty.”

Concerning relocation:

“…we must put ourselves in a place where believers are asking God to incarnate his love in them in order to address the needs around them.”

And concerning reconciliation, this is one of many remarks:

“To reconcile people to God and then to each other is the purpose of the gospel. This is the theology that is the true work of the church.”

Dr. Perkins’ strong feelings concerning the importance of the ministry of reconciliation coincide with his insistence that social works and evangelism should never be separated. In this particular area of the book’s discussion, this reader felt the author issued a subtle rebuke to welfare programs and social justice works that have no Christian mission:

“Evangelism and social responsibility are two sides of one coin. They are inseparable.”

“Jesus never put evangelism and social action at odds with each other, so neither should we.”

“Our ministries, our youth programs, our health centers, our housing projects, our evangelism- all these actions must be motivated out of a love for God.”

In summary, Dr. Perkin’s work resounds that superficial charity has failed and is destined to leave the urban poor without the wholeness that welfare programs, social services and churches often hope to deliver through the simple distribution of material goods and services. Rather, his book boldly challenges any act of charity that shies from the Christian’s Cross- that place where self is lost, love is delivered and life is gained.  This Chinese poem quoted in chapter 2 “Quick Fixes and Felt Needs” is fitting to conclude:

Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what you know
Build on what they have
But of the best leaders
When the task is done
The people will remark
“We’ve done it ourselves.”

 

Beyond Charity can be purchased at Amazon. If you purchase the book through this link, True Charity will earn a small amount as an Amazon Associate

 

 

 

 

This article is just the tip of the iceberg for the practical resources available through the True Charity Network. Check out all of the ways the network can help you learn, connect, and influence here.

Already a member? Access your resources in the member portal.

 

Review: The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky

A review by James Whitford

 

Marvin Olasky’s Tragedy of American Compassion is an in depth review of the history of American charity and its contrast to the welfare system. The author begins with a brief overview of charity in colonial America remarking on the emphasis that charity workers placed on balancing mercy with justice in two primary ways; truly knowing the individual they were helping and being willing to withdraw support when appropriate.  Along with these two principles, he highlights the importance faith, education, family, industry, forethought and self-restraint played in poverty alleviation.

He also differentiates “poverty” and “pauperism,” a persisting distinction throughout the text. Those in poverty are the working poor while those poor who are lackadaisical or “unnecessarily dependent” are paupers.

Tocqueville is introduced at the end of the opening chapter to contrast the already growing European welfare state and the personalized charity of new America. It leaves the reader with an enticing question: Why would America shift back toward a government-based centralized method of helping the poor?

Chapter two introduces Thomas Chalmers, an early 19th century Scottish theologian in Glascow. He created “charity zones” in which discriminate giving was emphasized and government aid excluded. The model was soon copied in America first through the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism and then later through the New York Association for Improving the Condition for the Poor (AICP). The focus of these organizations was to distinguish the “worthy poor” through personal investigation and involvement. Other similar works are highlighted including one in Boston that developed a “black list” of 201 “able-bodied persons who refused to work.”  Olasky remarks that the goal of such organizations was “to make city relations as much as those of the countryside” where love and discipline were married and rights with obligations were the rule of thumb. And, in fact, Olasky spends some time on the discussion of pauperized children in Manhattan being taken in voluntarily by more rural families, the outcomes of which were painted overall as positive but not without the hint of occasional and tragic abuse.

Chalmers and others argued that governmental relief would fatigue charity workers and crowd private charities out and that elected officials giving doles to the poor or workers being paid to do so would be conflicts of interest that should not be ignored. Nonetheless, these types of government solution ideas began to prevail. Primarily, Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune and a Social Universalist promoted that “all men have an equal right to an equal share.”

This thinking became more prominent in the mid and latter 1800’s resulting in a growing consensus that any humane government should care for its poor.  Olasky implies a connection between the universalistic thought and indiscriminate giving that “goes berzerk” in the latter 1800’s within larger cities. The exasperation of endless lines of people seeking “outdoor relief” (which he paints as not only indiscriminate but also demoralizing and depersonalized) led to a growing counter-thought: Social Darwinism.  This ideology, defined as a natural and “beneficent purging of the social organism” by “excreting the unhealthy, imbecile and slow members of society” is discussed at length.

Olasky indicates that between the universalistic and darwinistic camps, true charity and effective compassion reside. He applauds the work of Humphrey Gurteen’s Charity Organization Society in Buffalo in the 1890’s that established work tests to determine those deserving of relief and Josephine Lowell who condemned indiscriminate giving and required “investigating applicants” before distributing resource.

Before the turn of the century, outdoor relief was out and the thoughts of Gurteen and Lowell were in.  Scores of “points of light” charities and their successes are highlighted in chapter five as they employ Olasky’s seven marks of compassion:

  1. Affiliation: Reconnection or involvement of family
  2. Bonding: Personal relationship development with the poor
  3. Categorization: Different individuals require different help
  4. Discernment: The tool for categorization provided through bonding
  5. Employment: Work should be required
  6. Freedom: Liberty to rise or fall
  7. God

Before the Great Depression, Olasky notes an unfortunate return toward a universalistic “social gospel” movement.  This was born much from a change in perspective; one that viewed the forest rather than the tree. That is, the presence of poverty in general distracted many from a continued belief that focusing on the one was society’s answer.  The focus led to attempts to organize city charities through “Charity Organization Societies” that would screen applicants before referring them to various points of light and for those who favored government answers, the pressure for a grand solution bolstered the Universalist’s hope of a welfare state. In the eighth chapter, Olasky descriptively portrays the excitement of America at the turn of the 19th century.  The energy and pervasive hope of a solution to all of society’s poverty-related problems took the previously mentioned “social gospel” one step further; that if man is provided the right environment and the right amount of aid, immorality including laziness, theft and the like would simply cease.  This re-awakened “Greely-concept” turned even more of the populous to believe that the centralizing power of government would be the only way to provide such a utopia. And in 1909, under the Taft administration, the first real vision of a federal welfare program is launched at the “White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children” proposing aid to children, widows and single mothers.  Although not noted by Olasky, this reviewer found it ironic that this was the very year in which the 16th amendment was proposed that would later constitutionalize the federal income tax.

Concomitant with the onset of the Depression and Roosevelt’s New Deal, the field of social work took a prominent place in charity effort. Olasky indicates this “professionalization” of charity leads to less voluntary involvement and relaxes the conviction to give financially.  In chapter 10, the tragedy worsens. In hopes of the Great Society of the 1960’s, the author indicates a shift in public opinion from poverty’s solution found in right relief to relief as a right.  This new war on poverty propagated more than a thousand “neighborhood service centers,” the goal of which was to establish welfare benefits as rights and convince all that dignity and dependency could, in fact, co-exist. This new “recruitment” approach fit hand in glove with the National Welfare Rights Organization that had a focus on “mobilizing the poor” as it trained them “to demand payments, not ask for them.” Olasky remarks here that many churches had, by then, succumbed to the notion that social justice equates to material wealth.

In the concluding chapters, Olasky points out three “big losers” evident in the 1970’s and 80’s: 1) Social mobility, that is the freedom to rise or fall, 2) private charities and 3) marriage. He argues that welfare at that time dis-incentivized risk to get off the dole, that its ample availability competitively crowded out private charities that challenged their clients and that it replaced the provider role in the household diminishing the importance of marriage.

In the final two chapters, Olasky delves into the word “compassion” and specifically the change of public definition. He remarks that compassion is now more measured by material distribution than by application of personal challenge and requirement of responsibility.   Regarding compassion as the proper and physical expression of charity, he claims from a Biblical perspective that compassion should be conditional and carefully applied as opposed to “Velcro compassion” that is applied with ease and one size that fits all.  In conclusion, he argues that true compassion is not what America models today, but more than 100 years ago when personal involvement led to personal challenge and an impetus to take the hand up and raise oneself from the mire of poverty.

 

The Tragedy of American Compassion can be purchased at Amazon. If you purchase the book through this link, True Charity will earn a small amount as an Amazon Associate

 

 

 

 

This article is just the tip of the iceberg for the practical resources available through the True Charity Network. Check out all of the ways the network can help you learn, connect, and influence here.

Already a member? Access your resources in the member portal.