The Soft Neocolonialism of 'Gentrification with Justice'

by

Global UMC

If you operate in a nonprofit or church setting that frequently works with or sends out short-term mission teams, you’ve likely heard of Robert Lupton’s contemporary classic on reinventing systems of mercy, Toxic Charity. The book is a primer on recently shifting trends in short-term (particularly international) missions undertaken by Americans, and examines why our old missiology is undergoing much-needed renovation. Among my colleagues, it is usually read in tandem with other books like Corbett and Fikkert’s When Helping Hurts.

Mr. Lupton came to a local church in St. Louis at the invitation of local leaders last year, and I had the pleasure of sitting down over a meal with him and other colleagues in ministry. Lupton’s overarching message is a tough one we need to hear more often: The way we’ve been doing mission and charity for a very long time is mostly selfish, unsustainable, and overall damaging to the communities where we seek to bring justice. Over the past year, Lupton has been working and thinking through a follow-up to Toxic Charity that will focus on his desire to move what he calls the “poverty needle” the other direction. It is his recommended tactics in moving the needle, however, and the privileged philosophy behind them that deserve some critical analysis.

In a recent blog post dated October 21, Lupton offers a critique of what he views as “feel-good” mission:

So when an affluent American church says they are building a relationship with a poor African church, what value are they expecting to gain? Relationship-talk is common among churches these days. It usually means something like: “We are not giving them money, not much anyway, not yet. We want to establish a relationship first, get to know them, build mutual trust. Then perhaps we will find healthy ways to invest together in ministry. But it’s the relationship that’s most important.” This is familiar, politically correct mission-speak that’s currently in vogue.

In criticizing “political correctness,” Lupton already belies his prejudices against a more human approach to missions, despite his supposed attempts to dismantle a patriarchal mode of outreach. Regardless, his position is clear: We are fooling ourselves if we think we really should be about meeting people when on mission trips. We need to have objectives, and those should be economic, not relational. To a degree, he’s right. Anyone who’s ever spent any time in the airport in Port-Au-Prince with the overwhelming throngs of white American short-term missionaries with matching fluorescent t-shirts can tell you how much money we spend to fly to other countries just to “come alongside” people. Lupton continues:

Come on. Is cultural exchange really what we want? Don’t we really want to do something? Build something. Help someone? Don’t we really want to effect change, make a difference?

How long do we have to wait around pen-pal-ing and guest-swapping before we actually accomplish something of significance? (italics original)

This hyperbolic (at least I hope it is) downplay of the face-to-face significance of real relational evangelism is simply irresponsible. Lupton recommends that we shift our focus from making things (schools, churches, orphanages) to making jobs. And who is best at making jobs? Western businessmen (usually mentioned as men), eager and eagle-eyed investors, should be traveling in place of our mission teams to seek out promising entrepreneurs in developing countries and partner with them.

Yes, it is high time we re-imagine our missiology for a re-imagined global market where things like international microloans exist. No, we cannot afford for this re-imagining to yet again be led by white businessmen from the West. In another post from earlier this year, Lupton defines what he views a positive alternative to domestic missiology, “gentrification with justice.” Instead of white middle-class and upper-middle-class residents moving into an area and displacing, over time, the current poorer residents (frequently people of color), Lupton posits modifications to the process. This process can benefit all residents of the community when “[c]onnected neighbors have access to political leaders who control government purse strings,” when “low-income residents are included in the planning, implementation and on-going life of their reviving neighborhood,” and when “[e]ducated neighbors insist on quality schools.”

All of these suggestions, on their face, would be a positive step towards shifting our methods of urban planning to be more just. And yet, they still move in a unilateral direction. They still require a giver and a recipient. We don’t need neighbors to have access to political leaders. We need our low-income neighbors to be political leaders. In hoping for a revival (literally “life again”) of a neighborhood, we operate under an assumption that life did not exist before, that God was not already at work. When we hope for our low-income neighbors’ insistence on quality schools, we haven’t seen their constant insistence, disappointment, and frustration at the public school system. We haven’t been listening.

In attempting to offer a new paradigm for mission, and indeed a new missiology for us as Jesus-followers, Lupton instead offers a soft neocolonialist approach: a cadre of Western capitalist investors (traveling domestically and abroad) dressed in a benign cloak of justice.

So what’s a good example for a just alternative? In a comprehensive green paper released by what was formerly the United Neighborhood Centers of America (now the Alliance for Children and Families) several years ago, strong recommendations were made for local non-monetary systems of exchange:

Neighborhood centers must develop systems that enhance the ability of participants to discover and share individual assets and services. This system should link the personal assets of individuals and families and create a non-traditional exchange of talents, goods, and services through barter or families-to-family transfers. For example, a stay-at-home parent might provide childcare to parents who must work away from home in exchange for shared use of a vehicle. The system would facilitate locating and exchanging similar assets while minimizing the reliance on money as part of the change.

Note the differences here from what Lupton’s blog posts recommend. There is no mention of bringing in outside investors to inject cash into a local economy. In fact, this posited system runs not on the absence of cash, but on the already present assets of the community. The neighborhood center acts as a starter or host hub in which new paradigms flourish, not as an actor that influences the paradigm itself.

When people of privilege are used to being the catalysts for social change, we fear the unknown of not always having the right solution to everything, or of allowing others to make their own decisions. These are precisely what any new missiology calls for. If we believe that God is already at work, even in situations that appear to our patriarchal eyes as hopeless without our guiding hand, then what we need to do is join in on that work, to seek out the Spirit’s richly varied means of salvation, rather than define the poor in our own image.

Kenneth J. Pruitt directs the volunteer program at a medium-sized nonprofit, and is a certified candidate for deacon's orders in the Missouri Conference of the UMC. This post is reprinted with permission from UMC Lead.