Resources: Approaching action
As a senior majoring in International Development, I’ve been involved for the past four years on my campus working to promote education and action on social justice issues. These resources have proven useful to expand my understanding of how the world works and how to approach action around these issues.
BOOK: The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
by Jeffrey Sachs (Penguin)
This is the classic big plan book and I mean that as a good thing. Jeffrey
Sachs lays out a framework he calls clinical economics to get countries on
the ladder of development towards prosperity. The book focuses on increasing
foreign aid and using technology. It calls for high levels of investment
in education, healthcare and infrastructure. Many of the more recent
books looking at development either build on this work or clearly critique
it.
BOOK: The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid
the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
by William Easterly (Penguin)
William Easterly used to work for the World Bank so he knows the
system. This is his second book and well worth the read. In Easterly’s
world big plans have been tried before and are bound to fail. The key
is to create the flexibility to allow local people to be creative in their
solutions. Programs like micro-loans and paying families to keep their
kids in school are highly encouraged. Recommended reading after reading End
of Poverty, as the book is written largely as a response to Sachs.
BOOK: Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda
by Peter Uvin (Kumerian Press)
This book most closely aligns with my own view of development. Uvin
looks at how development agencies not only failed to created development in
Rwanda but may have helped create conditions that made the genocide more likely. His
analysis rejects some of the classical explanations for what happened such
as environmental constraints or structural adjustments and instead puts forward
a theory that argues for re-orientation of the way organizations view development
focusing much more on human rights and empowerment.
FILM: Frontline: Age of AIDS
Renate Simone, Series producer (PBS)
Full program online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/
I finally saw this documentary this past fall and I was blown away. This
documentary does not pull any punches as to how ambivalent most powers were
to the emerging AIDS crisis. I felt angered and inspired by the people
in this film, many who were dying and screaming at a system that was indifferent
or hostile to what was killing them.
BOOK: Shaking the System: What I Learned from the Great American
Reform Movements
by Tim Stafford (IVP Books)
This is a recent book that read over Christmas break and was really
glad I moved it to the front of my reading pile. Stafford shows how
evangelical Christians have had large roles to play in many of the major social
movements in U.S. history. He uses them to draw lessons for social activists
in the church today, looking at not just the successes but the failures and
tough decisions activists had to make along the way.
BOOK: Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity,
Otherness, and Reconciliation
by Miroslav Volf (Abingdon Press)
The idea of embracing the other is a scary one. Yet, Volf does a great
job of explaining how, as a clear extension of the narrative of salvation
as reconciliation, we are called to reconcile with the other. Volf is
a Croatian scholar, who suffered with his family in the violence of the Balkan
wars and was imprisoned and tortured. His style of writing is densely
academic, so read slowly, read in small sections, and don’t hesitate
to skip ahead and come back to something if you get mired in a particular
section; it’s worth the effort.
BOOK: The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice,
from the Civil Rights Movement to Today
by Charles Marsh (Perseus Books)
I picked up this book this past summer and was immediately hooked. Marsh
comes from a Baptist background and was a welcome voice from outside my own
Reformed theological background. He looks at the civil rights movement
showing its strength was best used when it engaged in incarnational transformation
and organizing. The book uses the successes and failures of the civil
rights movement to show the way forward for Christians who hope to create
a society more oriented towards social justice, but who want to remain deeply
and authentically Christian.
BOOK: The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide
to Hope in a Time of Fear
edited By Paul Rogat Loeb (Basic Books)
One of the things that people who work for justice constantly struggle
with is that fact that change seems to be slow or non-existent, and hope is
hard to find. This book provides a variety of essays to help people
keep hope in the face of slow change, cynicism and setbacks.
FILM: Night and Fog
directed by Alain Resnais (Criterion)
When I saw this French film for the first time, I was moved to tears. This
movie was released in 1955 and looks at the Nazi genocide. It explores
the spaces used to keep people in misery and how they were eliminated.
BOOK & FILM: Evil and the Justice of God
by N.T. Wright (IVP)
The book and film tread the same ground, the book being based on
a series of filmed lectures by N.T. Wright. One of the major problems
for social justice people is looking out at the world and being paralyzed
by the amount of evil that we see. These materials attempt to put together
a framework for understanding and responding to violence.
BOOK: S.: A Novel about the Balkans
by Slavenka Drakulic (Penguin)
Even though it is a fictionalized account this is not an easy book
to read. The language is direct and does not let you look away from what is
one of the worst aspects of ethnic cleansing, rape. I hesitated adding
this book to list because of both how angry and how sad this book made me. It
is set in Bosnia during the Bosnia war and follows the story of S. examining
what happens to her as she experiences what thousands of Muslim women experienced
during the course of the war.
BOOKS: Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter
Watch for Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas
(Orbis Books)
I include these two books together because they are similar in their
intent even though they cover different portions of the liturgical calendar. These
books contain readings for every day of these church seasons that point towards
justice and wider reaching Christianity. They have a little bit for
everyone including authors such as C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther, Jurgen Moltmann
and many others from across the map of Christianity.
BOOK: Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
by N.T. Wright (HarperOne)
N.T. Wright gave a lecture at my college last January. While his simple
apologetic is good, the real value of this book and of the talk for me was
the call to justice and to works towards beauty. Clearly written and
designed for a general audience it makes me very happy to see a call to work
towards beauty and justice included in a book that seeks to introduce and
argue for Christianity instead of pushing it the periphery of the faith.
BOOK: Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions
with Cultural Intelligence
by David A. Livermore (Baker)
I have become quite skeptical of short term mission trips even though
I’ve participated in two different study abroad programs during college,
so I say that as someone who at least recently participated in short term
cross-cultural experiences. This book provides a framework for people
looking at traveling and doing short term work abroad. Livermore uses
stories and examples to show how people should think about gaining cultural
intelligence. The book is not a list of cultural dos and don’ts
for a society but rather a framework for how to think about cross cultural
encounters.
