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Shrewd Samaritan: Faith, Economics, and the Road to Loving Our Global Neighbor
Learn to live the message of the Good Samaritan and make a global impact, using the resources already at your disposal.
If there were a popularity contest among all the parables of Jesus, the Good Samaritan would probably win. Nobody is against the Good Samaritan because being against the Good Samaritan is like being against Mother Theresa or Oskar Schindler or the firefighters who ran into the World Trade Center. In that same popularity contest, the Shrewd Manager would probably finish last. The Shrewd Manager is lazy, deceitful, and double-crossing. Yet in this alluringly freakish parable, Jesus actually holds up the Shrewd Manager as an example, as he does with the Good Samaritan.
This book is about learning to live the message of the Good Samaritan in the context of the globalized world of the twenty-first century. This means learning to love our global neighbor wisely by harnessing the resources at our disposal—our time, talents, opportunities, and money—on behalf of those who are victims of injustice, disease, violence, and poverty.
The early disciples were pretty clueless about worldly resources such as time, talent, and money—and unfortunately today we still don’t really get it. There are too many kind, well-intentioned twenty-first-century people with indisputably good intentions but whose impact on the needy is hampered by their inability to diagnose problems properly, harness the resources available to them to solve the right problems, and understand cause-and-effect relationships.
Shrewd Samaritan will help develop a framework to better love and care for our neighbors in an age of globalization, when the people in our neighborhoods, or at least those in our potential sphere of influence, has expanded dramatically. Increasingly it will become our global neighbor who takes us out of our comfort zone and challenges us with the needs of a broken world.
If there were a popularity contest among all the parables of Jesus, the Good Samaritan would probably win. Nobody is against the Good Samaritan because being against the Good Samaritan is like being against Mother Theresa or Oskar Schindler or the firefighters who ran into the World Trade Center. In that same popularity contest, the Shrewd Manager would probably finish last. The Shrewd Manager is lazy, deceitful, and double-crossing. Yet in this alluringly freakish parable, Jesus actually holds up the Shrewd Manager as an example, as he does with the Good Samaritan.
This book is about learning to live the message of the Good Samaritan in the context of the globalized world of the twenty-first century. This means learning to love our global neighbor wisely by harnessing the resources at our disposal—our time, talents, opportunities, and money—on behalf of those who are victims of injustice, disease, violence, and poverty.
The early disciples were pretty clueless about worldly resources such as time, talent, and money—and unfortunately today we still don’t really get it. There are too many kind, well-intentioned twenty-first-century people with indisputably good intentions but whose impact on the needy is hampered by their inability to diagnose problems properly, harness the resources available to them to solve the right problems, and understand cause-and-effect relationships.
Shrewd Samaritan will help develop a framework to better love and care for our neighbors in an age of globalization, when the people in our neighborhoods, or at least those in our potential sphere of influence, has expanded dramatically. Increasingly it will become our global neighbor who takes us out of our comfort zone and challenges us with the needs of a broken world.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 9, 2019
27 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Wydick
6 books4 followersBruce Wydick is professor of economics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. He has published academic articles in leading economics journals and was the lead investigator of the worldwide impact study of Compassion International's child sponsorship program.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 27, 2019
“Without heart we are unmotivated to engage the poor and needy. Without mind, we do so ineffectually. Heart and mind are the twins of fruitful engagement with our global neighbor.” (Page 149)
In Shrewd Samaritan, Dr. Bruce Wydick points out that many of us spend far more time researching an expensive item we are purchasing for ourselves than we spend researching the effectiveness of the programs and organizations we donate money to. But how do we even begin to understand the complexity of poverty intervention? One of the aims of this book is to make the complex topic of global poverty alleviation efforts more accessible to the non-academic.
Shrewd Samaritan is one of the most helpful books I've ever read on the topic of global development. It discusses some introductory ethics ideas to lay a framework for poverty alleviation. What are we actually trying to do? From there he moves into an overview of some of the contributing factors of global inequality and why some economies are poor while some economies are wealthy. He is thorough enough to be effective, but accessible enough to be easily understood by people like myself with no formal economics education.
Then he talks about specific forms of poverty intervention and how effective they are. He draws information from academic researchers who have rigorously studied different forms of poverty alleviation and quantifies their effectiveness using an easily understood five star rating system. How effective are child sponsorship programs? How effective is micro-credit lending? These efforts and many more are examined, analyzed, and explained to give the reader an understanding of the most effective use of the time and finances they wish to contribute to poverty intervention efforts.
The book's title comes from Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10, and the parable of the Shrewd Manager from Luke 16. Dr. Bruce Wydick speaks as a Christian researcher, and his faith does shape his approach to the ethics of development. If you disagree with his spiritual views, I would still encourage you to give the book a read.
And finally, the book concludes with a fascinating appendix, "Sinister Tips for Mission Trips." In the style of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, this section gives us a glimpse into the email correspondence from a senior demon to a junior demon on the best way to make a short term mission trip as ineffective and harmful as possible. It's an entertaining, thought-provoking conclusion to the book.
Without a doubt, Shrewd Samaritan is one of the most helpful books for understanding how to be effective in global poverty intervention efforts. It is a book I will be recommending to all who are interested in learning more about this topic.
In Shrewd Samaritan, Dr. Bruce Wydick points out that many of us spend far more time researching an expensive item we are purchasing for ourselves than we spend researching the effectiveness of the programs and organizations we donate money to. But how do we even begin to understand the complexity of poverty intervention? One of the aims of this book is to make the complex topic of global poverty alleviation efforts more accessible to the non-academic.
Shrewd Samaritan is one of the most helpful books I've ever read on the topic of global development. It discusses some introductory ethics ideas to lay a framework for poverty alleviation. What are we actually trying to do? From there he moves into an overview of some of the contributing factors of global inequality and why some economies are poor while some economies are wealthy. He is thorough enough to be effective, but accessible enough to be easily understood by people like myself with no formal economics education.
Then he talks about specific forms of poverty intervention and how effective they are. He draws information from academic researchers who have rigorously studied different forms of poverty alleviation and quantifies their effectiveness using an easily understood five star rating system. How effective are child sponsorship programs? How effective is micro-credit lending? These efforts and many more are examined, analyzed, and explained to give the reader an understanding of the most effective use of the time and finances they wish to contribute to poverty intervention efforts.
The book's title comes from Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10, and the parable of the Shrewd Manager from Luke 16. Dr. Bruce Wydick speaks as a Christian researcher, and his faith does shape his approach to the ethics of development. If you disagree with his spiritual views, I would still encourage you to give the book a read.
And finally, the book concludes with a fascinating appendix, "Sinister Tips for Mission Trips." In the style of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, this section gives us a glimpse into the email correspondence from a senior demon to a junior demon on the best way to make a short term mission trip as ineffective and harmful as possible. It's an entertaining, thought-provoking conclusion to the book.
Without a doubt, Shrewd Samaritan is one of the most helpful books for understanding how to be effective in global poverty intervention efforts. It is a book I will be recommending to all who are interested in learning more about this topic.
January 18, 2025
Good start for people looking to do good in the most ethical way
April 10, 2021
It feels ungrateful to be irritated at Wydick for not pushing far enough towards the importance of impact in making decisions about to help others. He’s definitely trying to push Christians to be more thoughtful in their charity, and overall the book probably does that. But I think he doesn’t push far enough — he is too concerned with the effect that a philanthropic act has on the philanthropist, and not enough on the effect it has on the people the act is intended to help.
Partly this comes from his belief that God does not value good acts primarily in terms of their utilitarian outcomes. But also it comes from a belief on his part that mostly people won’t be that motivated by statistics, and need personal connection in order to do good. I hope he is underestimating the extent to which people can be impersonally selfless. He’s pushing for an incremental expansion of our circle of compassion — I want a more radical increase. But maybe I am too optimistic.
He also raises a good point that Amartya Sen’s framework of development as freedom doesn’t allow us to condemn increases in immoral behavior resulting from economic development (e.g., increased internet access increasing consumption of porn). This raises an interesting tension: Should people working in development be focused on only development outcomes? Or on morality outcomes as well? If you are a government I think the answer is pretty clear — you should be focused on only development and not morality. If you are a religiously-based charity the answer is also clear — morality is important. But what if you are an NGO? Or a company? Or an individual attempting to make the world a better place? The answers here are much less clear.
Partly this comes from his belief that God does not value good acts primarily in terms of their utilitarian outcomes. But also it comes from a belief on his part that mostly people won’t be that motivated by statistics, and need personal connection in order to do good. I hope he is underestimating the extent to which people can be impersonally selfless. He’s pushing for an incremental expansion of our circle of compassion — I want a more radical increase. But maybe I am too optimistic.
He also raises a good point that Amartya Sen’s framework of development as freedom doesn’t allow us to condemn increases in immoral behavior resulting from economic development (e.g., increased internet access increasing consumption of porn). This raises an interesting tension: Should people working in development be focused on only development outcomes? Or on morality outcomes as well? If you are a government I think the answer is pretty clear — you should be focused on only development and not morality. If you are a religiously-based charity the answer is also clear — morality is important. But what if you are an NGO? Or a company? Or an individual attempting to make the world a better place? The answers here are much less clear.
November 11, 2019
Sometimes Shrewd Samaritan reads like a solid piece of economic writing especially when it discusses the merits of various kinds of interventions but then it gets a little wishy-washy including, for instance, when the author goes through a personal anecdote from his college days. There are also times when the author appears to sneak in a religious agenda. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Christian and that's why I think we should be able to speak of matters of faith boldly without a weak veneer of science perhaps in order to make the subject appealing to non-Christians.
Other smaller issues were that the book was a little verbose. Some subjects occupying multiple pages could have been discussed much quicker. There also seemed to be a disproportionate level of focus on organizations the author is affiliated to including Mayan Partners, Give Directly and Compassion International. This subtle bias made me read with a dose of skepticism and both issues overall made for a tedious read.
That said, I learned several things from this book. Including that many humanitarian efforts have not been rigorously validated but that deworming and cash transfers are extremely effective interventions. And that laptops are not.
I think this book is a little all over the place. For what it's worth, the author does say at the beginning that it's for all people including Christians and non-Christians and perhaps that's the problem.
Other smaller issues were that the book was a little verbose. Some subjects occupying multiple pages could have been discussed much quicker. There also seemed to be a disproportionate level of focus on organizations the author is affiliated to including Mayan Partners, Give Directly and Compassion International. This subtle bias made me read with a dose of skepticism and both issues overall made for a tedious read.
That said, I learned several things from this book. Including that many humanitarian efforts have not been rigorously validated but that deworming and cash transfers are extremely effective interventions. And that laptops are not.
I think this book is a little all over the place. For what it's worth, the author does say at the beginning that it's for all people including Christians and non-Christians and perhaps that's the problem.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2020
Things I liked:
- clear list and three dimensional ranking of 20 types of charity-related interventions around the world.
- criticism of effective altruism for avoiding elements of dignity
- clearly outline dilemas between donating effectively to the “invisible” poor abroad, and helping the poor in your own community. With excellent examples on homelessness in the Bay Area.
What I didn’t like:
- the complete disregard of government policies as a channel for Shrewd Samaritans. In some sense is the best representation of a attitude that I have perceive in the development community as “libertarianism-by-omission”
- despite the great job a posing the dilema of helping homeless people here vs poor abroad, I did not get much of an answer. Probably because there is in one!
- clear list and three dimensional ranking of 20 types of charity-related interventions around the world.
- criticism of effective altruism for avoiding elements of dignity
- clearly outline dilemas between donating effectively to the “invisible” poor abroad, and helping the poor in your own community. With excellent examples on homelessness in the Bay Area.
What I didn’t like:
- the complete disregard of government policies as a channel for Shrewd Samaritans. In some sense is the best representation of a attitude that I have perceive in the development community as “libertarianism-by-omission”
- despite the great job a posing the dilema of helping homeless people here vs poor abroad, I did not get much of an answer. Probably because there is in one!
January 21, 2020
This is the best book that I've ever read on the topic of effective altruism. The author provides several useful frameworks for not only better understanding poverty but also on dealing with our own biases as altruists. I also loved that the book goes beyond ROI-based methods and explores the critical dimension of improving human dignity. Would highly recommend.
July 21, 2021
This is a very excellent book. The author goes through many of the charitable causes that are at work in foreign countries and discusses and explains how effective they are. He comes at things from an economic and religious perspective which is very cool and helpful. I highly recommend this book and will probably listen again.
March 3, 2023
Excellent book by an economist about how to be wise in our giving. The book focuses on eradicating poverty on a global scale and has so many great suggestions to make sure donations actually make a difference. Highly recommend that you all read this. You are welcome to borrow my copy!
November 10, 2025
The best book I've read on the subject of helping the global poor. Wydick, an economist, provides a very clear proscription, with documented case studies, of which proverty intervention have impact and which don't. You'll be surprised--and much better informed--by his conclusions.
September 21, 2019
Will be a staple in my reference library on Humanitarian Aid. Joins "When Helping Hurts," "The Locust Effect," and "Rooting for Rivals."
December 30, 2019
Lots of good stuff here.
Would love a longer conversation with the author about the positives and negatives of child sponsorship.
Would love a longer conversation with the author about the positives and negatives of child sponsorship.
July 22, 2023
Aimed at people living in the global north wanting to understand how they can positively impact someone living in poverty across the globe, this book encapsulates the worst of mainstream, neoliberal economics that very much continues to contribute to the issue of global poverty whilst convincing itself it is resolving this issue
The mainstream ideology this book is rooted in is apparent in stating that Chinese economic development took off as soon as individual initiative began to be rewarded under Deng Xiaoping's reforms - a clear misunderstanding and ahistorical analysis of China's recent economic development
The author's dismissal of colonisation's impact on (under)development and ignorance of imperialism and neocolonialism is clear in overlooking the settler-colonial nature of Australia, Canada and the USA that required the genocide of local population on its path to prosperity and incorrectly stating that Italy, Japan and Norway were non-colonisers
The author's Western Judeo-Christian framework and worldview is apparent throughout the book as stated in his belief that this very worldview likely helped foster certain cultural values around work and property rights that created the impetus for the development of institutions in Europe that led to broad-based prosperity, again a false retelling of history
Bleeding heart liberalism and an holier-than-thou sentiment underlined the book and reading and understanding that this view is shared by many in the "development" sphere very much makes clear that this industry will continue to extract and underdevelop the global south under the guises of targeted, technical poverty alleviation - a case of knowing your enemy for those wiser to this
The mainstream ideology this book is rooted in is apparent in stating that Chinese economic development took off as soon as individual initiative began to be rewarded under Deng Xiaoping's reforms - a clear misunderstanding and ahistorical analysis of China's recent economic development
The author's dismissal of colonisation's impact on (under)development and ignorance of imperialism and neocolonialism is clear in overlooking the settler-colonial nature of Australia, Canada and the USA that required the genocide of local population on its path to prosperity and incorrectly stating that Italy, Japan and Norway were non-colonisers
The author's Western Judeo-Christian framework and worldview is apparent throughout the book as stated in his belief that this very worldview likely helped foster certain cultural values around work and property rights that created the impetus for the development of institutions in Europe that led to broad-based prosperity, again a false retelling of history
Bleeding heart liberalism and an holier-than-thou sentiment underlined the book and reading and understanding that this view is shared by many in the "development" sphere very much makes clear that this industry will continue to extract and underdevelop the global south under the guises of targeted, technical poverty alleviation - a case of knowing your enemy for those wiser to this
January 24, 2022
As a person concerned about the poor I found this book fascinating. As not from the US i skipped those bits and some of the very technical economics parts. But the overall story of what is really effective and some really positive suggestions on how best to serve the poor with time talents and money was great.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews