Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream

Capitalizing on his earlier work, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself (2014), Brian Fikkert partnered with Kelly Kapic to offer us another resource that challenges and equips Christians who long to help alleviate poverty around the world. The big story (or the metanarrative) that one lives by is not benign; rather, it really matters. Fikkert and Kapic show us how to identify and jettison false metanarratives, like the American dream, expressive individualism, and consumerism. That way, we can appropriate and live by the true big story found in Scripture for the sake of escorting the poor from their impoverishment to a flourishing position, for the sake of our flourishing and personal wholeness, and for the sake of the flourishing of our communities and cities. If you think When Helping Hurts “scrambled your eggs,” expect for this gem of a book to do likewise.