first of all, i should make clear that i am not a christian. secondly, i am not prejudiced against christians.
a very dear friend of mine is heavily involved in christian charities. for instance, organisations that operate hospitals in third world countries and run parallel evangelistic outfits.
while i doubt that the evangelistic side is completely discrete from the charity side, i’m definitely sure that they do not go so far as to make their charity conditional on conversion to christianity. still, the gratitude of the aid recipient would make them more susceptible to conversion, imho.
everyone has the right to trumpet the rightness of their faith and everyone has the right to help other people. i admire these missionaries for all the good work they do, but something about the idea of both concepts going together unsettles me.
That pretty much says it for me. What’s the problem, if there’s no pressure on the grateful recipients of, say, dental care, to become a Christian? The missionaries aren’t to blame if the guy with the new fillings in his teeth feels guilty about not accepting Jesus into his heart. It’s his problem, not theirs.
Churches can be quite good at organising, coordinating and drumming up support for a needy cause. Of course this isn’t the only way in which people can be helped, but I believe it is a completely valid one. The alternative is what? Suppressing Christian organisations from getting involved?
Well, if you buy the traditional theory of evangelical Christianity that in fact we are all doomed by our native inability to live perfect lives, and that God offers a way out of that, then the act of trying to get people to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior is a good thing – not only are the recipients getting charitable help for their earthly problems, but they’re being saved from an eternity of punishment for their sins.
Naturally, if you don’t think the above is the case, then it becomes an act of “pushing your religion on people in need.” But it’s worth contemplating what the motives of the Christians running such groups are. From their perspective, they’re providing two kinds of necessary help.
In addition, things like Church World Service, the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief, and other church-based groups do not do any active evangelism – their motive is to follow the commands of Christ to help those who need it: “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto Me.”
Personally, I think it’s done more for the example than active evangelism. Most of these groups make no secret of the fact that they are Christian groups, but rarely is there an executive order on conversion.
That’s not to say that an individual working there might not evangelize some, but if you walk through the front door of “We Love Jesus Hospital”, you can probably assume that you’re going to hear someone mention Jesus when you get inside.
As Mangetout said, I don’t see an alternative. In all honesty, I don’t see an issue with evangelism coupled with charity anyway, as it’s their money/food/medicine that they’re giving away. As long as they make it clear that that’s their purpose for those who wish to give money to the charity, fine. I think most Christians, however, would find the idea of turning away the sick and the hungry for their refusal to convert to be a twisted ideal, and not really a Christian one.
This is the strangest point of view I have heard today. Christian organizations are supposed to be charitable. That is part of what being a good Christian is. It is almost a religious requirement that a Christian based organization to provide charity and you somehow think that is improper? Next you will be telling us the Shriner’s shouldn’t be supporting those kid’s hospitals because it might put pressure on them to put on funny hats and ride in circles on motorcycles.
the question is whether or not forcing people to worship your god to receive needed aid is actually charity at all. I personally don’t think so, in fact, it is more like forcing people to blaspheme in order to not die. Evil really.
Here in America, it is not as big a deal, but in many third world countries, where the situation is more dire, it is more clear.
To be fair, I had addressed both in my reply to the OP. My point was not that it would be charitable to give food to someone in exchange for their conversion, but that it would be the rightful decision of the charitable organization to do so, if they did. Once again, provided they made this clear when accepting charity donations.
In my opinion this would not be a Christian ideal, but I could see it happening and receiving some donations from people for that purpose. In most cases with these types of organizations, I don’t think it goes to the extreme of ‘love God or go hungry’, although there may be a required church service or something after the meal.
If it’s your orgaization and your food, do with it what you will. It’s up to donors and supporters to understand the organizations they’re behind in order to support the ones they believe are doing the right thing.
yes, they genuinely believe Christ is right, so let’s show others the ‘true path’.
and yes, they are really doing a lot of good. (i’ve actively supported one of these organisations myself.)
it is just the juxtaposition of the two that somehow niggles at me.
i’m a third-worlder myself and have seen some of the more, shall we say, ‘mercenary’ missionaries at work. an extreme example, but it was enlightening, to say the least. the propaganda seemed quite smothering to a nondenominational person like me. one could easily get bulldozed into conversion. there were many factors involved from the recipient’s POV…the missionary was giving him aid, the missionary was a gora, no one else helped as much as this missionary so do what he says.
i just feel that even despite points 1, 2 and 3 above, it is slightly exploitative.
of course, i should also make clear that, so far as i am concerned, let all mission charities flourish. i dont care about religion, and so, if good is being done somewhere, that’s all that matters, really.
aasna, the Ancient Order of the Mystic Shrine (I’m missing an adjective in there somewhere) is, much like the Freemasons, a group of men who get together to do odd rituals, have fun, and espouse charitable practices. Among the things the Shriners are most involved in is the construction of crippled children’s hospitals and clinics and the payment of therapy and devices for crippled children whose family do not have the means to provide it – having just finished a temp. job on records management for a chain of prosthetic/orthotic clinics, I can vouch for them doing a lot of the latter personally – I’ve seen the bills they paid!
I see your point, aasna, on the subtle pressuring to join the group that’s providing help, and yes, there are unethical folks out there running evangelistic groups. All I can say is, the ethical ones are doing what they do overtly and for what they conceive of as good purposes (and in general I agree), and pressure tactics are not ethical.
Jesus gave all of his charitable gifts freely, without any sort of pressure at all (to the best of my recollection). If I were a christian charitable group, I would think that I would want to follow his example.
Leading by example would be “See the good works that we do? If you are interested in learning more, stop by later and we can discuss it.” not “Before we eat, everyone please bow their heads in prayer.”
Charity, by definition, is giving FREELY to those in need. If the participants have to engage in anything other than the gift, then it is a barter. Kind of like those timeshare salesmen that offer you a free weekend in a nice hotel, if you just “give them 2 hours of your time for a small presentation.”
No one would say that timeshare salesmen are doing charitable work, they are trading. I think the same applies to christian groups.
Legally I think that they should be allowed to do whatever they want, short of torture. Spiritually, I think that it is awful.
Right, I don’t think there are any Christians here who would disagree with that. Poly and I have essentially said as much.
It’s not really a Christian charity vs. non-Christian charity, but some Christian charities versus others. As I was pointing out, I think most of the evangelizing is on the part of local individuals or perhaps leaders who support it. From my possibly limited knowledge of Christian charities, there does not seem to be a great expression of this policy.
Out of curiousity Exion, what would you see as an overt requirement on the part of a religious charity? IOW, when would you see them as crossing the line?
I used to do voluntary work for a faith-based Christian charity promoting fair trade in the developing world. They were quite up-front and open about being a Christian organization - but they were (and are) concerned with providing aid, not with evangelism. The aid they provide is given because they’re Christians (and they don’t keep that a secret, nor should they), but it’s entirely secular in nature, and there’s no religious requirement on the recipients. In fact, the charity in question has worked closely with at least one faith-based Islamic charity which has similar aims - neither group was seeking converts, both were discharging what they felt was a religious obligation to do good in the world - and they could do that more effectively by working together.
My experience is that most of the big religious charities - groups like Christian Aid or CAFOD, for example - operate on exactly this basis. Evangelism is not what they’re about; putting effort into evangelizing would, in fact, detract from what they’re trying to do. But they are open about why they’re doing what they’re doing - and why shouldn’t they be?
a number of the posts here have referred to the idea that charity is inextricably linked to being a Christian.
i was wondering if any of you could provide some biblical verses that, perhaps, go towards defining ‘charity’?
Steve, as i said before, i don’t deny anyone the right to propagate their faith, but i do feel that coupling this with charity creates a subtle pressure on the the recipient to succumb. no, not succumb. accede. it creates a subtle pressure to accede to the conversion propaganda. thus, the reason for conversion may not be an intrinsic acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Saviour.
i have no idea how the Bible feels about this. is a nominal acceptance of Jesus good enough for one to qualify as a Christian? could someone educate me?
The passage from which Polycarp quoted earlier is Matthew, chapter 25:-
It seems to me, as a Christian, that this is a fairly clear injunction on me to perform acts of charity. If there’s an ulterior motive at work here, it’s that I’m doing this to save my own soul, not anyone else’s … The object of the exercise is to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; once their physical needs are met, then it might be appropriate to worry about the state of their souls.
And, when God wants to know who is a Christian and who isn’t, He looks into their hearts, he doesn’t consult some list of names in a church somewhere. So purely “nominal” conversion is pointless, as far as most of us are concerned.
an excellent and rather obvious point i was hoping might come up. a nominal conversion is not much good when the points get tallied by God in the end.
i have had extended conversations with two people who were converted to Christianity. both Muslims. both were recipients of medical aid from mission charities. what i found was that they were quite indifferent about the whole Christianity thing. they converted nominally, yes, but there did not seem to be any deepset conversion from within. presumably, their children will have a rather more Christian attitude, but they themselves did it only because they thought it was a fair exchange for the help received. this, they freely admitted.
do missionaries not care about this? is it just the numbers that matter?
