{"id":1953,"date":"2011-03-01T18:13:08","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T23:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2011-03-01T18:13:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T23:13:08","slug":"is-caring-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/is-caring-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Is caring enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I was invited last week to join some colleagues at Episcopal Relief and Development<\/a> as they hosted a luncheon for priests at endowed parishes. \u00a0I was invited in part as a thank you for my collaboration with them in preparing their new youth curriculum, Act Out<\/a>. \u00a0In the course of the lunch, a priest told of one of his parishioners who had decided to leave a large bequest to another aid organization. \u00a0He asked, what is so special about Episcopal Relief and Development? \u00a0What is the compelling evidence to give to them instead? (I’ve heard the same question asked to me many times here at ELCA World Hunger.)<\/p>\n

My colleague was put in a rather tough position. \u00a0He has a vested interest so it was \u00a0not as if he could speak as an objective observer. \u00a0His response was to defer to the bishop of the diocese of Chicago, who replied along the lines of, “Hey, if your parishioner wants to be generous like that, who am I to poo poo his Christian charity?” (My apologies for the crude paraphrase.)<\/p>\n

I was not happy with this response. \u00a0(I let everyone at the lunch know this–and I will say, it is not every day you get to publicly disagree with the bishop!) \u00a0For one, supporting the work of your denomination’s anti-hunger program is a powerful public witness. \u00a0 Your church’s work in the world sends a clear message about its priorities, and gives it credibility when it speaks publicly about justice related issues. \u00a0The bigger issue for me, however, is that wanting to do good is simply not enough. \u00a0Unlike the bishop, I will poo poo Christian charity if it is not accompanied by rigorous critical self evaluation (the bishop told me afterward I should submit my resume to the Gates Foundation… I thought it was a nice, subtle brush back).<\/p>\n

There are many organizations out there that have fine anti-hunger ideals but in practice exacerbate hunger and poverty. \u00a0As one stellar blogger<\/a> wrote, “A good cause is not the same as a good program.” \u00a0That same blogger recounts the following examples:<\/p>\n

Think of the\u00a0well-meaning missionaries<\/a> whose desire to \u201csave\u201d children from post-earthquake Haiti almost resulted in loving parents and their children being permanently separated.<\/p>\n

Or the\u00a0recent effort by World Vision<\/a> to send 100,000 misprinted Super Bowl champion t-shirts to people in the third world, improving their own overhead ratios by claiming the value of these gifts-in-kind as program expenses, while in reality sending goods\u00a0that are readily available even to poor people in the target geographies, widely accepted by the aid community as having the effect of undermining local businesses and creating a culture of dependency, and otherwise causing harm to the very communities they purport to help.<\/p>\n

Or consider the Battered Mother\u2019s Resource Fund that never actually implemented any programs it was fundraising for and potentially\u00a0scared women away from seeking help<\/a> by falsely claiming that many shelters separate mothers from their children. It was also proposing a children\u2019s ranch that experts said would do great psychological harm to kids if it were ever built. Despite the fact that\u00a0it was ordered to shut down by the Attorney General<\/a>, this organization still has\u00a0a profile on Change.org,<\/a> with 30 well-intentioned supporters. I bet those supporters read the mission statement and said \u201cthat\u2019s a worthy cause.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To these examples I would add those meal packing programs that may make the donor feel good and scratch that charitable Christian itch, but are also incredibly costly, both in dollars and on the environment. \u00a0 And in the end, they flood the local market with imported food that otherwise could have been grown and sold to benefit local farmers.<\/p>\n

So the take away? \u00a0An act of charity is not an end in and of itself. \u00a0We need to use that buzz we get from acting charitably to motivate us to do things that truly effect change in the world. \u00a0Otherwise it is just a narcissistic will to power. \u00a0If we are serious about our Christian call to seek justice we have to be a bit more rigorous in our decision making, especially around giving. \u00a0This means doing research and holding organizations accountable.<\/p>\n

Thoughts? \u00a0I’d love to hear them!<\/p>\n

David Creech<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was invited last week to join some colleagues at Episcopal Relief and Development as they hosted a luncheon for priests at endowed parishes. \u00a0I was invited in part as a thank you for my collaboration with them in preparing their new youth curriculum, Act Out. \u00a0In the course of the lunch, a priest told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs caring enough? - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/is-caring-enough\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is caring enough? 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