Charity is all we need?

[Anxious Girl]

If you look back at the 19th century, at least in the US, before we had any of the social welfare programs that we do now, it was religious leaders who were calling the loudest to get the government involved. Because as hard as they tried, the churches couldn't do it on their own.

Some church organizations probably also kept a huge amount of their donations for themselves, and gave the least amount that they didn't want to people who they thought that needed it away. Churches aren't always the best of charity donaters. If I'm unrealistic about church charities, I apologize. I guess I'm just a skeptic because some churches (Roman Catholic comes to mind) say they help people all over the world, yet use their money to make pretty buildings and to keep the Vatican going. I thought being Christ-like was to help others, not show how pretty and tempting your church is to join, but that's just me.

[Artemis]

Anyone who needs to examine what happens when churches have too much control over governance and charity should look into the Borgia family, especially in the late 15th century. They were, um, not known for their fair allocation of church resources.

They certainly weren't. Hereditary papacy anyone? Rampant nepostism and cronyism? Favouritism, abuse, power-play? Now what does that remind me of. Oh wait. Could it be some of our dominion mandate friends? Mr Phillips? Are you listening? Mr Gothard?

[Anxious Girl]

Gothard and the Tool standing next to each other, sticking their fingers in their ears: LALALA, we can't hear you over our bigoted prosleytizing! We can't hear you, LALA! Hey, wait, why won't you listen to our opinions, you persecutors? Hereditary papacy has been going on since at least the 5th century, I think.

[emmiedahl]

They certainly weren't. Hereditary papacy anyone? Rampant nepostism and cronyism? Favouritism, abuse, power-play? Now what does that remind me of. Oh wait. Could it be some of our dominion mandate friends? Mr Phillips? Are you listening? Mr Gothard?

I am watching a miniseries about the Borgias on Netflix. My husband commented that if they wanted to make a movie about an evil pope, it should be less extreme because it is just not believable. I told him it all really happened and his jaw dropped.

Religion and power are a bad combination.

[Anxious Girl]

Lies, emmidahl, all lies! You're just trying to make Christians look bad with your so-called facts! :naughty:

[Mommy22alyns]

Some of this comes from the idea that the bible says the "church" is supposed to care for widows and orphans and the poor. The idea in moderate circles would be no strings attached and meeting people where they are. The church i went to before i moved had community dinners for local families and several times a year free clothing drives for whoever wanted to come. They also put together backpacks with school supplies for every single kid in one of the local elementary schools with no mention of where they came from. There was no preaching, no tracts handed out. That should be enough. You don't need to beat them over the head with religion. You meet their basic needs and leave it there. Look at the buildings and schools some of these churches have. If those people actually put their money into truly serving others it probably would make a difference. But *gasp* that would be a redistribution of wealth and would constitute socialism. (which, as has been pointed out previously, is how the early church actually functioned).

Thank you!!! I'm glad I'm not the only person who has noticed this.

[Minerva]

This. This may not be true for non-religious conservatives, but for fundies, they want the churches to control charity because they will then be able to determine how and under what conditions people can receive help. They believe that the government condones "immorality" like single motherhood by providing welfare, and envision a society where people will be too afraid to do things like have sex out of wedlock because they will know that there will be nowhere to go for help.(Of course, we know how well this has worked through history.) So, rather than having a system where anyone who falls on hard times is entitled to government aid, they want a system where that sort of aid is eliminated and the churches can control through fear via their access to charitable funds. :x

Even if enough non-religious charities popped up and made it so that religious groups weren't dominating the charity landscape, there's still a pretty good chance everyone wouldn't be helped equally. Especially in a libertarian world where capitalists wouldn't have to work around those pesky anti-discrimination laws.

There's also the fact that major corporations now have a huge presence in the world of charity because it advertises their products very effectively. They often do exactly as much good work as they need to turn a profit and nothing more. Which is totally going to distribute funds where people need it. :roll:

ETA when I first saw the thread, I thought it said "Chirality is all we need." Because I'm that immersed in school work.

[FakePigtails]

2 points to add:

Aren't most churches barely getting enough offering money to keep themselves running?

Also, when someone on my facebook pulled the "guess I can stop working" card on election night I really should have laid out the horrendous options I saw at the different food drives I've helped at. Dusty old cans of veggies, gross canned meat, mega high sodium soups, freezer-burned meat the grocery store couldn't sell . . . I could go on. It serves the purpose, but it's not the high life, for sure and it seems much healthier and time- and cost-efficient to have food aid coming mostly through government programs.

[GeoBQn]

It makes me think of the Simpsons episode where a nuclear meltdown is threatening the town, and Marge prays, "G-d, if you save this town I promise I will be a better Christian. I'm not sure what I would do exactly . . . Oh, the next time there's a food drive, I promise I will give the poor something they actually like instead of lima beans and pumpkin pie mix."

[kthomp38+]

I'm pretty conservative, a Christian and and I try to be independent by my default setting is Republican. I still don't think that charity is all that we need. I do think that the government should help people especially the people that are disabled or people who are looking for a job but just can't find one. My husband is a Libertarian and seems to think that it could all work with charity. I sat and thought about it and even if we became a country that lived in a Libertarian way and the charities had to take over there would still be a period of adjustment and people would be starving in the streets. Personally, I don't want to live through that. On the other hand the government taking control of everything scares me as well. I really have a hard time with politics because, there is never a candidate that I can agree with.

[debrand]

I am watching a miniseries about the Borgias on Netflix. My husband commented that if they wanted to make a movie about an evil pope, it should be less extreme because it is just not believable. I told him it all really happened and his jaw dropped.

Religion and power are a bad combination.

Although I don't think that I watched the last few episodes, I saw the same miniseries. What I found fascinating was looking up the historical characters online. They were not a benevolent family.

.

[thoughtful]

Now for the 'undeserving poor'.

a) They have been reduced to poverty by their intemperance, etc, as above.

b) They are often engaged in crime to feed themselves.

c) They are angry, belligerent, bitter, and they rail against the existing social order. They are dangerous, and potentially revolutionary. They exemplify the ‘other’.

d) They accept help reluctantly, and bite the hand that feeds them. They are ungrateful, and not servile. They lack humility.

e) They rarely profess religion. They are deaf to attempts to evangelise them.

f) They refuse to be saved; indeed they remain oblivious to the necessity for salvation. Their deaths are painful, protracted, despairing, and provide An Awful Warning. (These deaths are also their Just Desserts.)

And then, along came Shaw:

aAQb_iGQmFo

:D

And I agree that people who want only private charity, with an opportunity to proselytize on the side, are looking for control.

[Peas n carrots]

Thank you!!! I'm glad I'm not the only person who has noticed this.

The local RCC my parents attend now want to build a new church. They sent a packet out to my parents asking for a $35k donation towards the new building. Inside they detailed the costs... $25K each for 10 new stained glass windows, $2500 for a chair for the priest to sit on during mass, $5000 per pew. My parents died laughing at the chutzpah of the church expecting teachers to have that kind of cash. My mom then said even if she had the cash she would give it to actually providing help the poor - something which no longer seems to be a priority in their parish.

Thankfully, my parents are now done with the RCC. My mom admitted she wasn't getting anything it of mass as it was, and this was the final straw for her to throw in the towel.

Efr

[JaChelle Sugar]

UGGGGH! One of my fb friends recently posted some anti-Obamacare article and claims before teh ebil gubmint handout's, that 'charities were overflowing with donations'. Riiiiiight. The poor were all taken care of, but the government couldn't leave well enough alone and insisted on trying to ensure life and liberty and pursuit of happiness for those who couldn't afford it on their own and that's why charities and government programs today cannot take care of the poor. :roll: He even said he had 'facts' to prove it. I didn't waste my time arguing. Nothing you can do with some hardcore right-wingers.

[JaChelle Sugar]

Hell no! Charity isn't all we need. An occasional handout is not enough to fix the problems facing the poor. We pay taxes, therefore, I think it's the government's place to help provide for basic needs. We don't need our tax dollars making the rich even richer or waging wars we have no business fighting in the first place. And that's just to name a few of the things awful things that happens to our tax dollars.

Fundamentalist seem to forget the teachings of Jesus. He put no conditions on helping the poor or needy and loving one another. So, fundies, if you are truly Christians how about following Christ instead of spouting sexist, racist, homophobic, dominionist crap. Sit down and read your Bible and stop following gurus like Bill Gothard, Doug Phillips the tool, etc. You just might learn something and gain sympathy and empathy for others. Right now you just come across as hateful, spiteful people who hate the poor and turn your noses up at that are different than you.

Oh oh oh, but what Christ REALLY meant every time He talked about taking care of the poor (infact every instance of the system taking care of the poor like gleening the fields) was sharing the gospel with the 'poor in spirit'. :think: Yep that's it. Sharing the gospel is the greatest charity of all, and the only one God ever meant and that's why a good Christian needn't concern himself with feeding the poor. Sometimes these fundies actually literally make fun of the Catholic church with its ministry for the poor. :evil:

[sugaree]

As they dream of days gone past when churches and wealthy people administrated charity, ultra-conservatives don't face the obvious: back then, the church and the government acted in concert; in fact, sometimes the Church was the government (think of the Papal States, or the relationship between the King and the Church of England). And the same thing for the rich caring for the poor: it was feudalism, and the noblesse oblige rich lady in the big manor arranging for a basket of food to be brought to a poor widow in the village circa 1800 was just a holdover from the feudal system.

The feudal system, churches, modern governments. They are all essentially the same thing: a way for us to take care of ourselves by pooling our resources. And for all its faults, modern governments are a damn sight more efficient at getting the base needs met then were societies in the past. And I'm sorry, but if we switched to this nebulous idea of voluntary charity that fundies espouse, American life would quickly slide right past "Dickensian" and settle in around "Somalian."

[RosyDaisy]

And I'm sorry, but if we switched to this nebulous idea of voluntary charity that fundies espouse, American life would quickly slide right past "Dickensian" and settle in around "Somalian."

QFT

[Inky]

As they dream of days gone past when churches and wealthy people administrated charity, ultra-conservatives don't face the obvious: back then, the church and the government acted in concert; in fact, sometimes the Church was the government (think of the Papal States, or the relationship between the King and the Church of England). And the same thing for the rich caring for the poor: it was feudalism, and the noblesse oblige rich lady in the big manor arranging for a basket of food to be brought to a poor widow in the village circa 1800 was just a holdover from the feudal system.

The feudal system, churches, modern governments. They are all essentially the same thing: a way for us to take care of ourselves by pooling our resources. And for all its faults, modern governments are a damn sight more efficient at getting the base needs met then were societies in the past. And I'm sorry, but if we switched to this nebulous idea of voluntary charity that fundies espouse, American life would quickly slide right past "Dickensian" and settle in around "Somalian."

True. And the families most affected by this will be the ones with 8 or 10 children who experience something like a job loss, or serious illness by one or both of the parents.

The 1, 2 or 3 child families will have a much easier time getting by when disaster hits. Simple economics.

[jenny_islander]

Earlier in the year the Barna Group did a survey of religions to see if they were able and willing to take over all of the general welfare needs of America's poor population, housing, food, medical care, interventions for those that would benefit etc. Aside from their lack of infrastructure and the unwillingness of some to network across faiths, the study discovered that they couldn't raise a fraction of the money needed for such work. Nor did they have the skilled and educationally qualified individuals to staff such a monolith. IIRCC some of the groups claimed they would need to short change their missionary work in order to care for America's poor.

If all of the adult parishioners in my congregation took on an equal share of the pre-Ryan food aid budget (assuming that every religious congregation nationwide does this), then the amount would be something like a couple grand a year. Okay, but what about the ones on fixed income, or in college, or facing heavy debt, or . . . ? Do you have a couple grand a year to spare? I don't.

If religious groups took on the entire burden of family aid, even as slashed and battered as it already is, then the individual cost would be slightly less than the average annual personal income of a resident of my town. Hey, got 20, 30 grand on you? Yeah, me neither.

[SomewhatFundy]

The biggest church in my town gives away about two grand a week in various resources (food pantry, paying utility bills for various citizens, etc) and also run a shelter for battered women and children. Helpful? Yes. But it still doesn't touch the amount of money that would be needed to pull every single person in my town out of poverty. The rest of the churches in my town are either barely staying open, or so small that the tithing doesn't allow them to dole out much more than a paycheck to the one pastor they still have on staff.

Churches cannot do it alone. Private, non-religious charities cannot do it alone. I don't know who these people think they are kidding by saying that the poor should be left to charity to care for. Why do they give a crap who helps people? Does it really matter, so long as we aren't allowing our fellow human beings to starve or freeze to death?

The government is able to help more people than churches can in a lot of ways, and not just due to financial reasons. I have met people who seriously needed some financial help, but weren't comfortable going to their church to ask for help. For good reason too, it can be embarrassing to ask for help when you need it and churches can be breeding grounds for gossip. You don't have to worry about your business being spread left and right when you fill out a paper printed off the net, and drop it off at the public aid office.

Come to think of it, that might be why so many insist on low income individuals relying on church charity. Because then, they can easily identify the poor and make speculation as to what sort of sins they committed to be put in such a position. :roll:

[lilah]

One of my pet peeves is when a fundie woman brags about not working and raising her daughters to be wives and mothers, no career training needed, and they claim if something bad happened to their husband they could just live off church charity. Because most fundie churches can support a woman and her full quiver for 18 years or more....

[Maggie Mae]

The problem with relying on private charities is that there aren't enough. People aren't going to give more to charity just because they have less taxes, either. I don't believe it's within the nature of most people to think "Oh, I don't need to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 for the second/third/fourth/etc time, I should give $20 to a food bank/the homeless shelter instead, and rewatch when it's on DVD." It's easy for some people to give to United Way or to a church or a homeless shelter in their neighborhood, but not all neighborhoods are created equal. A charity only system will not work, IMO.

[rock_girl]

The problem with relying on private charities is that there aren't enough. People aren't going to give more to charity just because they have less taxes, either. I don't believe it's within the nature of most people to think "Oh, I don't need to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 for the second/third/fourth/etc time, I should give $20 to a food bank/the homeless shelter instead, and rewatch when it's on DVD." It's easy for some people to give to United Way or to a church or a homeless shelter in their neighborhood, but not all neighborhoods are created equal. A charity only system will not work, IMO.

This is pretty much why charity can't be relied on. The expression 'the more you have the more you need' is really accurate, in my experience. I think Jane Austen captured it really well in Sense and Sensibility, when the Dashwoods are turfed out of their home so their half-brother can enjoy it and initially he has grand plans to help them, but they're gradually whittled down by his and his wife's greed until it's basically a few pounds a year and a ham at Christmas. Or something similarly mean. Gosh, it's been years since I read the book. But yeah, people think they're very generous, and they want to be very generous, but unless they're compelled to be generous (via taxation) they'll always find reasons they can't share, and tell themselves those reasons are related to their needs, not their wants.

[YPestis]

The problem with relying on private charities is that there aren't enough. People aren't going to give more to charity just because they have less taxes, either. I don't believe it's within the nature of most people to think "Oh, I don't need to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 for the second/third/fourth/etc time, I should give $20 to a food bank/the homeless shelter instead, and rewatch when it's on DVD." It's easy for some people to give to United Way or to a church or a homeless shelter in their neighborhood, but not all neighborhoods are created equal. A charity only system will not work, IMO.

Plus, people tend to want to give to those they "know" or feel attachment to. Most people would spend the extra $20 at Red Lobster than at the local church shelter caring for strangers. That's not a condemnation of individuals who eat out, just an observation that we are not going to be generous with giving to those we don't know.

Unfortunately, private charities will be caring for total strangers. We no longer live in small villages. That's probably the biggest issue with private charities these days. It worked better in feudal societies and in agrarian societies when people lived and died in the same place. With the growth of surburbia and mobility of society, many people will never know their neighbors or the individuals that need their help, hence they're less likely to donate. It's a sad reality of our modern society.

[jenny_islander]

Churches cannot do it alone. Private, non-religious charities cannot do it alone. I don't know who these people think they are kidding by saying that the poor should be left to charity to care for. Why do they give a crap who helps people? Does it really matter, so long as we aren't allowing our fellow human beings to starve or freeze to death?

The government is able to help more people than churches can in a lot of ways, and not just due to financial reasons. I have met people who seriously needed some financial help, but weren't comfortable going to their church to ask for help. For good reason too, it can be embarrassing to ask for help when you need it and churches can be breeding grounds for gossip. You don't have to worry about your business being spread left and right when you fill out a paper printed off the net, and drop it off at the public aid office.

Come to think of it, that might be why so many insist on low income individuals relying on church charity. Because then, they can easily identify the poor and make speculation as to what sort of sins they committed to be put in such a position. :roll:

Oh, yes, if your church culture demands a thinly veiled real-life example of SINNN-uh for the weekly sermon (and ensuing gossip session over coffee), having all kinds of intrusive pettifogging details about some lazy poors sure fills the bill. (Did you hear? They have CELL PHONES! Cheap, cheap, cheap, talk a lot, pick a little more . . . ) Congregations like this are waiting with bated breath for that one girl from the trailer park whose dad comes to the food pantry every-single-week to turn up pregnant because what else could she possibly do, bless her heart?

Also, if you control the sources of food and so forth for people who don't have any money, you have a captive audience for soul-winning; a tract in every box.

Other people, if you press them, eventually admit that they just don't want their tax dollars to go to anybody who does or says or is something they don't like. The really dumb ones are convinced that if they can avoid paying any taxes they will eventually get rich.