Charity: the good, the bad and the ugly

Following on from the previous post I want to start by saying that I think Charity has gotten a bad name in some circles. I want to re-claim Charity as a term that should mean something good. My friend Jonathan Bird said, "we need to get back to the root of charity, which means love." Indeed, our idea of charity as a biblical concept is the kind of neighbour love that flows from being loved by God, not because we are good, or deserve it or earned it or even have a right to it, but because God loves. That is what God does and it is what we are to do when God lives in us.

That being said, let me move on to the bad name that charity has developed in some circles. In its current form charity (in the forms it takes to care for the poor) has come to mean an organization with charitable purposes who exist to "alleviate" poverty. They do this most commonly through professionalized workers who provide goods and services for needy individuals or families. Charitable organizations often spend a fair amount of time and energy trying to secure funds to do what they do, and sometimes will partner with government in delivering those goods and services through some sort of partnership or grant funding. The power dynamics often involve the professional determining what the needs of the individual are while the person in need has little say in the matter. This is for the sake of efficiency. The bad name comes from the power inequities, and the professionalization of service. Some would say, the need is so great, what else can you do? Charitable groups do important work and they are right, they have developed systems to deal with the overwhelming needs they are confronted with daily.

The ugly part comes in when we stop and think about the situation as a whole. This point was made well by the Carnegie Community Action Project last week during the CBC food drive. They wanted to raise the concern that Food Banks were set up to be a temporary measure, to ensure that people did not starve while a longer term more effective process was set up. It was meant to be a band-aid on a gaping wound that needed stitches, but instead we have taken for granted that we need to give more to the food bank rather than asking why so many people do not have adequate food in one of the most wealthy nations in the world. The wound is growing but we keep assuming more band-aids are all that is required. What makes this particularly ugly is that here in Canada (this is not true in many other countries) a charity is not allowed to spend more than 10% of its resources advocating or lobbying for a change of the system. In other words, charities, who are the best positioned to see the needs on the ground are allowed to put bandaids on the poor and the dying (alleviate poverty) but they are not allowed to work to eradicate poverty if that eradication involves any sort of criticism of government. Government, meanwhile, washes their hands of public responsibility for the entrenchment of poverty in this land by offering capricious funding to charitable groups who do their bidding until said group becomes to political, or falls out of favour.

What are we to do? Is charity lost?

I want to argue that we need to recover charity as loving our neighbours. And we need to push our sense of who our neighbour is, as Jesus encouraged us to do in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Often it is easier to consider the far away neighbour as opposed to the one who actually lives down the street from me who I really don't like very much.

So yes, we must recover charity, and practice loving our neighbours. Loving our neighbours includes coming as equals, listening, caring, sharing what I have and receiving in turn. But, I want to argue that charity is not the answer to poverty. That addressing poverty, which we must do because the poor are also our neighbours but poverty is a power that has trapped our neighbours. Addressing poverty will require engaging in justice. The prophet Micah said, "what the Lord requires of you is to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God." We must put our hands, and our feet, our mouths and our hearts to the work of justice seeking in addition to loving mercy.