In the modern world two sacred cows are used to protect religion from criticism, one is ‘culture’ and the other is ‘charity’. The first is set up to prevent any discussion of long-standing religious practices, however obnoxious. It is considered politically incorrect to criticise ‘cultural’ practices such as forced and child marriage and genital mutilation. In the case of the charity, anything that is done in the name of charity is beyond criticism and reinforces the idea of charity and, by implication, religion with which it is almost considered synonymous, and automatically to be ‘good’. Addressing people’s needs by short-term ‘charity’ as an example of generosity and goodwill, while deriding the necessary long-term political changes that are necessary, is not solving the problems. Religion's chosen method, ‘charity’ — supplying goods or services that are in themselves good and necessary, through sectarian structures, is used to gain kudos for the Church, supposedly demonstrating the inspirational nature of religions, and to gain converts.

Culture

Religion has been systematically woven into the texture and tapestry of life, its practices become cultural practices over time, and become indivisible in the minds of many people. To the rationalist, atheist, humanist or freethinker, however, there is no barrier of belief to hamper consideration of cultural practices in the light of current knowledge and awareness of  human needs and human rights. Individuals or organisations do not necessarily have a right to alter other people’s cultural practices, but they do have a right to express an opinion and in some cases to try to change attitudes and practices by persuasion. Where practices such as the ill-treatment of women, genital mutilation, persecution of homosexuals, cruelty to animals, abuse of children — many of which are 'justified' by religious doctrine, dressed up as ‘cultural’ and are still practiced — humanitarians, whatever their ideology, have not only a right, but a duty to protest and lobby for change.

Charity

Most of us contribute to good causes in one way or another, we respond to the needs of others in many different ways, but we do it with our eyes open, and many go further in addressing the underlying causes. Even those who are fully committed to the charity ethic do so out of good and laudable motives, but this should not prevent us from voicing the valid and principled criticisms of ‘charity’ as the method of choice in addressing human or animal needs and rights.

It can be said that charitable activity is good for the givers, it gives them something useful to do, or gives them a warm glow of satisfaction or an understanding of need. It could also be claimed that it is useful in publicising the need for which the charity is set up. Unfortunately the secular charities are hamstrung in lobbying for political change, by the ‘charity laws’, which give automatic status to religion, but prevent ‘political’ activity (see below).

And what of the recipients? The disadvantage to the recipients is that it is patronising, and puts them in the position of having to be grateful, and accept whatever is handed out without comment or criticism. The poor, disabled and disadvantaged have been patronised for too long already. No wonder many older people still resent any implication that they are ‘charity cases’, and transfer that feeling of stigma (wrongly) to state benefits to which they are entitled.

To have what one needs as of right in a civilised country confers respect on both providers and recipients. If the necessary policies and/or provisions to lift people out of need were implemented, the need for ‘charity’ would be reduced or eliminated, except for the fringe for those providing innovation and the 'frills' or 'extras'.

Charity law defines the promotion of religion as automatically charitable, while working for the alleviation of poverty and deprivation through institutional change is deemed political, and therefore not allowed as a function of the charity. Thus any fundamentalist cult or sect can gain the advantages of ‘charitable status’, while pressure groups that work politically, demonstrating and lobbying for change to eliminate the causes of deprivation and disadvantage, can not. Any superstition that calls itself a religion can gain charitable status to promote its beliefs as ‘in the public good’, but organisations such as the secular humanist organisations that work for the promotion of human progress can not. Exemption from various forms of taxation is among the advantages of charitable status and gives sectarian activities a considerable advantage over secular or political ones. This is a form of state subsidy and bias: Church premises for instance, including meeting halls, are exempt from local taxes, while village and community halls have no such subsidy as of right.

‘Charity’ is beyond criticism in our society. The word has become value-laden, and is always considered virtuous. It is the traditional way employed by the religions of providing, through patronage, rather than through assessing people’s rightful share in a community and organising rational ways of providing for that. Regardless of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of much charitable activity, this method of addressing disadvantage and deprivation is never challenged. An example is the humble Jumble Sale, a charity event. If one was to add up the time and effort spent in collecting the material, providing the venue, ‘manning’ the stands or stalls, advertising etc., it is fairly easy to see that if each one (especially those in well-paid employment) gave a donation to the value of an hour or two of their time, they would be likely to raise far more money. Further, if all those who take part in such activities, especially those who think that ‘lobbing a few bob’ into a collection once in a while absolves them from further responsibility, were willing to vote for, rather than pay lip service to, increases in forms of progressive taxation, the causes needing their jumbling and tin-rattling would get what they need as of right rather than patronage.

The point is made even better if one considers the multitude of ‘charitable’ activities of the rich and powerful. Many of them use ‘charity’ to screen their conspicuously lavish lifestyles, while others use it to hide the fact that they have nothing much to do because they do not need to work, and can pay others to do their chores, housework, gardening etc.

People who earn vast sums of money through chance of heredity, the chance of talent, opportunity or even work, if by chance it is in the right sector of the economy, show how generous they are by donating relatively small amounts of time, or money (for which they claim tax relief). Sums of money are raised that appear huge to ordinary people but are small relative to the wealth of the givers, many of whom accumulated their wealth at the expense of the poor, and by minimising the amount of tax they pay. They also enjoy the kudos and publicity that goes with high profile charity balls, galas, and dinners.

Charitable giving operates as a form of voluntary taxation that raises more from the poor than from the rich in relation to their income and wealth. It obscures under a cloak of generosity an unwillingness to pay for necessary services. Many charities exist to provide basic services that in a modern civilised society should be provided as of right and not left to the vagaries of the charitable sector. The provision of suitable wheelchairs, living ‘aids’, guide dogs for the blind, care and protection of children and disabled people, and prevention of cruelty to animals, are some of the many objects of charity that should be publicly funded in a modern civilised society. Charity may be fine for supplying the frills, the extras, but not the basics, for people who need special goods and services to make their lives as good as anyone else in society or at home. In the developing world, people need help too as a right, not an optional gift, and if conflict is to be avoided in the future it is in the interests of the developed world that this help should be given willingly before resentment and anger forces a redistribution of wealth and fair allocation of resources.

The overwhelming acceptance of charity has the effect of distorting the public’s attitude to statutory provision, making people less willing to pay in taxation for what they think can be provided free through charity. Everything has to be paid for one way or another, and a rational system will work out the most effective, economical, and fairest way to pay for services. This will not be possible if they are left to organisations that have other agendas of their own.

The deplorable state of the provision of services for the disabled, children’s homes and hostels is due to the fact that so many were allowed to remain in the voluntary sector for so long, and not subjected to the full scrutiny of democratic control. Where was the Christian charity that allowed for so long a system of ‘homes’ from which young people were expelled at the age of sixteen, without further provision and support?

There is also the problem of fairness in trying to raise cash for services or causes that do not catch the public imagination. Yet they may be very valuable, possibly more so than ‘popular’ ones. Do you give to save all the cute kittens from an abandoned litter? Or save half-dead wild creatures for what may be misguided motives, rather than to save the habitat of some wandering tribe or endangered creature or band of nomads who do not conform to our criteria of neediness? Do we spend massive amounts of money to send the dying on a pilgrimage, or to help the families of prisoners stay together, or on medical research? How do we explain the funding of a scanner for cancer diagnosis, without at the same time funding the ongoing costs? How do you decide between collecting for a premature baby unit, or for individual care to allow the elderly to die with dignity, or for the most disabled, who could be helped to live independent lives able to make their own decisions, to move about, switch their radio, television or music on and off at will? Shouldn’t a truly compassionate and rational wealthy society provide for all these needs?

As a method of collecting and distributing money, charity is inherently unfair and inefficient. The charities with the greatest pulling power are not necessarily the ones dealing with the greatest need. Popular causes that tug at the heart strings can be well marketed or have the advantage of intense media interest which will attract many more gifts than the Cinderella charities that do not have widespread media coverage or mass appeal, but which do as much good in their own field yet struggle to make ends meet. In doing this the charities have to spend huge amounts of money to raise money, which works well enough for the big charities, but far less well for small ones.

In natural disasters thousands of people are killed or made destitute, their families destroyed. People who are already poor are divested of everything they own, children are orphaned, old people left without family or shelter — by earthquake, flood and crop failure. Starvation and disease wreak havoc with human populations, and the world’s givers get ‘disaster fatigue’, while an event that is widely publicised because it is in the heart of a major city as was the twin towers attack in New York will be so gifted that the American Red Cross has so much money, it runs into trouble if it cannot spend it all on that particular tragedy. However catastrophic the event to those affected, and one cannot compare the depth of individual human suffering between one disaster and another, there is no way of rational distribution other than on the basis of need. It is not beyond the wit and wealth of modern civilisation to organise quick response teams, back-up resources, and co-ordinate preparation for disaster relief.

The concept of ‘sins of omission’ is largely glossed over in rich western societies, and all the emphasis in current thinking is on ‘sins of commission’. The sporadic and time-consuming nature of much ‘charity’ diverts attention from the need to create long-term solutions. Too many people shelter in the belief that so long as they do not actually do anything bad, they are virtuous, without accepting that not doing what is necessary to solve a problem makes them guilty of culpable inaction.

Reliance on charity also has social effects too, not all of which are bad. Many people find that in order to carry out their creative activities, they have to link these activities to some form of ‘charity’ because only activities advertised as helping this or that good cause will attract an audience or clientele. Many social gatherings, hospitality such as ‘wine and cheese’ parties, garden parties, or garden visits, sales of craft products and other small creative enterprises, at fairs and fetes, etc. are no longer valued for themselves, but only considered valuable if money is made for charity.

Charities that get this wrong may be accused of spending a greater proportion of their gifted funds on administration or advertising. Lack of accountability has been known to lead charity fundraisers to take more for themselves than they should and there have been many cases of misappropriation of funds by righteous Church leaders. Charities and secular services may be forced into competition with each other, which may drive standards up for some or down for others, or may even mean closure for some. All these issues surrounding the charity industry take time and effort away from the efficient meeting of need. It may never be possible to achieve total fairness, but it is possible to use rational methods and fairer distribution and to help people to see the broader picture.

Voluntary Work and Faith-based Services

This is another area of activity that many of us are involved in. We willingly spend time, money, or effort on a regular basis for years, promoting the things we care about, without any recompense other than the satisfaction we get from the comradeship of others with the same ideas, and from any success we may have in our chosen endeavours. However, as with ‘charity’, we must not allow this to blind us the way that voluntary work is abused in our society. There are questions to be asked about the principle of demanding ‘voluntary’ work, questions suppressed by elements in society who do not appreciate the value of such work, and do not want to pay for it. This criticism does not impugn the motives of those who respond to the many calls for voluntary help. It is a criticism of a society which relies heavily on the moral blackmail to exact voluntary work from people least able to bear the burden.

Much emphasis is given in the 21st-century economy to the importance of voluntary work, meaning the encouragement of people to give time and effort doing things that would otherwise have to be paid for, thus creating jobs!

Naturally, this is most encouraged when the work to be done is unskilled labour, and of course those most likely to have the time to do it are the unemployed or under-employed, many of whom would be doing that work for money, given the chance. It is not generally thought appropriate for busy, highly trained professionals to volunteer these skills free of charge, and their own jobs are never put at risk by volunteers, because of course ‘volunteers’ are not necessarily qualified to do them. Other workers and professionals join trade unions and professional bodies in order to protect their jobs and salaries, and having their living standards undercut by cheap (or in this case free) labour.

The public too sees the danger in recruiting people to do jobs for free on an ad hoc basis. They understand that there is likely to be little control over such people, no assurance that they are adequately trained and suitable for the jobs they are doing. So while many well-meaning people do volunteer, and do the jobs well or to the best of their ability, there is no accountability, and for those who rely on such services, they are constrained in complaining if the services are substandard or inappropriate.

One result of the undermining of these jobs is that it is much more difficult for anyone to do them as a regular job. Not only are they poorly paid, but people expect them to be done for nothing, and on an ad hoc basis. The result is that it is very difficult to get these jobs done at all on any adequate long-term basis.

That rich industrialised countries such as the US, currently one of the most religious countries in the world, and the UK under their own religious leaders, are proposing to go back to ‘faith-based’ services is deplorable. This tendency is seen by many as simply a way to spend less on relieving poverty and deprivation. It is a retrograde step, and will, if implemented, cause many problems for which a price will be paid in duplication, lack of accountability, and discrimination against other or professional service providers as well as service users. ‘Postcode lottery’ will be joined by a ‘religious lottery’ over which there will be inadequate control.

Based on the fanciful notion that ‘welfare’ was always a religious province, the government seems poised to pay evangelical groups to run services regardless of their main objective of recruiting members. Sectarian services will trample employment rights by taking advantage of dispensation for Church employers from EU anti-discrimination law, create competition with local authority services, and reduce demand for secular provision. And if democratic control over finance, and monitoring and regulation of standards and staff training are lost, they may well cost more in the long run, and/or services will suffer.

Religious people who run voluntary services under the auspices of their Churches are taking advantage of people’s needs. There are many examples of youth groups, clubs and activities run by members of Churches in their subsidised premises and schools, the prime purpose of which is to convert people, often children, to their religions. They use the lack of secular community structure — for which their Churches are frequently to blame — to their own advantage, disregarding the rights of people to be able to organise free from religious preaching and, in the case of children, religious indoctrination. They must know that it is not possible or desirable in most places to have competing religious and religion-free facilities, and that since they have the built-in advantage of premises and existing infrastructure, they are taking advantage of their position and taking away the freedom of choice of the people who need the facilities. Use the Church holiday scheme and listen to the bible stories, join in the religious songs or do without!

Religious ‘charity’ workers claim that their religion is the inspiration for their ‘charity’ and that is why they carry it out in charities based on their religion. The two do not follow, and it is clear that the reason for sectarian charity is to credit the religion and bind the community to the Church. If the sole purpose were the inspiration to do the best for their ‘target’ group, they would join up with anyone else with the same aims, regardless of their religious or non-religious belief, in order to maximise their efforts. There are after all many hundreds of secular charities and pressure groups that do not have the Church’s privileged financial and charitable status The reward for ‘giving’ and ‘serving’ is partly the personal sense of satisfaction or purpose for the giver, the gratitude of the recipients, and also the social kudos bought by the display of generosity is often at the expense of those who need to work for money. Those who work for low pay in the public sector will be excluded from this enthusiastic approval, as will those, either paid or voluntary, in the political system.

In modern Britain, while religionists and voluntary workers in the charity sector are given almost holy status, politicians and public servants — many of whom see their work as the pressing of people’s rights and the provision of public services and infrastructure in order to redress disadvantage and deprivation — are regularly despised and derided, especially by the media, who have their own agenda to follow. This has become a considerable problem in the last 10 to 20 years, as those who choose political ways to address the problems experienced by service users or those in need of help, are demeaned. Typical in the field of attitude change is the attack, by those who support the status quo, on people advocating ‘political correctness’ — as if this was a vice not a virtue.

People who demand rights and take direct action either on their own behalf or on behalf of others, are not accorded the respect given to the saintly ‘charity worker’. People who see the political causes of poverty and deprivation or ecological degradation will see the necessity of making some impact on the political process, but it has become a national sport much enjoyed by the media to lampoon these people as cranks. This seriously undermines the importance of informed political discussion, policy-making, and the demands of those who see the need to further develop and improve our democratic institutions, national and local.

It would be unfair not to mention that there are at least two good effects of charity, but neither relies on any religious input. One is that it facilitates innovation in services that are monopolised by the state or local government, or, of course, the religions, e.g. adoption and life ceremonies such as funerals and baby 'namings'. Good as the institutionalisation of services is, there is often a tendency for them to prevent change, reform, and innovation. A good example is progressive schools set up to show that rigid discipline and an emphasis on academic studies are not the be-all and end-all of education. The humanist movement, through the Humanist Adoption Society, in the 1960s pioneered the takeover of adoption services from the monopoly of the Church-run societies, and latterly the humanist movement has taken on the provision of humanist and secular life ceremonies such as funerals and baby namings. Once free of the sectarian monopoly they can then become fully secular. A secular service allows anyone, believers and atheists alike, to take part regardless of any criteria other than the need for the service.

There are other examples, however, of innovative services set up by religions but not then pushed to become fully secular. The hospice movement and its pioneering care of the terminally ill is still in some instances dominated by a religious ethos, as are some hostels for the homeless run by the Salvation Army, and Alcoholics Anonymous. While such services are still valuable in themselves, the fact that they are run with religious strings attached, however loosely, means that they will still function as sectarian institutions, inviting duplication of services or excluding those to whom religious content is repugnant.

The other good effect is the recycling of goods through ‘charity shops’, although the retailers trying to keep the prices of new goods up might not agree! However, it must be a good thing that good clothes, books, and other saleable items that would otherwise be thrown away, are made available for resale, at a fraction of the normal retail cost. If the time and effort and money spent on tin-rattling, collecting and selling jumble, and organising charitable events were compared to the moneys raised it would soon be seen that if people voted for increased resources through progressive taxation the returns would be far better and more long-term. Care and services should be done by properly trained and adequately paid people as and when they are needed.

Missionaries

The criticisms made here of charity apply to the UK and the industrialised western countries, but the Churches, like all colonialists have used ‘charity’ with or without strings attached, in their quest for followers or domination. From early explorers ‘buying the place with beads’ and ‘trading’ goods and chattels for the provision of food and shelter, social and community infrastructure, education and welfare are used as bribes and methods of control in creating dependence. Missionaries proclaim their religious inspiration and use the goods and services as bait to convert the heathens, ‘bringing them to Jesus’. This activity has gone on from the earliest proselytisers, through the centuries. If one looks for it one can see many examples of the terrible effects of imposing religion on primitive societies, destroying cultures built up by indigenous populations to enable them to live in their groups in harmony with their often hostile environments, if not always with each other. One can see the harm done by religious missionaries, nowhere better than in the teeming cities and refuse tips of South American and African shantytowns.

The Roman Catholic policy of forbidding effective birth control programmes and abortion has been a disaster for the developing world. Overpopulation has led to environmental degradation as people fight for survival in a land of drought. Along with support for white settler farmers using the land for commercial farming instead of developing food crop farming and land redistribution, this has led to an exacerbation of destitution and starvation. Compliance with the Pope’s prohibition on the use of condoms has helped the spread of HIV/AIDS, which has caused millions of deaths of adults and children and left millions of children orphaned, most devastatingly in Africa.

The word ‘charity’ has now replaced the word ‘missionary’. A tin, with a picture of a starving black child, a logo and a red heart, thrust under one’s nose for charity is assumed to be collecting for food, health services or other gifts in the third world. Most people would not think that it could just as well be for proselytising missionaries from some obscure cult sending bibles to China or wherever, or still less promoting notions of Armageddon, saving the ‘unsaved’ from being sent to hell, the promotion of homophobia, or the services of an exorcist to cast out devils!

One of the most important reasons for maintaining the ‘charity’ ethic, for the religions today, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to collect money for missionary work, other than from their own faithful. Far more people are now against the converting of other peoples in other cultures to the Christian religion, especially by the proselytising evangelical sects of America’s right-wing ‘Moral Majority’, but they continue with unflagging zeal. Increasingly the public are becoming aware of the dangers of proselytising religions, and the central role of religions in conflicts around the world and in subverting democratic elements. The mixture of traditional superstitions with zealous promotion of extreme Christian sects and cults and some forms of Islam has had a particularly unpleasant effect in parts of Africa, Rwanda, Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries where killing, including human sacrifice, and mutilation are practised.

An example of the duplicity in fund-raising is the UCKG the ‘Universal Church of the Kingdom of God’, which like other an evangelical fundamentalist Christian sects, collects zealously for ‘charity’. This appears to mean their missionary work, running their own and ‘sister’ Churches. Using collecting buckets displaying a red heart and white dove logo, and purporting to aid ‘the homeless, old people and drug addicts’ they can be found collecting at fetes and street collections in many parts of the UK. All religions collect for what they consider ‘charity’ and they naturally think that the promotion of religion is charitable, a view that is enshrined in charity law. The wealthy UCKG, however, is the sect that was attended by the couple who cruelly abused and tortured seven-year-old Victoria Climbie, until they eventually killed her. In the last week of her poor blighted life she was taken to the Church at least four times, and the pastor thought she was possessed by the devil. Invited to comment by one journalist who reported this case, the Church of England said its job was not to raise questions over other Churches. The responses by mainstream Churches were the most wary of the lot. (6. Ref Jay Rayner)

Another example of the false picture of the ‘sainted missionary’ was ‘Mother’ Teresa of Calcutta. India’s Sanal Edamaruku, Secretary General of the Indian Rationalist Association and President of Rationalist International described her declared main aim, the promotion of her religion and its fundamentalist position against abortion and population control as "a slap in the face of India and other Third World countries, where population control is one of the main keys for development and progress and social transformation".

This Roman Catholic, Albanian Nun, gave an undeservedly bad name to Calcutta, "painting the beautiful, interesting and culturally rich Indian metropolis in the colours of dirt, misery and hopelessness and death" in the interests of her false reputation. In her overcrowded and primitive little homes, patients with infectious diseases such as AIDS and TB had to share beds, poor hygiene, and her bizarre philosophy, which refused all but minimal pain relief because of her view that "it is the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ."

She also collected money from sometimes very questionable sources including Jean-Claude Duvalier, Enver Hodja and Robert Maxwell, much of which went to build, not health facilities and schools as she claimed, but nunneries to train Catholic nuns, including eight in Papua New Guinea. In Calcutta writer Aroup Chattergee’s book ‘Mother Teresa, The Final Verdict’, he has a chapter ‘Ecumenical with the Truth: Saintly Tall Tales, and he is scathing about the myth that has been spun around her.

Even her own health and death were misrepresented as having been that of the dedicated saint, whereas she was surrounded by the most expensive equipment and facilities money could buy.

Far from being a substantial provider, she used the poor and dying on which to build her Catholic Mission. "The suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering," said Mother Teresa. Do we have to be grateful for this lecture of an eccentric billionaire? asked Sanal Edamaruku, who went on to observe:

"Mother Teresa did not serve the poor in Calcutta, she served the rich in the West. She helped them to overcome their bad conscience by taking billions of dollars from them. Some of her donors were dictators and criminals, who tried to whitewash their dirty vests. Mother Teresa revered them for a price. Most of her supporters, however, were honest people with good intentions and a warm heart, who fall for the illusion that the "Saint of the Gutter" was there to wipe away all tears, end all misery, and undo all injustice in the world. Those in love with an illusion often refuse to see reality.

(There are many Internet links with further information listed in the sources at the end of this book)

The western media colludes with the religions, by confusing the work of secular charities, with religious and political proselytising missionaries. They do this by not revealing their true status and motivation. When these groups hit trouble by proselytising in countries that take a dim view of what they see as political subversion by foreigners, they are heralded in the West as ‘Aid Workers’. This puts people who are working with genuinely ideology- free Aid Agencies at risk. The media frequently do not question the motives of these sectarian charities, and does not expose the political aspects of their activities in political and religious subversion in countries of whose regimes the US/UK are critical.

(4666)