When I was in college, I was listening to my favorite
morning show personalities on the radio, and they were interviewing some film
star (I don’t recall who). In the course
of the interview, the radio guys brought up a charity that they ran in town, but
presented it along these lines, “Well, Mr. So-and-So, you are a Hollywood guy,
you have plenty of money, and we run a charity in town here to help
children. Since you have plenty of
money, we can count on your support for the poor children, right?”
Of course he said yes.
He had to. He had no idea what
this charity was or what they did. Yes,
their mission was the “help children,” but what did that mean? Did they take kids out of school and teach
them to make moonshine? Did they train
them to be circus acts? Did they teach
them Islam, or Mormonism, or some strange religion that worships Bill Murray?
I suppose they were probably good, but I don’t know for
sure. I was in college, so I certainly
didn’t have any money, so I never looked into the group to make sure they were
okay. But even at the time, I recognized
what they had done – they had basically blackmailed the guy into giving them
money. Had he said no, they would have
been talking about it for days, how Mr. So-and-So hates little kids, and the actor
knew it too. He had to offer up
something to keep them happy.
The actor, by the way, did something smart – he promised
them stuff from the set of his TV show that had been autographed. They could auction it off and keep the
proceeds. That way he was not boxed into
giving money out for every interview he did.
I started to think about how I would respond in that case,
and I came up with this. I would say,
“That sounds really good, and I’m always looking for ways to help out little
kids. I am very involved in the
charities I support, and I like to be fully informed as to their mission and
methods before giving that support. Do
you have any literature you can get me so I can start getting familiar with
your organization?”
I’ve had to use that line a few times, even though I’m not
on the radio or something. Every so
often, people at work come by, raising money for some cause or another. Most are gracious about it, but I’ve had
people try to strong-arm me into giving money.
“It’s only a few bucks!” “You
don’t support infants with three ears and twelve eyes?” “There are children starving in Africa!”
Sadly, when I ask for more information, most people back
away. Why? Because most of the time, they don’t know
what they are supporting either. The
cause sounds good, but that’s simply not good enough. What is the money actually going for? What is the organization’s goal? How do they do it?
I have removed our family’s support from one Christian
organization not because of their goals, but because to reach that goal, they
have engaged in unbiblical methods. I’ve
removed our family’s support of another ministry because they had shifted focus
to something that I didn’t think warranted my support. Nothing had changed in their organization or
mission statement, and their teaching hadn’t really changed – it had shifted to
focus on something I wasn’t as keen on supporting. We should be good stewards of our money, and
that means actually knowing what it is going to support. That means looking into the group, and
continuing to look into whatever it is you are supporting. Not to micromanage, but to know what your
money is being used for.
Ice Bucket Challenge
Recently, there has been a meme that has shot through the internet
to help raise awareness for ALS and raise money. The premise was simple – once you were
challenged, you had twenty-four hours to give $100 to a certain ALS charity or
make a video of you dumping a bucket of ice water on your head and give $10.* In that video, you were supposed to challenge
three other people, who had twenty-four hours to do the same.
I saw a great number of these pop up on my Facebook feed
long before I started seeing a trickle of responses, and the responses were
only coming from a small minority. The
charity in question, the ALS Association, has funded embryonic stem cell
research,** a practice we should consider to be opposed to Christian morality. That’s a problem, especially because a lot of
the people I’ve seen doing this challenge would not normally support that.
In addition, there doesn’t seem to be a way out of it. You are told you must pay, or you must
promote the charity. Your name is called
out online in a video, and while someone like me may be able to say, “No,”
without consequence, a movie star, whose career depends on how much people like
him, doesn’t really have a choice. Like
the person interviewed on my local radio station, we are being put into a
position where we must act, like it or not.
And there seems to be a demand in all of this to do the
challenge and give the money. I just
watched a delightful ice bucket challenge video from Tina Fey where she sets it
up like she’s going to do it, then the camera cuts to a shot far back where
someone who is definitely not Tina Fey does it for her. Then she jumps into the frame and lets us
know that she’s just going to write a check.
Despite this being totally within the challenge and
completely legitimate, I saw several comments that were quite unkind to her,
accusing her of chickening out and not taking it seriously. All to which one must respond, What is
expected here? She abided by the rules
and made quite a nice video at the same time, but it wasn’t enough for some
people. This challenge has become a new
morality on the internet – do it now, and do it this way, or else you’re a bad
person.
Some considerations
As Christians, we need to take a careful and biblical
approach to charity. We are called to be
good stewards of our money, and that means not only being charitable, but also
being wisely charitable.
The first problem that I see in this challenge is that it
does not often give time for wisdom or room for exploration. You have 24 hours from when you are challenged. Now, maybe that 24 hours lands on a lazy
Saturday, and you decide, “Ah, yes, that would be a good topic to explore this
fine day,” and you then go on the computer and find out everything you can
about the disease and the organization profiting. Then you might draft a good explanation of
your position and share that along with your response to the challenge. If that’s what you did, then good for
you! But I do not get the impression
that most of the challenged have the foggiest clue what they are supporting
with their videos or their money.
The ones that do, great.
I have seen a lot of people on Facebook actually looking into this
disease closely and finding a charity that is worthwhile so that they can
support it. That’s fantastic! I applaud that reaction. In fact, when I first registered concern
about this organization, one of my Facebook friends responded with research
that she had already been doing for an alternative charity. That response was far better than mine, and I
applaud it.
But if our reaction is, “I’ve been challenged! I must make a video NOW to support some
organization I know nothing about so I don’t look foolish,” then we have not
approached this properly.
But that’s the real issue here, isn’t it? The point is to act quickly, to write a
check, to make a video, to tell your friends to support this cause, all before
you can actually do the homework we should be doing. That’s the point of the meme – do it because
everyone else is doing it, and then your friends will feel the pressure to do
it too.
My second concern is the temptation to make this about me
rather than about helping. And we’ve all
seen several of these videos right?
Where it is about the personality, not the issue. The Bible tells us, “But when you give to the
needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew
6:3). That is not to say that we
shouldn’t ever advocate for a charity.
Now, we need people to raise awareness of issues and to
recommend organizations. Actually,
perhaps the best recommendation for these things can come from friends and
neighbors who have worked with organizations for some time. But there is a heart issue here, and there is
a temptation to be seen as being charitable, and we should not seek that.
Next, we should be wary about being fair-weather
givers. What I mean is that ALS got a
lot of support in the last weeks, and some of it was from people who were made
aware of the disease and that support was needed, and they had a burden for the
people suffering for ALS. For others, it
was because it was trendy and cool and they aren’t going to give to ALS ever
again.
Now, if you attention was brought to ALS in the last weeks,
and your heart was moved, I’m not saying that was wrong at all. In the past, my own attention has been
focused by certain events, and I too started supporting certain causes in those
particular times. What I’m criticizing
is charity by meme – giving when something hits the news and then forgetting
about it tomorrow. In cases like that,
we are a little better than the man described in James, who, upon seeing
someone in need, says, “‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving
them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” But not a lot better.
Our first priority in giving should be our local church, and
that should be regular. It’s not cool,
it’s not trendy, and it won’t get you a million hits on YouTube, but it’s
proper and wise. Then we must seek
wisdom. Maybe you will build a
relationship with a charity over many years of giving in time and money. Maybe some group needs something right now,
and a one-time gift is appropriate. But
these situations should be approached in wisdom and prayer, not because of an
internet trend.
Conclusion
I have not been challenged in this particular meme yet, and
maybe I will not be. If I am, I will
decline to participate this time. I am
not condemning those who did or will. In
fact, I’ve debated whether to even write this because I know there are a lot of
people who did this the right way. I’m
not talking about you if you did. I love
that you did this right, and I pray you will keep doing it right. If you feel convicted by this article, but
you did the research and you really wanted to help, then please don’t feel
convicted. I wasn’t writing this for
you!
What I am asking is that you do not participate so you will
look good, or because everyone is doing it, or that you have to hurry to meet
the deadline. I ask that participate in
wisdom and humility, seeking out the best use for your donations, not the most
popular use for them.
