It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, won't you be mine?
Hello, everyone, and welcome back from fall break. It's Tuesday afternoon, and if you haven't sobered up by now you may need a trip to your friendly-neighborhood ER.
I know what you're thinking. You're wondering, "How is Daedalus going to take a plea to help starving children in Africa and turn it into something bad?" Shame on you. I'm not a damn nihilist.
A few posts ago I made the following comment about organizations like Compassion International and the work that they do:
"Sub-Saharan Africa, to take one example, does not need you to sponsor a child through Compassion International. What they need is for you to go build a school or go teach a sex-ed class for teenagers. If Christians actually took their scriptures seriously, this wouldn't seem like such an outrageous suggestion."
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify this statement, as I'm not sure I expressed myself adequately the first time.
You're right, Hannah, Compassion Intl., and organizations like it, are capable of doing a lot of good for less-fortunate people throughout the world. And sponsoring a child through Compassion is not necessarily a frivolous investment. However, it does seem like the lazy-ass way out.
It is often difficult to understand the world that people on the other side of our planet wake up to while we are soundly asleep. For me this is true not just of Africa, but of France, Russia, Iran, and basically any nation besides The United States and US Lite [I'm sure you know I'm talkin' aboot Canada, eh?]. Our culture, our society, the way we have been socialized is so divorced from that of these other countries that, often, when someone speaks of the horrors of the AIDS virus, human trafficking, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [muffins], or a nationwide shortage of food I find it difficult to connect with their message. The genius of organizations like Compassion Intl. is that they have recognized this disparity and sought to provide an easy way for those of us living plush, comfortable lives in developed countries to assuage our guilty consciences while still doing some good in the world. But, and this is what I was trying to say when I first commented on Compassion, throwing money at the problem is neither, by itself, a solution, nor does it guarantee that a solution will be found. Often money is little more than a band-aid used in attempt to heal a broken femur.
For people like the McRoberts, Compassion's system is functional because they have the time, and money, to write, visit, and interact with the children they sponsor. They are doing more than simply throwing money at the problem. However, for college students in Bethany, Oklahoma, the dream of being able to interact with children on the other side of the world is ever so slightly less realistic. So, while it might make us feel good to know that we are thirty-two dollars poorer at the end of each month, from the outside it doesn't actually seem like we are doing anything besides placating ourselves.
I would like to take this moment to make an appeal to human decency.
Can we not simply work to redeem this world in the name of morality? Organizations like Compassion and World Vision are primarily supported by churchgoing, Bible-toting Christians who feel that by donating a small amount of their paycheck to a needy child, whom they will never meet, every month they have done their duty to "feed [his] sheep." [John 21:17 NIV] [Oh my God, look! Daedalus just quoted scripture!?] I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with trying to do some good in Jesus' name [Lord knows the world could stand to have a few more people doing such], but why must we summon Jesus to the scene every time there is a situation that needs attention? Why can one person not help another, without summoning forth the divine, based entirely on the fact that they breathe the same air you do? I know this is a tangential issue, but come on people! We're humans first.
"If you ever get close to a human and human behavior, be ready to get confused . . . . There's no map and a compass wouldn't help at all."
[20 gold stars and a glow-in-the-dark pencil to anyone who can correctly identify that quote.]
"Keep near me and you will be safe."
Daedalus
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7 comments:
Thank you.
Really, I mean it.
For the first time, I read your chapel blog and felt...inspired. As far as I'm concerned, you hit the nail on the head here.
Perhaps I'll add some thoughts later, but I'm headed to an appointment right now.
Daedalus-
How dare you? I cannot believe your gall! Canada is way cooler than the U.S.
I'll be collecting my stars and pencil in person, Daedalus. Your quote is from Bjork- Human Behavior. So cough up. You can bring it to me at Michelson's dinner party.
There's one small thing that I would like to seriously point out. During the sermon (loosely named), the speaker informed us that CI was one of the top 25 humanities organizations in the world and the president reportedly said that he regretted that there weren't more that were Christian. I think that our Nazarene University once again puts us in that bubble where we don't know what's going on in the real world. I agree, we shouldn't show kindness to one another for Jesus' sake alone, but in order to perpetuate human decency and just improve the quality of life of the people around us.
Also you forgot to point out our speaker's swear. I was impressed. There wasn't even a disclaimer.
While I do agree that humans do have a moral obligation to care for one another, I'm not sure that is an argument that can be made without some sort of metaphysical system including a higher power. If there is no God-like figure at the basis of a system of morality, then morality becomes highly relativistic, and there is little more basis for a "golden rule" (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) or even "silver rule" (Don't do unto others what you wouldn't have them do unto you) methodology of morality anymore so than Hobbes' view of morality as simply that which promotes self-interest. If morality is not a code of ethic from a higher power, then it is simply a matter of pragmatism, and I don't know if I see a practical reason for helping the less fortunate in Africa apart from the Judeo-Christian ethical system.
Daedalus,
You're right on a number of levels but I think your commitment to sarcasm or negativity disallows you from seeing the backwards nature of your own criticism.
Child sponsorship is definitely a low rung on the ladder of involvement in development. In fact, I've been in conversation with other advocates about finding other, even lower rungs for folks to step onto for the very reason that I think it takes some effort for most folks to even get on the ladder at all. You made this point yourself noting that it should be enough for us that we breathe the same air.. the unfortunate but obvious truth is that it is not enough. If it were, organizations like CI or World Vision would be superfluous (and that'd be a good thing).
Your thinking that sponsorship is a cheap way out of more comprehensive efforts is incomplete as well. It costs upwards of $4000-$6000 for US residents to just GET to Africa; money that could be better spent in the hands of a Ugandan woman who needs $200 to start a rice distribution business; or to help Liberians filter their own water so that they are no longer dependent upon the Lebanese to ship water in at exhorbant prices (as is the case now in Monrivia, Liberia). Kenyans are more than capable of building and running their own schools and clinics. What we can do best to is help bolster and maintain their training in medicine and education and the provide them what funds they cannot generate on their own (or the funds to get started). Americans trekking to Africa to build schools and teach sex-ed isn't such an outrageous idea because it's radical; the problem is that it's and incomplete thought. If Americans build everything with our own hands and fund it with our own money,.. Africans become increasingly dependent upon foreign help and remain stuck. The principle behind child sponsorship is putting kids (and adults) in a position to learn basic life-skills, basic education, basic health and then grow from their. To learn to believe that they have something to offer their own world, in the same way you know you have something to offer yours. After centuries of other nations/empires controlling Africa's destiny, the desire of CI and WV is to hand the reigns back to Africans.
Just as child sponsorship is the first rung for Americans with regards to involvement, so it is with Africans.. it is the help they need to get on the ladder and begin dreaming, building, growing and blessing.
While I wholeheartedly agree that a plea for assistance or generosity should not have to be rooted in christian terms, it is my frame of reference and my motivation, which is why my presentation is centered on the Person of Christ.
Thanks for thinking about (and blogging about) these things. I apologize if this comes off as a bit defensive; I have seen whole villages that have been transformed by the lives of adults who grew up in the CI program only to return to their village and start businesses, clinics and ministries; I know that it works and have committed my life to drawing people into this work, no matter how low the rung is where we take our fist step.
Almost forgot.. the quote is Bjork. Where can i pick up my star?
Oh no, I answered first! Those stars are mine! And the glow in the dark pencil. I guess I'd be willing to share the stars, so long as I can keep the pencil... and so long as you didn't steal my answer...
UndercoverFabala,
You're absolutely right... I completely missed that you called it. I will see D's star and raise it a shimmery something-or-other. I think I have a sequent studded frog door stop around here somewhere...
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