I didn't realize that Landover article was based on over-zealous Christians working to save the world.
Haiti's children and an overdose of Christian charity
I have always been troubled by the exaltation of paternalistic charity in general and Christian charity in particular, since the latter has so often been an exercise in trolling for converts. The ill-conceived attempt by a group of Baptists from Idaho to "rescue" so-called orphans from Haiti offers a graphic example of the ways in which efforts to help others, however sincere, can run amok when motivated by the commands of a god whose instructions are unmodified by the voices of reason and common sense. I regret that the Haitian government has charged these misguided people with kidnapping, because it will only turn them into martyrs.
The primary dictionary definition of charity--giving to the poor and needy without any expectation of material reward--is inadequate, because it leaves out the importance of non-material rewards that everyone gets from charitable giving, whether of one's money or oneself. Charity feels good, for an atheist or a religious believer. If it didn't feel good--and the more personal sacrifice is involved, the better it feels--most of us would not extend ourselves to help those in need. Few among us, religious or not, could hope to attain the platonic embodiment of charity as described by Paul in I Corinthinans: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself up, is not puffed up." We are human, and to be human is to congratulate ourselves on our righteousness--even if we only do so in privacy when we write a check. This sense of righteousness is not a useless emotion, because it is often coupled with a sense of gratitude that impels us to give more.
It is exceedingly important, however, to be aware of the perils of puffing ourselves up too much in the process of efforts to help the poor, because it is dangerous to confuse the needs of others with our own needs. What could be more vainglorious than to imagine that God is telling you to leave your home in Idaho and " gather 100 (Haitian) orphans, then return to the D.R. (Dominican Republic." This is a direct quote from the Web site of the Eastside Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, which announced plans for its "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission." The site also talked about the group's intention to provide adoption opportunities through an organization called the New Life Adoption Foundation, which specifically promises to service "Christian parents."
Guess what? The foundation is neither a registered adoption agency with the state of Idaho nor an accredited international adoption agency. Yet the group members arrested at the Haitian-Dominican border claimed, directly contradicting their own site, that they had no plans to make the children available for adoption. Many of the children, according to published reports, were not orphans and, in any case, the group had no legal authority to remove them from the country.
The Southern Baptist Convention, with which the Idaho church is affiliated, has a long history of experience in disaster relief. The members of the Idaho group, however, had no training in either the care of traumatized children or in facilitating legal adoption, and they had no right to designate themselves as the guardians of any young Haitians. (There is no evidence that professional relief administrators at the Southern Baptist Convention were ever consulted by the Idaho group.)
What made these Idaho zealots do what they did without permission? God, of course. Laura Silsby, one of the moving spirits behind the botched "rescue," said, "We wanted to give them (the children) lives of joy and dignity in God's love." Their form of God's love, of course. And the way to do this, presumably, was to hightail it for the border, hoping that the illegality of the whole scheme would escape notice in the confusion. Silsby was warned by an experienced human rights worker that her group was risking arrest and went ahead anyway.
The problem with the charity of missionaries, whether Christian or non-Christian, has always been that it comes with religious strings. The Idaho Christians may not want a material reward, but they are expecting a reward in the afterlife. This was true when both Catholic and Protestant missionaries fanned across the globe between the 16th and 20th centuries, feeding the hungry and establishing schools in the poorest regions on earth. The food and the schools were the bait. Obtaining converts was the goal. And if millions of people died of white man's diseases imported by the missionaries, the survivors remained to be converted to Christianity.
Haiti's prime minister, Max Bellerive, has said that the Idaho Baptists "knew what they were doing was wrong." He is certainly right in a legal sense, but in a psychological sense, these people probably did not know that what they were doing was wrong--not if they were convinced that they were doing God's work.
There was also a particularly American arrogance coupled with fundamentalist Christian arrogance at work here. It is inconceivable that these people would have tried such a stunt if, say, a massive fire or earthquake on the West Coast had left orphaned children in the United States. And one can only imagine what the reaction of Americans would be if, after a natural disaster in Idaho, charitable Canadians walked into their communities and tried to take American children across the border.
This kind of addled charity, whether conducted by the religious or the nonreligious, is always counterproductive. Genuine charity means trying to give people what they need, not what you think they ought to need to satisfy your own emotional or spiritual longings. It would be equally reprehensible if some atheists were to decide that they should go scoop up a bunch of orphans and arrange adoption in good, nonreligious homes. Lots of atheists long to adopt children, and they have a tougher time of it in America than people who belong to churches.
The only volunteers who ought to be headed for Haiti right now are doctors, nurses, experienced givers of child care, and workers who know how to build houses, sewers, and an electrical grid. Anyone else is a nuisance. Anyone else is practicing self-serving, puffed-up charity and ought to write a check instead.
The attorney for the Americans told the Associated Press that in the makeshift hall where the Idaho group was being held, "there is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing." No air conditioning and no electricity? In a grievously poor country that has been devastated by an earthquake? Shocking! Well, the naive Idaho church people--let us give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they really were naive--had expected to be on the other side of the border by now, in a location where their deity is presumably providing more essential services than he is in Haiti.
By Susan Jacoby | February 4, 2010; 10:09 AM ET
onfaith.washingtonpost.com |
