Christian Churches Steadfastly Refusing To Help Those in Need....

[00:00:01] Christian churches steadfastly refusing to help those in need here's an article that I wrote to connect my forthcoming book Love Thy Stranger to an intriguing news event. A couple of months ago I had thought about publishing in a journal, but never did so here it is, just for you. Blog Jesus introduced a new kind of altruism into the world, and it's fading before our very eyes. [00:00:26] This has been graphically illustrated by a recent TikTok sensation. [00:00:31] A woman from Kentucky, Nicholeen Monroe, had the inspired idea of testing the moral commitments of communities of faith. [00:00:38] She recorded phone calls to over 40 churches of various denominations asking if they could help her starving baby. [00:00:45] All she needed was a can of formula. [00:00:49] This was a scam. There wasn't actually a baby, but an infant screaming from a recording could be heard loud and clear in the background. [00:00:57] The great majority of churches flat out refused to help. [00:01:01] Either they provided assistance only to members of their congregation, or they didn't keep formula in stock, or they simply weren't able to do anything. [00:01:10] Is this what it means to be a follower of Jesus? [00:01:14] The one Islamic center she called was eager to help in any way she needed. [00:01:18] Nakali's videos went viral and predictably sparked outrage online. Why did so many Christian leaders turn their backs on such a simple but compelling plea for help? [00:01:30] The excuses she recorded would have made perfect sense to most people in Jesus own time, including moral philosophers and religious leaders, but not to Jesus himself, who insisted that loving one's neighbor did not simply mean helping friends, family and co religionists for anyone in need. [00:01:50] An inclination to help those in need is deeply rooted in the human DNA, at least when they are family or friends or members of the same tribe but not outsiders. [00:02:00] As with all species, Homo sapiens are biologically inclined to ignore the other, if not to fight them off or attack them. [00:02:08] These biological drives were encapsulated in ancient understandings of how one ought to live in the world of Jesus. All Greek and Roman moral philosophers, whether followers of Plato or Aristotle or the Stoic teachers or Epicureans, they agreed a primary goal of life was to flourish, enjoy life to the utmost, and seek for contentment and fulfilment by being the right kind of person and behaving in ways that would promote well being for nearly all of them. That entailed having quality family relationships, promoting safety and embracing communities and finding good friends who shared similar values. [00:02:46] Most people today would agree that these are desirable goals, and most will be surprised to learn that Jesus had very different views. [00:02:54] Jesus came out of an alternative Tradition. Born and raised Jewish in a small rural village in northern Israel. Like many other Jews of his day, he understood the world as a battleground occupied by forces of evil opposed to God, the devil, demons, other wicked powers. [00:03:11] In this view, God was soon to intervene in the course of human affairs, destroy all the forces opposed to him, along with all the people who sided with them, and so bring in the perfect utopian world he had planned from the beginning with the Garden of Eden, before humans ruined it. [00:03:27] This apocalyptic perspective meant that the goal of life was to look forward to the life ahead, to live now, to be saved. Then, on the Day of Judgment, the coming age of paradise, the future kingdom of God, is is what mattered. [00:03:40] Anyone intent on entering into that age needed to turn back to God and begin living as he commanded. [00:03:46] For Jesus, that meant following one of the central commandments of God in the law of Moses. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. [00:03:55] Leviticus 19:18. [00:03:59] This is not a command to generate emotions about others. [00:04:03] No one, not even God, could order you how to feel. [00:04:06] But regardless of whether or not you like someone, you can treat them the way that you treat yourself. You can make sure that you have food, clothing and shelter. And then to love others as yourself, you help the hungry, the destitute and the homeless. [00:04:20] The love command means behaving altruistically. [00:04:26] In the Old Testament, altruistic action was to be directed toward fellow Israelites, your own people, as Leviticus 9:18 says, both those born into it and immigrants. Leviticus 9:34, that did involve strangers, but only strangers within the community. This was not a command to love outsiders. Quite the contrary. The Israelites were instructed to slaughter the Canaanites, the Moabites, the Midianites and other occupants in the Promised Land. See numbers chapter 31, or Joshua chapter 6. [00:04:58] Jesus had a much more extreme vision rooted in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, such as Isaiah, which indicated that God was concerned for the entire world and planned to save all humans who obeyed his commandments. [00:05:10] Jesus quietly maintained that anyone, Jew or Gentile, who turned their backs on the hungry, the thirsty, the foreign and the sick would be destroyed on the Day of Judgment. But those who helped them, even though they were strangers, from different families, ethnicities, communities or nations, would be given eternal Life. [00:05:28] That's Matthew 25:31 46. [00:05:34] Jesus taught that love thy neighbour meant love thy stranger. Devote your life to helping those in need, even outsiders. [00:05:43] After Jesus death, this teaching lived on as Christianity expanded throughout the Roman world. It became a doctrine proclaimed from the pulpit as the Roman elite began to convert, they put their economic and cultural muscle behind it. When the empire converted, it came to be a moral commonplace. [00:06:01] Those with means needed to help those without, even if they were complete strangers. [00:06:08] This new consciousness certainly did not make the Christian world brilliantly moral, as seen with painful clarity in the history of Christian intolerance and violence, pogroms and horrible acts of antisemitism, crusades and rampant Islamophobia, inquisition and torture of heretics, slavery, and dozens of other hateful crimes against humanity, often carried out in the name of Christ. [00:06:32] Humans are inveterately human. [00:06:34] But it's also important to look at the flip side. [00:06:38] Many Christians and Christian communities have indeed steadfastly devoted themselves to following the teachings of Jesus, not just with words, but with their entire lives, generously giving their hard earned money and all their precious time to help the unknown other, experiencing hunger, homelessness, privation and suffering of every kind. [00:07:00] Most striking is the fact that this ethical sense of helping all in need, even though alien to the Western world prior to the advent of Christianity, became the common sense. [00:07:09] This new ethic affected not only individuals, but society as a whole, and in ways that most people don't realize and almost no one would expect. [00:07:19] It's a historical reality that public hospitals in the Western world are a Christian invention. Who knew? So are orphanages and poor people's homes, homes for the elderly, private charities to help the hungry and homeless, disaster relief, governmental assistance for those in need. These things did not exist in the Greek, Roman and Jewish worlds before or at the time of Jesus. [00:07:40] They were invented by Christian leaders trying to implement Jesus teachings and to make them a reality, focusing on the needs of others rather than simply one's own welfare. [00:07:50] They are inventions that have improved and even saved millions of lives, and they still do so today. It is of course, entirely possible that they would have developed in the west for other reasons or from other causes, possibly from the influence of Eastern or South Asian religions and cultures. [00:08:05] But they didn't. They came into being as Christian innovations. [00:08:11] The moral reasoning that led to these institutions also shaped our Western minds and ethical impulses. [00:08:17] When there's a hurricane, an earthquake, serious flooding, drought, starvation, name your natural disaster. Most of us feel an obligation to help, even when it involves people we don't know. We never will know, and probably wouldn't even like if we did know. [00:08:31] Many, not all of us, but many of us, act on that feeling. That impulse comes to us, whether we are Christian, atheist or anything in between. Because for 17 centuries our world has been saturated with Christian culture or ultimately rooted in the teachings of Jesus about assisting those in need, this impulse to help the other appears to be slipping away. [00:08:54] Most disturbingly, it appears to be disappearing among those who are most vocal about their allegiance to Christ, who do not seem to know that his most fundamental teaching was that God cherishes those who help those in need, even strangers, at a cost to ourselves, or who cynically consider devoting oneself to the needs of others toxic empathy. [00:09:14] But it is not it is a dedication to helping others, even at a cost for oneself. What if the cost involves a half hour to buy a $30 bottle of formula for a starving baby? Is that too much to ask? [00:09:28] It apparently is. For a startling number of religious communities and leaders who publicly proclaim their devotion to the teachings of Jesus.