The Myth of Religion As a Force for Social Progress

The Myth of Religion as a force for Social Progress

Social Reform Welfare Services

Community Domination and Social Infrastructure

The Family — Abuse of Women and Children within the family.

'Charity' as the Model for Welfare……………….11

Voluntary work and ‘faith-based services’:

Missionary activity

Voluntary Work and Faith-based Services……....17

One area in which the religions have always claimed kudos is in the field of ‘Good Works’. From everyday community activities, to the provision of health and welfare at home and abroad, the Churches claim to provide the infrastructure and organisation through which people’s needs can be met. From their role in initiating caring services, their development and reform, through everyday community social activity, the Churches use people’s needs as a way of promoting themselves and their beliefs, while portraying themselves as progressives intent only on caring for the welfare of others. The need for these activities binds people to the Church and has made them dependent upon it. In the field of general social policy and its administration, voluntary schemes and charity are their method of choice. They have dominated communities and, hard as it may sound, there has been a consistent pattern of self-interest in the activities of the Church and religion. Their attitudes to the poor, and ‘sinners’ and their interpretation of biblical texts has often led to cruel and punitive treatment of those who have fallen into crime and loneliness, causing many of the problems that they set themselves up to solve.

In the provision of welfare and health, the religious model has held back progress rather than initiated development and reform. Their conservative attitudes and protection of their dominant position leads them to resist the takeover of these services by secular organisations, preferring to keep ‘their’ services in the private sector of which they are a part. They are often run by people who are uncontrolled and unaccountable until forced

1 by circumstances, finance, or scandal to bow to public pressure to allow examination of their methods and results, and in too many cases the role of abusive organisers and clergy.

As the influence and membership of the Christian Churches declines, they see ‘faith-based welfare’ as a way of reinforcing their position in society. Strong pressure is being put on the government to give them money to run sectarian welfare services, as a retreat from universal provisions free from the many disadvantages of sectarian activities. (See Chapter on Charity and Voluntary work)

General Social Policy and Welfare

The Churches claim the credit for the first health and welfare services. It is often said, quite rightly, that it was the religious people of the past who initiated institutional care of the sick and the destitute. They could do this because they were the only organisations with the resources, people and premises available for this purpose. These services brought gratitude and high esteem from the community, regardless of the fact that they had, apparently, no aim to extend the care and develop it as part of the overall fabric of society. They kept it as a sectarian activity. They made it appear that only religious people and the organised Church could, would and should provide these social services. Also ignored was religion’s own part in creating the problems that led to the need for these ministrations. It was religious attitudes to ‘god’ and ‘the devil’, that led to the casting out of ‘sinners’, the labeling of some people as ‘immoral’ and ostracism of those with disability supposedly caused by god as a punishment, which justified their punitive treatment of poor, ill, disabled and otherwise disadvantaged people that resulted in their abandonment and poverty. Even now antagonistic attitudes to welfare by many people and a general blame culture are built upon a conviction that people are always in control of their circumstances and can change themselves, and such attitudes are based on traditional religious notions of the power of prayer or belief. This is very much a philosophy of goodness being next to godliness.

The religions claim that they were in the vanguard of welfare and care for ‘the fallen’, ignoring the fact that their attitudes were often the cause of the ‘fall’. The concept of the deserving and undeserving poor, for instance, led to mostly harsh treatment of most of the poor, who were, in religious terms, regarded as undeserving — and still are today. Their suffering were either their own fault, or seen as pre-payment for greater

2 reward in the afterlife. If God ordains that some shall be poor and wretched, who are we to interfere?

If challenged on this, the Churches point to the great reformers who were religious and representative of religion, but for every social reformer who recognised the need and was in a position to influence policy and practice, there were the majority who sustained the status quo and resisted change. Religious reformers there were, particularly among the Quakers, such as the Cadburys and Rowntrees. But there were many more religious employers who exploited their workers — mill owners, slave traders, as well as monarchs and generals, squires and land-owners — all upright Christian men. Nor did these pillars of the Church tolerate dissident workers: many were thrown out of work or persecuted as heretics or witches, if they dared to complain or express disbelief in religion. In addition, it was all but impossible for anyone, least of all people of influence, to admit lack of religious belief, so there is no way of knowing for certain to what extent reformers were indeed religious or covert doubters. It is reasonable to suppose that those intent upon reform would think that they stood a better chance of success if they were seen as respected, pious Christians.

Regardless of the social pressures, there were some reformers who conspicuously ignored religion or actively expressed their non-belief: men and women such as Thomas Hobbes and William Cobbett, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Robert Owen, and Mary Wollstonecraft. There were also increasingly those who were courageous enough to campaign not only for welfare reform but also for secular humanism itself, people such as the American Robert Ingersoll, Angus Wilson and Marie Stopes. The pressures for social reform throughout the 20th century came not from the religions but through radical politics. Although many radical politicians who fought for humanitarian reform of social policy were not believers, many thought that the priority was to attain their goals, and that to express their atheism would hinder their efforts. Even today, politicians will not expose themselves to the ire of the Church by openly criticising their reactionary attitudes and practices. There are still only a handful of MPs who identify themselves as humanists (the softest term for non-believers) all of whom are in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties.

When faced with criticism, the religions point to education, caring and welfare, social progress and reform as ways in which religion has led the way. From the earliest times it was inevitable that being the only organisation with buildings, a pool of people who did not have to work

3 for a master, go to war, or scrape a living in small family units, and had money and influence, they would take on this role. Religion’s province was already the servicing and paternalistic control of the population in order to keep its place at the heart of the community. They were the only organisations that could provide organised care of orphans, the sick, and dying. For these services, the community paid in compulsory tithes. Most of the basic needs, however, were left to individuals and families to provide for themselves, and it was not until the 18th and 19th centuries, as the population increased, that the provision of health and welfare services started to be a serious interest of the state. The poverty and destitution of vast swathes of the population, initially the rural poor, then made much worse by the industrial revolution, reached such levels that eventually writers and philanthropists, reformers, and publicists such as Charles Dickens — ‘troublemakers’ of the day — drew attention to the desperate condition of the poor and it could not be ignored. Their work in changing the horrendous Poor Law that not only did not serve or reform, but made worse the conditions of the poor, has been well documented. Considering its power and all pervading influence, the Church did little to address the needs of the people’s health and welfare during the years in which it could have promoted and overseen gradual humanitarian progress.

Only when welfare provision was taken out of the hands of the Churches did it become professional and non-discriminatory, accountable and free from religious pressures. Yet today, far from going forward to increase comprehensive secular welfare provision, the Labour government is eagerly going along with demands from the evangelical Churches and other religious groups to fund their ‘faith-based welfare’ schemes. They are doing this regardless of the obvious arguments against the sectarian nature of such services from the point of view of both service providers and service users. Discrimination in employment has been conceded to the Churches, and there is no assurance that public funds will not be used for Church promotion, and no assurance that services and staff will be fully accountable, nor any protection against wasteful duplication by competing services.

Child Protection

This is an area of care in which the standards of care have not kept pace with modern notions of responsibility of the community, relying as it does on unreliable family structures.

4 Of great current concern is the spate of child abuse and child killings. After every case there are prayers, bunches of flowers and Church services, and the howl goes up from the British media, "How can we make our children safer?" The cry also goes up from the Churches and religions against what they call the increasingly secularisation of society, as if it were true that things are worse now that there is supposedly less religion. They jump on any bandwagon taking advantage of any hint of hysteria engendered by tabloid coverage of these terrible events, to urge people to return again to their religions, the panacea for all things wicked. What a cruel deception.

Governments are urged to bring in more and more draconian procedures aimed at assuaging the ‘fear-of-the-stranger’ as it reaches new heights in people’s perception as the greatest threat to our children. In Britain, a country of 56 million people, there are going to be cases of mad or evil people abusing or killing, whatever regulations, registers or legislation are in place; but there are things we could and should do. Unfortunately, these remedies, none of which will prevent every horrendous event, are not the stuff of rhetoric, tabloid hysteria or emotional sermonising, but the grind of rational policy decisions, some of which involve people accepting the burden of financing them.

In a letter to The Observer in September 2002 Professor Colin Pritchard, of the Mental Health Group of the University of Southampton School of Medicine, pointed to four facts pertinent to child killing: that four out of five murdered children are killed within their families and not by a stranger; that serious neglect and abuse also occurs predominantly within families; nine out of ten seriously neglected and abused children are in families living in relative poverty; and Britain has the highest proportion of children living in relative poverty in the European Union. (We also have the highest proportion of under-age pregnancies).

He went on to say "If the media were sincere in their calls to make children safer they would campaign for targeted intervention to break the cycle of intergenerational child neglect and abuse." He could also have pointed out that failure to finance child protection at local level means that children known to be in danger are not protected because there are not enough well-trained social workers to ensure that they have realistic case-loads. The refusal to recruit and train enough good child-care staff for children’s homes, and to pay enough to attract enough good people, puts children already traumatised by family breakdown or illness at further risk from unqualified or otherwise poor-quality provision.

5 That so much child protection work has to be done by the NSPCC and Kidscape, two secular charities, funded by charity and not national funding, illustrates indifference to rational policies on this issue; and is an indictment of a country where Christianity is the state religion, subscribed to by a majority of the population for so long.

Our social policy is only now tentatively emerging from the influence of the punitive religious attitudes towards one-parent families in general and single mothers in particular. These attitudes reflect the traditional view that the holy state of matrimony is the only ‘right’ and moral way to bring up children. Christian Britain today still does not wholeheartedly consider adequately the financial or community child-care needs of the children in one-parent families, or poor families, Yet it is still common to hear sympathy for single parents who are ‘not to blame’, but women who ‘deliberately’ have children out of wedlock are still seen by many as deserving economic punishment, an imposition that affects both the mothers and their children. Judging by many of the commonly expressed current political views, the notion of the undeserving poor is as strong today as it ever was.

At the time of writing, the government is trying, against a tide of religious prejudice, to pass legislation that would allow children to be adopted by unmarried and same sex couples eager to provide loving homes for them.

Poverty and lack of community support for families is one factor that drives lone mothers to resort to relying on men who want them to fulfill their own needs, but not their children, for whom they must take some responsibility, and with whom they may have to compete for attention. This must contribute to the recognised phenomenon of children abused by transient partners.

The impact of the religious attitude to wrongdoing and punishment, be it for disobedience to secular laws, religious doctrine or biblical injunctions, is worst on women and children.

Punitive attitudes and demands for retribution, so much a part of the religious agenda, result in reliance on imprisonment as a punishment. Where this is used for people — mothers or fathers — who are ‘more weak than wicked’ and not violent or threatening, it causes considerable trauma and hardship for women and children, when it is not they who should be punished. As usual, it is disproportionately worse for families who are already poor and may not be able to buy other forms of child- care, or travel to visit an imprisoned parent.

6 Children have always been exploited, and much of this exploitation has been and still is carried out by the Church and its priests, a fact ignored by a new Archbishop of Canterbury in his public statement on being appointed in 2002. He referred to abuse of children — not by priests or paedophiles; not by contaminating their education with religious indoctrination; or abusing their human right not to be physically attacked by adults — but by commerce!

True of course, but less to do with the Church than revelations at the end of the 20th century, from Europe, including the UK, and across America, of sexual abuse of children by Catholic Priests —a scandal the scale of which was played down not only by the Churches themselves but by the British media. Only when Church finances took a hefty knock by having to pay massive compensation to people abused by its clerics did much of the media notice the extent of the problem, preferring to amuse its readers with mildly titillating ‘naughty vicar’ stories.

There is also an increasing awareness of child deaths associated with the ritual killings in Europe by followers of extreme sub-Saharan African cults, the last two in Britain in 2001 and 2002. According to Europol (reported by Tony Thompson in the Observer 1/9/02), there have been at least nine between 1992 and 2002.

There are regular reports of demands by Christian Evangelical sects that harsh punishment of children by parents and in their Church schools should be allowed. And mainstream Christian Church schools, particularly those run by priests and nuns, have a reputation for punitive attitudes towards the disciplining of children and the maintaining of corporal punishment. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ has been more the pattern than ‘turning the other cheek’. The worst excesses are now constrained by the less punitive attitudes of a secular society, informed by educational and psychological research, and the law.

Severity in the disciplining of children has its roots in religion and is at its worst when done with religious zeal, during periods of religious strength, such as the Victorian era, and in institutions such as boarding schools where religious dogma is confused with wise and understanding guidance based on sound psychology.

In Ireland vulnerable children, boys and girls, were subjected to cruel regimes of harsh discipline, physical and sexual abuse in schools run by priests and nuns. This was going on up to the 1960s and was exposed in 2002 with a docu-drama and film, based on factual evidence, of the Magdalene Laundries.

7 Much abuse of children is deeply rooted in religious ideas, and the notion that ‘naughtiness’ or disobedience is the work of the Devil, ‘little devil’ and ‘imp’ are now thankfully only relics of widespread beliefs from the past that have passed into common language. But there are still too many children in puritanical religious families and their schools who suffer personal violence or social exclusion, caused by their parents’ fanatical religious beliefs that keep them segregated within their immediate family. Unfortunately, too, extreme views that children need severe discipline still persist if the devil in them is to be kept at bay. One of the worst examples was the case of Victoria Climbie, considered in need of exorcism by her aunt and her boy friend, who took her to their Church, the UCKG, shortly before she died, killed by the cruelest torture and neglect imaginable. It is possible, given people’s naiveté about religion, that their Christian piety disguised their wickedness. Belief in god and the devil is still rife, and even the Anglican Church still has priests who practice exorcism, presumably on mentally disturbed adults though hopefully not on children, small mercy!

Politically, it is a mixed picture. In order to regain some credibility, religious people have got together to call for a reduction of third-world debt. Benevolent socialism was spawned by the early nonconformists, and the Catholic Church is said to support ‘the left’. The Church of England has been called,’ the conservative party at prayer’. The hierarchy of the Anglican Church, with its individualistic approach, is still considered a pillar of support for laissez-faire capitalism, which exploits children as well as their parents as workers, providers of cheap labour. The evangelical Churches, Baptists and others make up the right wing ‘moral majority’ that supports the neo-conservatives in the United States, The more religious a country is, the less protection there is for the poor, women and children. Is it a coincidence that the countries in which one sees the greatest poverty — with children starving, scrambling over refuse heaps and working long hours — are also the most devoutly religious?

An example of the supposedly pious devotion to health and welfare can be seen in the activities of ‘Mother Teresa’. This ‘saintly nun’ is revered world-wide for her work in tending the dying of Calcutta, but if you look closely at what she actually did, a rather different picture of the value of her work emerges. Her methods ranged from not urging patients to seek specialist treatment when they needed it, to raising vast amounts of money, which were not spent on building medical facilities, or to run public health programmes, but to give to the Catholic Church to spend on its promotion, and to promote its anti-abortion and anti-contraception

8 propaganda, in a country in dire need of such choices. This was exposed in books by Christopher Hutchins and Aroup Chatterjee. (‘The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice’, by Christopher Hitchins; and ‘Mother Teresa, The Final Verdict’ by Aroup Chatterjee.)

Community Domination

The religions built Churches in every locality throughout the country with money raised compulsorily from the community. Religion was all but compulsory, and no open dissent was tolerated.

They have therefore this legacy of an infrastructure and organisation through which people still, very often, have to organise their communal activities. The Church can do this because their privileged position gives them considerable financial advantages not available to secular organisations, they and their schools are subsidised though taxation, and by their own exemption from taxes that have to be paid by secular and secularist organisations. This has allowed them to have a dominating influence in every area of the country through their hold on community life, and they can and often do exert subtle pressure on clubs and activities through the display of their promotional material, and insistence on Church affiliation for ‘leaders’ in some cases. Church parades may have largely died out, but Scout and Guide groups still comply with a religious ethos, as do children’s clubs and playgroups, where Church members who are often given preference over secular providers run them. Harvest festivals promote the charity ethic to children, who are now urged to collect tins of food for needy old people who are expected to be grateful for cans of beans. Seasonal celebrations such as Christmas and Easter are celebrated as Christian festivals although they pre-date Christianity. These Christian promotions are often held hand-in-hand with local Church schools which further excludes those who do not wish to take part in religious activities and puts considerable pressure on parents who understandably do not want to exclude themselves or their children from what should be real community celebrations.

Village life even today is often a picture of Church-dominated community life, and anyone not in sympathy with the Church and its aims and objectives must either swallow their feelings or feel excluded from the life of the village. In many villages, this is shared with the local pub, but even then there is frequently such a close relationship within small, close-knit communities that atheists and others who do not want to

9 contribute to the Church-sponsored activities can and do feel alienated and excluded.

Pressures are on the Churches to keep themselves alive by using the present-day needs of the community more than ever. Having little relevance in the ‘supernatural sector’ they have to keep their flagging support by concentrating on ‘faith-based’ welfare and Church schools, as well as chaplaincy of one sort or another. Clerics are ever-present on QUANGOS, committees, and any other voluntary organisation that finds itself in need of people who have the time go to meetings.

They have the time to spend on co-ordination and promotional activities, giving talks on radio, in schools and other organisations, using every opportunity to use community needs for the promotion of their religions.

There is one function that is necessary for harmonious community living that has been taken as the exclusive preserve of the Church. The role of the ‘parish priest’ or ‘local vicar’ is inevitably, in the way it has developed as part of Church structure, a sectarian institution. Yet there is a need for dedicated community workers to fulfill many of the activities of a local priest, but on a non-sectarian basis. As more people drop religious belief, the local vicar’s religious role becomes obsolete to all but his small congregation. As this happens, it becomes clear that there are functions of this ‘office’ that are still desirable for the harmonious functioning of community, at a level up from the individual or family, but below that of the local authority — co-ordinator, facilitator, support worker and ‘general factotum’. In some areas, local councilors who are themselves politically partisan, and should more properly be attending to the policy-making of a council rather than trying to act as unpaid social workers, take some of these activities on.

If the local vicar were to take off the dog collar, stop seeing his role as a religious one, but that of a ‘facilitator’, or community caretaker, and call himself the local ‘Dogsbody,’ he or she could become a real asset to the community. The functions previously assumed to be the role of the cleric — counselor, arbitrator, co-ordinator, befriender — would be valuable to the whole community. If this were done, the religions could share facilities for their religious services, and other activities. It would free up buildings and land, currently under-used, for much-needed community facilities without religious strings being attached to them, or for much- needed housing. It is happening to some extent, but only against rigid religious resistance. For this to happen it would be necessary for the Church to take its crosses and rituals out of the public domain. If their

10 motivation was genuinely the good of the ‘parish’ and the people, this would be possible; but it is not and it cannot, will not, happen because the aims and objective of religion put the worship of their god and Church above the needs of all humans for inclusive community activities. To sweep away the waste and divisiveness of so much Church property and duplicated facilities (much of which is subsidised through tax exemption), and return it to the community, would require a sea change in the traditional attitudes of the Churches and their members which their rigidity of thought is unlikely to allow.

However, if one takes a closer look at all this activity it becomes clear that the way it is done is far from the efficient and effective philanthropy of the supposed intentions. The religious way is to deal with poverty and deprivation through ‘charity’, rather than through considering the just expectations and rights of human beings. That is not to say that there are not religious people who do work through the political process, although today they could do that as well, if not better, without the religion. But it has not been the Church’s way to demanding basic rights in order for people to live a reasonable life, let alone the best that is possible. Their sights have been set very low considering their proclaimed idealism!

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8. 'Charity' as the Model for Welfare

Voluntary work and ‘faith-based services’:

Missionary activity:

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

11 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

12 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

13 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

14 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

15 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.

16 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

17 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

18 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,

19 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

20 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.

21 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.

22 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.