Today I finally canceled all of my sponsorships of children through Compassion International.
I say finally because I had come to the decision to do so many months earlier, but being a coward and lazy, I allowed other life circumstances to crowd out taking the rather small amount of time required to do this. I don't know what made today different. Perhaps it is just that I am tired of inaction in my own life, tired of the cowardice fueling inaction, and I wanted to take a small step towards changing that downward spiral.
Regardless of the reason why I finally did it, I did.
The short version of "why" is that I don't care what is done "in Jesus' name."
If you read Matthew 7, you'll find that doing something "in Jesus' name" doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. This is because applying a label, or slapping "in Jesus' name" onto something, doesn't take a lot of effort.
"We're eating this food, in Jesus' name!"
"We're building a new church, in Jesus' name!"
"We're reinstating temple prostitutes, in Jesus' name!"
"We're toppling governments and creating world unity, in Jesus' name!"
It doesn't matter what you do "in Jesus' name" unless Jesus wants you to do it in the first place.
Similar to how there is no scriptural support for "The Crusades", people still try to pretend that because they were done "in Jesus' name", that they had anything to do with Christianity, instead of the political reality that Christian nations were fighting back against the Muslims that had been busy conquering large portions of Europe until that point in time.
So, when did Jesus ever command Christians to be material saviors of the world?
When did Jesus say that it was the responsibility of Christians to run around the world and alleviate the consequences of sin?
At this point in human history, knowledge on agriculture is not exactly hard to find. We know that if you put plants in good soil, provide a source of water and sunshine, then the plants will grow. Some plants, in growing, produce things we can eat. If we focus on growing those things, we can have sources of food.
This isn't complicated, and yet "world hunger" is still an issue? How is that even possible?
Because for the same reason that people would deny God's gift of salvation through the death of Jesus Christ, people will reject truths that would lift them out of the depths of squalor and poverty. It is arrogance, pure and simple.
People don't want to admit that they are wrong, that they could do things differently in a way which would be better, and so they'll keep doing the wrong thing and boast loudly about how much better their way is.
It is not "bad luck" that condemns one to poverty, but arrogance and pride.
And this arrogance and pride I am no longer interested in subsidizing.
The Compassion International charity claims to provide for material needs of children, to "lift them out of poverty", and then throws in that because they work through churches, the children also get a chance to hear about Jesus.
That is not the correct priority. Offering material salvation first and then eternal salvation afterwards does not make acceptance of the Gospel more probable, and this is seen most clearly in the type of "Christianity" that exists in some of these places, where there is little more than a "Christianese" coat of paint over animism, shamanism, occultism, and every other demonic practice under the sun.
The reason that this is what happens is because these charities cannot offer a salvation they themselves do not possess. One cannot spread the Gospel if one has not heard and accepted it themselves, as those who genuinely do find the material struggles of this life to be insignificant in comparison, let alone necessary as part of the sanctification process.
When we make bad choices in life, bad consequences follow. When someone comes along and offers to absorb the cost of bad consequences, we'll take it rather than correct our own behavior. This unfortunate reality about human nature was captured in the prayers by Jesus Christ in the garden before his death, and indeed was what necessitated his sacrifice on our behalf:
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”
He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.
So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.”
The people who had seen the miracles, had the parables explained to them, who witnessed the ministry of Jesus Christ firsthand, couldn't even obey a simple command from Jesus Christ, that he made three times in a row right to their faces.
If they couldn't do that, realize that what Jesus Christ was asking is if there was any other way to reconcile man to God. Is there any other way, other than doing all the work, is there any middle ground whereupon humanity would realize its own folly and repent?
God's answer? NOPE.
This isn't about intelligence, or the lack thereof. This isn't about education, or the lack thereof. This isn't about opportunity, equality, fairness, or the lack thereof.
Humans are arrogant and prideful creatures who will not "get it" unless their own horrible nature and the consequences it naturally brings about are shoved in their faces, and even so some would rather die in that arrogance and pride than admit that anybody, let alone God, has any place to tell them to do anything differently.
Just like how Israel, despite their favor and intimate connection with God, frequently turned away and rebelled, humanity lacks the ability to be obedient to God on our own. We can't do anything on our own strength, it took God doing all the work and leaving us with just a choice.
God doesn't make that choice for us, and "steps back" when we make the wrong choices and lets us experience the consequences. Unfortunately for humanity, this dynamic isn't just temporal, but eternal as well. God will not "override" the choices of those who have rejected Jesus Christ, who have died unrepentant, who till their last breath cursed God for being God instead of them being God.
So how does filling someone else's stomach accurately reflect this dynamic?
How does free education accurately reflect this dynamic?
How does using the wealth and technology developed or accrued by those who were obedient to God to alleviate the consequences of sin "spreading the Gospel"?
How does "saving" someone from the consequences of their own decisions, without them choosing anything, going to "prime" them for understanding that the choice to follow Jesus may cost them everything in this life?
God's love is unconditional, but God's wrath is not, and in preaching only about God's love, we have diluted the reason why God's love matters in the first place. In acting only in love, we have reduced God to a cosmic vending machine of blessings, happy to reward others who do not hoard what God has granted them.
In preaching salvation, and yet acting as material saviors, we have ignored what we need to be saved from in the first place.
And a people who don't need saving can't be saved. So instead of preaching eternal salvation and sharing the Gospel, "Christians" provide for the material needs of others and invite them to join a social club, as if the acceptance or rejection of the invitation was only of incidental consequence, because the "Christians" will still be providing salvation regardless of what the individuals choose in the end.
Many are guilty of believing that they can be even more patient than God. That they will find a way to save people that Jesus Christ did not already afford, did not already make available. That somehow it's people's understanding or awareness which is the hindrance to their choosing God instead of themselves.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of why people ultimately reject God. People do not reject God out of a lack of understanding, but because they understand all to well that the Gospel brings news of is that they are not God, and they simply cannot bear to live with the ramifications of that.
Spread the Gospel, not comfort. Spread the Gospel, not health and wealth.
And that is why I will no longer support charities whose primary purpose and behavior does not center around spreading the Gospel. The rest is, quite literally, just a distraction from the most important role we can play in this material life.
I am not God, and neither are you, but God wants to have a relationship with us, and the price of reconciliation was already paid by Jesus Christ on the cross.
What will you choose?
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