What struck me about this packet was the pronounced use of guilt being marketed. The Bible verse on the packet is Matthew 25:37, a teaching about sheep and goats. Jesus was teaching his disciples about the kingdom of heaven, and how people who think they're righteous might be in for a surprise when confronted with the fact that they neglected the poor and needy on earth. The most well-known verse from this passage is, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
Without a doubt, these are powerful words. Jesus struck at the heart of 'lukewarm' faith, for sure. There are a number of organizations and statistics that can tell you if every Christian in the U.S. (around 138 million people) slightly increased their giving each year, then extreme poverty could be eradicated by the year 2035. And I applaud organizations such as World Vision for working to end extreme poverty.
Still, I'm not sure Jesus had a 'guilt marketing tactic' in mind when he spoke those words to his disciples. He was simply calling out hypocrisy. Is that what World Vision is doing? Maybe.
The difference, in my estimation, is that World Vision is a company with employees...and payrolls. But it's hard to blame them for what they're doing. Tackling worldwide poverty and injustice is on a level that is unfathomable to me. Again, I truly commend their work.
But their marketing efforts also got me thinking about why people give, and why we should give. If using guilt is the only way to get a person to give, then so be it. Better to feed a starving child using a guilt marketing method than for that child not to be fed at all. But I wonder sometimes, if most donors give simply because they read a phrase such as, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?" Are they trying to please God by giving money away? Or are they truly concerned for the poor?
I ask this of myself, as well. My wife and I sponsor a child through Compassion International. We sponsor a child because we have the resources to do so, and because it's the right thing to do. Yet we don't take the time to pray enough for our child. We read updates and send a letter to him every now and then, but do we really try to have a bond with this child?
Maybe giving money is enough. Maybe that's all that people can find the time to do. Writing a letter is simply out of the question. Praying for a child in another country might be asking too much when it is more than difficult to even pray for our own family.
Wouldn't it be nice, though, if people could give out of a deep concern for the well-being of others, rather than giving out of guilt?
Scott Todd, a senior adviser at Compassion International, spoke recently about charitable giving by Christians: “It begins with a new hunger—a felt, compelling force within us that desires that kids will not die of preventable causes, that sees the pain and feels it and is almost angry about it and wants it to stop." Scott Todd is the leader of "58" (based on Isaiah 58), an organization backed by ten major non-profit groups to highlight the causes of poverty and to fight against those causes—mostly through the financial assistance of donors.
And so I read Mr. Todd's quote, and then I look at World Vision's packet, and I think...somewhere we're off a little bit. Yes, there will always be poverty. But there still are effective means to save lives and help stop the extreme poverty stuff—lack of education, lack of clean water, lack of food and shelter. My hope is that, someday, organizations like World Vision won't have to use the guilt marketing anymore. I hope that Christians—and everyone else—will give to charities that fight poverty because it's the right thing to do. Salvation isn't based on works or how you spend you're money. If that's the case, then we're all headed to hell. Guilt shouldn't motivate us to do good. God and justice should be our motivators.
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