The "oops" was what I followed with...the things you said the 'church' isn't doing.
I said "concrete strategies to improve the physical world."
You replied with examples of charity.
I replied with clarification of what I previously meant. Charity, in my opinion, only mitigates deprivation and suffering. Now this is not insignificant as it provides immediate relief. However, it preserves the power disparity between the powerful and powerless. Therefore it falls short of what I had in mind in my rebuke of the universal church. We've all heard that it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. Independence and self-sufficiency should be the goal, not endless aid. A quote from MLK Jr comes to mind:
“Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”
Analogous to the MLK Jr quote is another famous quote by Clay Shirky, which became known as the
Shirky Principle:
Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
Lot's of examples of this happening, but here's a recent article that crossed my eyes:
How helping the poor became big business
www.theatlantic.com
So whenever I see hundreds, if not thousands, of religious people gathered together supposedly for a "higher," divine cause (as in the videos you shared), I think of what a missed opportunity it is. Imagine the same numbers of people choosing to gather instead for a "lowly," terrestrial cause, or dare I say, political cause, to change unjust laws or polices that create poverty, that allow food manufacturers to sell toxic food, that allow water authorities to poison the water supply, to improve public health so that fewer people fall ill, and so on. Heck, there are hundreds of issues which if rectified could
reduce the needs of the needy. What we see all too often is the status quo being kept intact by charities keeping the needy addicted to their crumbs, rather than redirecting their vast resources to liberate the needy from their poverty. But then, to MLK Jr's larger point,
to reduce the number of the needy would be a threat to the system itself. What need would we have for government welfare programs, charities, philanthropists, and the donor class itself, if the people were freer, richer, and healthier to take care of themselves? Would we need religious charities and government social welfare if they weren't taking what already belonged to us?
More than helping the poor, the goal should be reducing poverty. Churches (and non-profits in general) protect the status quo by not challenging government authorities. Why? Because these same authorities grant them tax exempt status. And some people get a perverse sense of self-worth and social status by saying they help the less fortunate. So to take that away from them would be an attack on their self esteem. Sickening.
If the masses could finally discover the manipulation behind statecraft (e.g. wealth redistribution, welfare, national defense, etc.), perhaps they would stop paying their taxes and submitting to civil authorities. Similarly, if the masses could finally discover the manipulation behind the doctrine of
Original Sin, perhaps they would stop paying their tithes and submitting to the priesthood. Neither institution wants that, so they protect and reinforce each other.
(North Charleston Dream Center | Seacoast Church)
