“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, as a doctor leads her away to a mental institution
There was a presentation in my book club a few years ago in which we discussed the difficulties faced by Miss Bates in Jane Austen’s book Emma. Miss Bates is an aging spinster who was raised a gentlewoman and cares for her elderly mother who is mostly deaf. The longer she lives, the less she has. She is surrounded by wealthy neighbors (Emma Woodhouse, Mr. Knightly, and Frank Churchill) who visit her and provide charitable acts toward her, giving her a hind-quarter of pork, fixing her mother’s spectacles, inviting her to events, and offering her rides to community gatherings. But none of these things put her back on equal footing with them, despite her fading status. She must rely on them to remember her, to think of her needs, to be available to help her, and she doesn’t really get a say in what help they offer her. This entire system depends on the wealthy being thoughtful, nearby and available, and she must exhibit gratitude or their help might dry up.
While religious people often talk about the importance of charity, it’s not a good substitute for human rights, public goods or shared responsibilities. Structures, like governments, that routinely fail to meet basic needs of citizens are insufficient. Here are some examples of why charity fails:
Charity is voluntary. People’s needs are not voluntary, but donor generosity is. Some people have more needs than others due to financial insecurity, medical needs, aging, being victims of crime, and natural disasters. For example, a food bank can be valuable and helpful, but its capacity to help depends on donations, volunteers, economic conditions, the storage and distribution centers, and the priorities of the people in charge. Sometimes people donate too much of the wrong types of things or donate expired foods.
Charity is uneven. Charitable giving follows emotion, visibility and social norms. People are prone to give to children, disaster victims, veterans, people whose personal stories are compelling, and causes they personally identify with. They are often less enthusiastic about causes that are complicated, invisible, chronic, expensive, or politically controversial. There is often a mismatch between what people need and what people are willing to fund.
Charity is in the hands of the powerful. Powerful people have more resources at their disposal. Many wealthy donors are more likely to want to fund something they can put their name on: a building, a hospital, a foundation. They also might not want to fund something for idiosyncratic reasons. The preferences of donors determines who gets help, not which causes are most worthwhile or where the needs are greatest. This makes charity oligarchic, not democratic.
Charity changes the relationship between the giver and receiver. Those receiving charity can feel degraded by the process. They generally do not feel equal to the one giving. Receiving charity may make someone feel grateful, but the benefactor is always in a better position than the beneficiary. Even when a donor is exceptionally kind and thoughtful, the receiver is like to feel indebted, and sometimes will feel shame or loss of dignity for having to ask. By contrast, receiving public benefits does not trigger feelings of obligation toward the giver since we all participate in society.
Charity treats symptoms, but may leave causes intact. If there’s a shortage of affordable housing, a charitable program might offer rental assistance or provide housing shelter or food, but not address the underlying problems of low wages, healthcare costs, zoning restrictions, distribution of wealth, or housing shortages.
Charity benefits the giver without changing the system. Those who give feel the pride and magnanimity of being charitable whether or not their donations are very helpful to those in need. This was a problem identified by my employer when I was working in Utah. Our charitable donations in the SLC office were the lowest in the nation for our large company, and the reason was because so many Utah employees felt tapped out by donating 10% to the church rather than donating to charitable causes. They let the church make those decisions for them, and in some cases, the church has done great humanitarian work, but they also don’t provide any transparency and reserve the right to use donations as they see fit, regardless the category in which the donation is made. In other words, you may have donated to causes you disagree with, such as paying Kirton-McConkie to write legal briefs to block the rights of women and LGBTQ people, but you also felt “good” about your donation because you trusted the organization and they were not accountable to you. Feeling morally good because of a charitable donation you made can make you feel less inclined to address the systems that keep people in need. (And of course, the church isn’t the only charitable organization with a transparency problem).
Charity vanishes when it’s most needed. When the economy is bad, charitable donations decrease as everyone struggles to make ends meet.
Charity is paternalistic. Perhaps you’ve heard people say “I’ll give food but not cash to a panhandler because I don’t want them to spend it on drugs or alcohol.” You’ve doubtless heard the expression “beggars can’t be choosers.” The meaning behind these sentiments is clear; the one asking for help has to take what they are given and does not have the luxury of determining how to solve their own problems. The donor is always the decision maker.
Charity asks “what am I will to give you?” Justice asks “What do we owe each other?” Good society needs both types of thinking, along with empathy. When society asks religious or charitable organizations to substitute for social provision, it also allows them to dictate who gets help, under what conditions, and according to their own definition of worthiness.
- How do you see charity supplementing government programs?
- Do you think there is too much reliance on religion to fill the gaps left by modern society?
- What would you do to strike the right balance?
- Have you seen charity fail?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I suppose it’s fair to take a quick peek at the LDS charity system (by which I mean what we commonly call the LDS welfare system, not LDS Charities). At the local level, it is run by bishops, who decide who gets help and how much and in what form — and who doesn’t. Bishops don’t get much training or guidance in how to make these decisions. Result: it’s hit or miss who gets help and who doesn’t. Who a bishop thinks “deserves” help and who doesn’t. And for how long.
I’m willing to grant that most bishops have good intentions and generally make good decisions. But there is no transparency or accountability. You, me, and every other Mormon rely on personal experience, reports from friends or family, or anecdotal reports we read about online for info about how things actually work. We get little or nothing in terms of official accounts or reliable media reports of how the details of the system work: what guidance is given for who gets what or doesn’t, whether there is any review or feedback given to bishops, how inconsistent the system is between various wards and stakes, and so forth.
LDS leadership wants everyone to have warm feelings about the system in general, but know little or nothing about the messy details of how the system actually works in the thousands of individual cases. Or of how the burdens and benefits are distributed among stakes (I’m sure some stakes are net givers and some are net takers, but good luck finding any official report identifying specific stakes who are givers or takers — and shouldn’t we the financial contributors to the system know this info?).
My high school discussion wondered about England’s artificial class system, and how people of status, like Miss Bates, expected a genteel life of passive income, such as by collecting rents or by marrying someone who had money, but who could not and would not embarrass themselves by working for a living, and how those people and their children in the next generation fell from their genteel station back into the pool of the unknown masses. While there may have been some sympathy in my high school class for the young adults who were on the edge of secretly losing their genteel station, there was no sympathy for the system that produced this artificiality. We compared and contrasted some of Jane Austen’s characters (and portrayal of characters) with some of Charles Dickens’ characters (and portrayal of characters), and saw real differences.
Or, to put it differently, in my class we would not have used Emma to teach the virtue of Christian charity. Maybe my teacher had somewhat of a realist or Marxist bent.
I view charity like I see First Aid. When someone breaks their arm, has an ear infection, is bleeding out…. get them to the nearest hospital to be stabilized and treated. Likewise, when a person shows up at a food pantry, or with an eviction notice or a utility shut-off letter…. let’s make sure they get fed and housed. Immediate needs require immediate responses.
To continue my comparison: the really difficult work comes when the health issue is chronic or debilitating or expensive. Now we’ve moved beyond Band aids and Advil. Caring for and rehabilitating the *individual* rather than the *situation* requires a whole lot more ongoing work than most of our charity systems are set up to handle. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the man beaten and robbed was not only tended on the road where he was found but then the Samaritan also paid the innkeeper for his ongoing care. Christians should use this as a model; both immediate needs AND longer-term needs should be supported in our charity ministries.
Side note: my husband served as bishop for 6+years, covering the years before/during/after Covid. The church’s Presiding Bishop gave a broadcast to bishops in the early days of the pandemic, emphasizing that the church has LOTS of money, the bishops needed to be MORE generous in supporting the individuals and families in their wards and communities. His take-away (or was it *my* take-away?) was that the church has plenty and it was time to spread it around as needed. As bishop, he provided support to active member families, non-participating families, non-members who were part of our community… he felt his charge as bishop was to bless the lives of every person in our ward boundaries. One last thing, he also authorized our RS president to grant any/all food orders and promise up to $500 support for any reason to any ward member, no questions asked. (yes, we could go off on a tangent that women’s authority in the church always comes via a man – a discussion for another day)