What Christian ethics tells us about „chuggers“ (charity muggers) – 2 November 2016

von Kevin Brutschin

We all know them, and we almost all hate them: Charity muggers, the collectors on the streets or at doors, who are looking for new members for charities. But most of them are not from the charities themselves, they are from commercial fundraising agencies, who are working on behalf of these charities. What tells us the bible to such companies?

 

JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE (LUKE 19, 45-48)

 The fundamental idea of „christian charity“ (neighbourly love) is manifested in charitable work – and in the meantime even perverted 

 

…And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words…

Jesus rout out those who oversell sacrificial animals or change the temple currency only for a high additional charge. As far as I know, this is the only situation in the bible, where the „Son of God“, symbolically the „ethical instance“, is in such furious anger, that he uses even physical force, which shows the severity of the ethical violation.

Jesus is the moral authority, the salesmen are the chugging firms, the believers are the donors, the temple is the charity, which has transformed to a den of ROBBERS – charity mugger = charity street ROBBER(!) – the temple fee is the donation and the chief priests, the scribes and the principal men of the people are the charity bosses.

The temple is the place where believers can turn to what is good, and charity workers can engage into the work of the good. Both activities are non-egoistic. That’s why making profit is not justified (and that’s why, the charity sector is called the NON-profit-sector, too). But in this story of the bible, the salesmen are making big profit, as well as the chugging firms in our days. And both of them are using the good faith of the believers/the donors. They act selfishly or: They are making „profit with non-profit“. Can you see the absolute NO GO of both of them?

To make it clear: The cooperation of charities with chugging firms is not only ethically unacceptable. In terms of Christian ethics, it is even deeply unchristian.