Words well spoken here.

Here is a topic that can really get me going! Many of my American friends think I’m anti-American because I have outsider views having spent a part of my time growing up in the Middle East, and a part of my adult life in Asia. The reality is I’m pro-American, but anti-American image.
In the two countries where I most frequently live and work now (China and Malaysia), churches are much more active in giving toward humanitarian work, and much more active in actually doing humanitarian work. At the same time, Americans give a ton of money toward humanitarian, missions, medical care, etc. The percentage of giving is lower, and the percentage of time given to humanitarian work seems lower, but the total amount of money given is by far the most by any nation worldwide, simply because Americans are unbelievably rich compared to the rest of the world. Americans act like the economic crisis is the end of the world, but this just shows how out of touch Americans are with the global experience.
As I’ve shared before, my family lived in the Middle East for part of my youth, because my father was in the oil business. In terms of my experiences, the best illustration of real giving came from some of our Ethiopian friends. My sister’s nanny was an Ethiopian refugee, who was a Christian. Our family paid her about $100 dollars a month for 40+ hours a week at our house, cleaning and taking care of my sister. She considered this salary too much (since it was more than so many of her friends), and she often offered to take a pay cut! Anyways, my mother led a Bible study with many of these Ethiopian refugees and we as a family were constantly encouraged by their faith. One time, they were sharing with each other about giving, and my sister’s nanny said that she was embarassed that she was only able to give $40-50 dollars a month to the poor! Of course, that’s 40-50% of her salary, and she argued that she was compelled because she had to help the poor (whereas we Americans would all consider her poor).
So whenever I worked in a semi-large church (2500 or so members), I was saddened when we would pride ourselves in giving 10-11% of our budget to missions (missions to Baptists include humanitarian work, medical care, disaster relief, etc. and in Texas, Baptist organizations are among the best humanitarian organizations) and thus being in the top 100 Baptist churches nationwide. Of course, over 20% was salary money, and over 30% was money dedicated to building projects and maintenance. The rest of the money wen to curriculum, local (i.e. self-focused) ministries, etc.
Despite the reality, the global community views America as Christian and selfish and rarely separate the two ideas in their stereotype of an American. This drives me crazy and I’m always having to fight against this image. I would give anything for the American church to wake up to the gospel, and start realizing that we are called to give money, time and whatever else we can to being and bringing about the Kingdom of God.

What interests me most is the thought that being unpatriotic is somehow “bad” (even Wilson’s apparent need to justify critique as not unpatriotic sugests that he buys into this thinking). I’m not from the USA, so perhaps I don’t understand this partiotic need. I was born in one country (NZ), now live in another (UK) and will most likely live in yet another sometime soon. I hold no great love for the institutions of any ‘nation’. I love the landscapes (physical environment) and people (cultural environment) of the places I have lived in, but am no ‘patriot’in the sense of alliegance to a region of political boundary like a country is. . . is that bad?

I am a bit confused: apparently the “we” who gives a paltry .2% of GDP in foreign aid is the U.S. gov’t opposed to the “we” of individual U.S. citizens who give more generously? Or am I misreading the post? If I am reading it correctly, does it matter whether the money comes from the gov’t or the people? (That’s not a rhetorical question.) One argument would be that a lower gov’t outlay, due to tax cuts, has allowed the American people more money to make individual decisions of conscience about where to give … and that we have given generously as a people if not as a gov’t. Another line of thought would say that the gov’t, as a representative of the people, should set the tone in giving generously … I suppose the nub of the matter is: overall, gov’t and individually, how much does the U.S. give and is it or is it not generous? And does it matter “where it comes from?”

Phil@3. I think what you’re describing is the essence of patriotism, love of place and people. From G K Chesterton, “‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’”

I think scripture calls us to give our alligience to Christ and the kingdom with in… while we live in human kingdoms, our hearts belong to another. I get frustrated by the Country First mindset… i think it is theologically aberent. The church is like an embassy of the kingdom of heaven within a national country. We are on kingdom soil wherever the Spirit is at work in community.
I think fellow citizens are citizens of the kingdom whichever nation they dwell in. fellow citizens are not just Americans. this is what makes christianity so subversive to nation states. the church in full allegience to Christ threatens the power and control of nation states.

I appreciate the intent of trying to steer a more balanced course through the tricky thickets of political ideology in America. That being said, this quote disturbed me:
“The only hope for creating lasting peace is for the United States to claim the biblical ideas of blessings, compassion, humility, and servanthood as defining characteristics of our nation and our foreign policy” (224).
I really struggle to see how a quote such as this is any different from the idea that America is God’s greatest hope for our world, that somehow America is called to bring lasting peace to the world. How is that a third way?

interesting post. giving is always an interesting topic in american christianity. a large problem i often observe in our giving is that we almost always do it from a position of power over whomever we are giving to. we dont want to serve with people in need, we just want to serve them. sometimes i think this is why we are so happy to just give resources rather than put in the time or work of doing service ourselves. we want to maintain our position of power over people by making it clear that we can help them, but that we ourselves need nothing.
it is strange that we still think this way despite what we often experience during short term missions trips – when everyone seems to come back saying the same thing – “we went on the trip to minister to these people, but we found ourselves also being equally ministered to. my life will never be the same as a result of the things i experienced.” yet, our ways of thinking about ministry and our ways of living rarely do ever actually change. our giving is still often done in such a way that it conveys just as much about our own power over others as it does our love for them.

I diagree with you.

Being an fogy and a retired teacher, whenever I try to think through the issues of patriotism, nationalism, the American way, and the role of religion I am reminded of three brilliant and articulate Britishers who wrote on the subject (and much else) decades ago. For the liberal, secular point of view, E.M. Forster’s essay, “Two Cheers for Democracy” written in 1939 is a good introduction-
http://www.geocities.com/dspichtinger/otexts/believe.html
I can’t point to specific references for G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis (maybe you can?), but think the three of them together help us sort out some of the issues. I wonder who the modern Americans are who discuss this topic as thoughtfully as these Britishers?
Doug

So … many … things ….
Ok, first, I sometimes read things and wonder if the author’s theology is informing his politics, or if his politics are informing his theology. This is one of those things.
Two, I think any author who rails about how much other people give should print his latest 1040 in the book.
3. “We have 5% of the world’s population; we consume 22% of its energy resources.”
And produce 25-30% of the world’s GDP.
4. “we gave .2 of our GDP. 5 times less than we were giving in the 1970s. Our income in that time has increased 5 times.”
Personally, I have a hard time believing government spending on anything has remained flat, but if it did, it is probably because …
5. Many Americans believe the federal government does not have the legal authority to use tax money for charity.
6. People who think the government is supposed to take care of the poor don’t give much to charity. People who don’t think government is supposed to take care of the poor do. This is true with liberal/conservatives and Europeans/Americans. I’m far more interested in how much individual Americans give than how much the government gives.
7. “We give the most to Israel.”
Heaven forbid we should support the one tiny democracy in the area that is beset on all sides by forces who have declared they will not rest until it is removed from the map.
8. Before we chastise the US for not giving enough, can we chastise those we’ve given to who have embezzled the money, left food to rot, and otherwise taught us not to give money to foreign countries? And what do we do about those who have actually asked us to stop giving?
9. “we are to be a blessing to other nations”
Maybe I didn’t detect a subject change, but are we still talking about the US? If so, when did it become theocratic Israel?
Now, Christians are to be a blessing, and by all means we should give and give some more. So why don’t we? We’re typical materialistic Americans. We’ve got to fix that. We also have typically human fear of giving and then finding out we are now in need. We’ve got to deal with that too.
ChrisB

“People who think the government is supposed to take care of the poor don’t give much to charity.” …. As a non-American I hesitate to get involved in this but one point in ChrisB post I have to challenge from a UK point of view is his quote “People who think the government is supposed to take care of the poor don’t give much to charity.”
I would say most Christians in the UK are strong supporters of the Welfare State and especially our Health Service and yet Christians are the top of survey after survey in their charitable giving. I give to the poor and expect my government to do everything it can to end poverty. The OT laws and especially the Jubilee concept strongly suggests to me that there is a macro-economic dimension to poverty and its alleviation that should be the legitimate concern of the “state” rather than simply the individual.

James #12
I suspect that Chris is drawing on Arthur Brook’s book, “Who Really Cares.” Brooks would actually affirm your observations for American society. The critical issue in giving is weekly worship attendance regardless of political persuasion (although conservative attenders give slightly more than liberal ones.) The major finding is that secular liberals who purport to care the most about the poor give very little while the Religious Right, who allegedly don’t care about the poor, give much more.

Prior to the industrial era the great masses of humanity had one option:
Option 1: Hard physical labor, sunup to sundown, in agriculture with low energy consumption.
With the industrial era a new option emerged:
Option 2: Hard physical labor, sunup to sundown, in factories with relatively low energy consumption.
As industrialism matured, a third option emerged:
Option 3: Less hard physical labor, over fewer hours, by a minority of people heavily supplemented by technology with higher energy consumption, but also with the masses freed up for pursuits other than laborious work.
That basically leaves us with two options with good and bad consequences.
1. Low energy consumption (good) and the masses locked in long hours of hard physical labor (bad).
2. High energy consumption (bad) with most people having a wide range of options that don?t require long hours of hard physical labor (good.)
Ideally what we would like is low energy consumption with few people engaged in long hours of hard physical labor. That is the next step in human economic evolution. In the meantime, we are forced to weigh competing goods and their consequences against each other as we seek solutions.
Thus, ?We have 5% of the world’s population; we consume 22% of its energy resources,? is merely indicative of our post-industrial (from a labor standpoint) economy. We also produce more than 22% of the world?s goods.
?We expect other countries to go along with our global and national designs.? Clearly a mixed bag but should we also point out that most nations that have adopted our general principles of governance and economics have experienced plummeting infant mortality rates, rising life expectancy, greater political freedom, elevation in the status of women and improving prosperity for the masses?
?We are obese while other nations struggle with starvation.? And why is that? The implication is that food magically appears and Americans grab more than their fair share. Traditional liberal social justice advocates focus on distribution to the near exclusion of production. They see economic life as a zero-sum game. Most of the critical problems are in the areas of production and trade. American policy has had both positive and negative impacts on these issues.
Here is my point. Theologians have a bad habit of turning every economic issue into a matter of good vs. evil, or right vs. wrong. Most economic questions are trade-offs between one set of goods (with corresponding evils) for another set of goods (with corresponding evils) in the midst of uncertainty and in the presence of human evil.
As someone who has wrestled deeply with the issues all my life and who desires more fruitful dialog, when I see a stat cherry-picked like this, it feels deceitful. My gut level reaction is that the person is na?ve, dishonest, or self-deluded by ideological concerns. It seems to me that a third way needs to have a profound appreciation for the trade-off and risk assessing nature of addressing so many problems that confront us.

Michael,
Aren’t those facts though? And his proposal is not some left-wing crash-bang but a generosity by the Christians to help alleviate the world’s needs and to foster economic growth for all.

Scot – #15 – completely agree. And the numbers he gives are even lower than most: US using only 22% is quite generous to us. There is no way the rest of the world can consume the amount of some resources that we consume per capita (experts estimate we’d need about 3 earths with the current population).
And, as those seeking to follow in the way of Jesus, the conversation needs to be about what we do to help vs destroy, not just dollars for ‘aid’. In many places we give minimal ‘aid’ to get people clean water, when we invest a great deal more in the stock of companies that are poisoning said water. The systems issues are the important dialogue, and our role in perpetuating systems that keep us on top. Good for patriotism in some ways, but our call is to be patriots to a a larger Kingdom.
Michael #14
I don’t see these stats as cherry picked at all. I have also spent my life thinking about these things, and he is brnging up deep, complex issues.

sorry, #15 was pam w. don’t know why the name didn’t take

Michael (#22) I agree with you that theologians often rashly address economics issues. Either they doubt the human necessity of a system to order our common life altogether, or they overlook those trade-offs you mention that make matters of good and evil much more nuanced and complex. But I can’t help but think the way you are framing the discussion, with words like “naive” “dishonest” “self-deluded”, prematurely cuts off the “fruitful dialogue” you seek. If we can’t suggest there are flaws in our current economic system, despite the benefits it gives, then isn’t this just a monologue for the status quo? I’m not suggesting federalizing or statism is a solution for the market economies deficiencies, but I think there are many ways in which good theological reflection on the part of Christians can transform our attitudes. And if our attitudes can be transformed, then perhaps our practices. And if our practices transformed then perhaps our institutions… That’s the third way to me, and we can’t get there without being somewhat self-critical. That’s what I think Chris B caught hold of in his last few sentences.

That should be Michael (#14) on my post.

#15 Scot
Let?s transfer this to another arena:
Fact: 160,000 people die each day. (57 million annually)
Take the first fact in isolation. This is a catastrophe! At this rate, with our present population of 6.7 billion people, the human race will be extinct in 2127. Conclusion: Humanity is on the road to extinction.
Is this factually correct? Absolutely ? taken in isolation. But would any of us begin to radically reorient world policy around such reasoning? What would we make of the intellectual capabilities or honesty of someone promoting this reasoning? We would have red flags everywhere because we know a reciprocal fact:
Fact: 375,000 people are born each day. (137 million annually)
We have a net addition of 80 million people to the planet each year. That means that within about 13 years we will have another billion people. At his rate (which won?t happen) in less than 100 years the size of the planet will have doubled. How are our conclusions based on the first fact alone looking now?
Lifting out the American proportion of consumption without its reciprocal portion of production is the equivalent of highlighting the death rate apart from the birth rate. It is factually true while being thoroughly misleading. Singling out the death rate to make a case for a human apocalypse causes me to immediately question the degree of thought the presenter has given to the topic and to question their motives. The same is true for those who would lift out this consumption stat to make a case for the evils of a wasteful American society.
You can?t talk about demographics without the birth and death relationship. Neither, can you talk about economics without the production and consumption relationship.

JMorrow #18
I wrote, “it feels deceitful. My gut level reaction is that the person is na?ve, dishonest, or self-deluded by ideological concerns.”
Note I did not say such people are na?ve, dishonest, or self-deluded. I may be overly sensitive. I may be wrong. But I’m being point-blank honest with you about the emotions this argument provokes in me.
You wrote that my comments “prematurely cuts off the “fruitful dialogue” you seek.” That is my point with the presentation of this type of argument: It prematurely cuts off the “fruitful dialogue” that is allegedly sought.

Pam #16
?And the numbers he gives are even lower than most: US using only 22% is quite generous to us.?
It used to be over 25%. GDP in emerging nations have been growing at twice the rate of the U.S. over the last decade. They are becoming more industrially and technologically advanced. Thus, they consume more energy. Thus, their percentage of world energy is rising and the U.S. is falling. It is the consumption production connection again.

Pam #16
?There is no way the rest of the world can consume the amount of some resources that we consume per capita??
Agreed. But what this is merely a projection of the status quo into the future assuming no innovation.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, 300 million acres of land were in crop production. The ratio of acreage in cultivation to population had been constant up to that time. If we could have looked forward from that time till now, we would have known that we would experience more than a threefold increase population. That would mean we would need to put 700 million more acres of land into production; an area equal to all the land east of the Mississippi in the U.S. The population did grow threefold. How many acres are currently in production? 300 million acres. (And with a tremendous excess of production to send around the world.)
We also would have seen accelerating urbanization into cities serviced mostly by horse transportation. The stench, the disease, and other unpleasant realities were already a problem. Now we?re talking about bigger cities and more people. It is unsustainable. What happened? We innovated and adapted.
Just as crop production and transportation issues were challenges with unknown solutions 100 years ago, energy is a challenge today. But as the pressure builds so do the incentives to innovate and adapt. We can?t just project the present into the future.
I?ll follow up with one more about population.

Pam #16 and tagging on to my post #20
I made a projection, based on current experience, of the world population adding another billion every 13 years in #20. More elaboration.
We are presently at about 6.7 Billion people. The population explosion began a few centuries ago due to a variety of cultural and technological advances. Death rates began to drop. Birth rates began to drop later in at a similar rate but because the began declining later there was always a significant excess of birth over deaths; thus population growth. This same drop in death rates hit outside of Europe in the 20th Century but the plunge that happened over centuries happened in a few short decades. Birth rates have taken longer to fall and thus the worldwide explosion. The assumption has been that as the death rates stabilized at a lower rate, so would the birth rates, and stable population would be achieved at a fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman. The assumptions were wrong.
More than sixty nations have fertility rates below 2.1, including all of Europe virtually every economically advanced nation (The U. S. is just barely below at 2.01.) Nations like the Russian Federation, Spain, and the Czech Republic are at suicidal 1.1. Britain is at 1.6 and pretty much leading the pack in Europe is France 1.9. China with one of five human beings is at 1.8. Nations once considered ?third world? are dropping to, and through, the 2.1 threshold. The world population will likely peak at about 9 billion in mid-century and then depopulation will set in if the pattern continues. Starting with Europe, and then cascading to other nations, will be populations top-heavy with elderly dependent citizens and shrinking base to support them.
The issues are more complex than simple population growth. Curiously, the quicker you industrialize (meaning use more energy) the quicker the population growth reverses. With depopulation, high productivity will be required from fewer and fewer workers. That is going to mean technology and energy.

Michael, ChrisB.,
I tend to make assumptions about people who make the sort of comments you have made (i.e., having a political agenda, etc.). But I realize my assumptions are not fair, so I’d like to better understand what your views are.
As I understand your concerns, they relate to government foreign aid. Do you agree that American individuals and churches should give far more than they do to address global poverty? I’m hoping that is at least a point of agreement.
With respect to U.S. foreign aid, let’s get specific. Do you agree that the U.N. Millenium Development Goals (cutting in half extreme poverty, reversing the spread of AIDS, reducing child mortality by 2/3′rds, etc.) are worthy goals? Granted it won’t insure 100% success, but the World Bank and UN estimate that an additional $45 to $75 billion will be needed globally every year until 2015 to achieve the MDGs. If it lives up to its commitments, the US will pay only a fraction of that. Do we agree that this amount would have less economic distortion than the US government bailout of financial institutions and other corporations?
Do you believe that people in the Third World are your neighbor, in the sense that Jesus used the term?
What is your understanding of Matthew 25:31-46?
ChrisB, as a lawyer I’m not sure that I understand your argument that foreign aid is illegal. I looked at the link you cite, and am fairly confident that the argument would not win in court. Are you aware of some other support for this argument?
I ask these questions because I genuinely want to understand your views, and to understand how and where they are different from mine. Thanks.

Eric,
I, like many Americans, don’t trust the UN’s bloated, and largely anti-American, bureaucracy to do anything more than waste money. The goals are lovely, but we don’t fund goals, we fund programs.
Of course my argument wouldn’t win in our courts. But can you point to which part of the Constitution authorizes the federal government to spend money on any, much less international, charitable cause?
What I’m arguing, and I think Michael is along similar lines, is that the author has made a case that makes our flawed, sinful nation look worse than it is and that we shouldn’t ask what government can do but what Christians are going to do to make the world a better place.
Anyone notice that we’re talking about all the money we want the government to shell out on the same day Barack Obama predicted we’d be running $1 trillion budget deficits the next fews years?

Chris,
Actually, the biggest issue is debt relief, which does not go through the UN’s grubby hands. And the point of the goals, as I understand it, is to provide measurable targets for the programs, for accountability.
Even for UN programs, I assume you don’t think that they are wholly ineffective. For me, the problem of waste or corruption is outweighed by my desire to love my neighbor and take Matthew 25 seriously. The MGDs have already done a lot of good (see some of the various report cards for specific countries), and I think that meeting the funding goals we already agreed to can make things much better.
In all events, it sounds like we agree that individuals and churches should do much more. But such funding toward poverty in the third world has been minimal. Because of that, I think our government should also step in, even as we encourage our churches to do more. If we are willing to lobby government on issues like abortion, I think we should also be willing to get the government involved in promoting life in foreign countries too.
As for the legal issue, Congress has broad power to regulate commerce with foreign governments (Art. I, Sec. 8, para. 3), which covers foreign debt relief and similar things. And the Executive branch has broad powers to deal with foreign governments (Art. II).

(I wrote the following with inserted links and it has yet to appear. Thought I?d try again without the html links.)
Eric #26,
We may not have encountered each other here at Jesus Creed but I?m the self-appointed rabble-rouser on these issues.
I live in an urban core, I?ve been heavily involved with micro-business development, I?m passionate about microfinance, I have friends working for economic development with the poor around the world. There is no longer a Third World as there was thirty years ago but rather a gradation of nations from very poor to very wealthy. I deeply interested in the plight of those who are being left behind. I just did a series at my blog called ?Cycle of Prosperity? (http://krusekronicle.typepad.com/kruse_kronicle/cycle-of-prosperity.html) that lays out my views in some detail. It concludes with a few posts the riff on Paul Collier?s ?The Bottom Billion?.
Yes I agree with the Millennium goals but aid, while an essential component, is not a silver bullet to achieve them. Aid frequently becomes the left?s counterpoint rallying cry against the right?s cry of free markets. Both aid and trade are essential for lifting the poor nations out of poverty but poor nations vary considerably in the specific challenges they face. Aid has also its inherent challenges.
In the past, developed nations did business with some poor nations on the basis of free market exchange. Yet in many of these poor nations, governance was so bad that only 10% of the population lived and worked in the formal economy. There was minimal rule of law or protection of property rights for the masses and therefore there could not possibly be free trade. Only the 10% benefited and they used it to tighten their oppression of the poor. It was crony capitalism. Direct aid to governments runs precisely the same risk. It ends up in the pockets of an oppressive elite. Call it crony aidism.
Furthermore, Collier points out that when direct aid begins to exceed about 8% of a national budget it begins to have a destructive effect on government. Government officials begin to divert their attention away from the nurturance of their indigenous industries as a means of economic growth and turn toward developing projects that will bring them more direct aid.
More aid delivered to NGOs (from U. S. government or charitable entities) that can document actual outcomes should be a priority. Direct aid to governments for specific projects, particularly things like infrastructure development, where results can be measured than non-specific transfers. William Easterly also makes that case that very often local villages have a better sense than ?experts? of what specific aid is needed in their context. Something along the line of aid vouchers could be given to villages, where the community decides which aid they will purchase, forcing aid agencies to be competitive and responsive.
But at the end of the day, if these nations can not become economically productive and stable, all the aid is for naught. Nurturing trade has to be a centerpiece. That is going to include everything from government reforms that protect private property and bring capital into the formal economy, infrastructure investments that facilitate the movement of goods, and reduction in trade barriers by wealthy nations against the products of poor ones. And in some cases, elimination of barriers by emerging against foreign competition that protects local stagnate industries.
Aid? Yes, but it is no panacea.

Eric,
1. Whose debt are you relieving? How will the average poor person benefit from our forgiving the debts of their corrupt goverments? At the very least, shouldn’t we require measurable improvements before forgiving their debts?
2. A desire to love your neighbor is commendable, but “loving” him by throwing money in the toilet is not showing him love nor being responsible with the resources with which we’ve been entrusted.
3. The power to regulate international commerce can only be turned into authority to engage in international charity by the greatest feats of eisegesis.

Michael — thanks for the clarification. Sounds like we are on the same page: give aid, but do it with your eyes wide open, realizing it won’t solve all problems, and that you should be careful about how you do it. Accountability is key. I will check out the string on your blog, which sounds interesting. What I don’t have a good grasp on is how we stimulate trade, as you suggest, which I agree is important.
Chris B –
With all respect, I get the sense that you haven’t looked into the MDGs. “Throwing money in the toilet” is not a very good description of what has been happening. There are all sorts of reports out there on this. Progress has been different in different countries, but your “toilet” comment makes no sense. And the point of the MDGs is measurable improvements for accountability, so what you demand is what the MGDs are about.
And as for the legal argument, foreign debt is foreign commerce. Although there are limits on the related inter-state commerce clause (see, e.g., the Lopez decision re: guns in schools), it is interpreted broadly; the foreign commerce clause is similarly interpreted. I am fairly confident that even the most conservative Justices on the Supreme Court would not go along with what you are suggesting.

No. 30 is me.