Faith and charity?!

Since beginning of time religion has had huge influence on people’s behaviour and
actions in every spheres of their life. That influence Is still here to this day, maybe
stronger than ever. It feels That people tend to do so many things in order to get an
approval from God or do things out of fear or hope for better tomorrow. Charity and
donating is another thing where religion has huge influence nowadays. People tend to
donate exactly for those reasons mentioned above, or even worse; out of fear from
punishment.

This paper will try to explore and understand whether faith and charity go together. Is it a
perfect combination, or something that should not go together?!
It Is Inevitable That religion had influence on every kind of social project. It was always
fascinating how people believe their contribution Is much more appreciated if It Is
initiated/ approved by religious institutions they ‘belong to’.

When thinking of main attributes of charity, first words that come to mind are; that it
should be selfless, it exists only for the benefit of the people getting the help, and not the
donor, it should be public, and commanded by the desire to help those who need it, rather
than just donor to be and look good.

When trying to define charity from religious point of view charity it Is important to say
that Its origins lie in the principle common to all religions, that only by doing good works
in this life can eternal salvation be assured in the next 1. -Looking at these both definitions
it Is easy to conclude, many people might be donating to religious charities, not mainly to
help the others, but to buy their own way to heaven and clean themselves of the sins. Is
that completely selfless?!
According to research, religious people tend to donate only to faith based charities,
whereas in general, Non-religious believers tend to donate more to all charities 2. This
might just confirm the theory that the religious people donating in these kind of charities,
are just being manipulated into assuring better place for themselves in the other life.

However, many claim that the money raised by churches, mosques and other religiously
linked organisations is given gladly, in good faith and for empathetic, not self-serving,
drives. - Believers claim, that their religions Is the first source, who taught them to do
good. Therefore how can it be not in good faith3. One Is true for sure, they tend to have
much more influence, as they can create the feeling of guilt and fear from punishment;
which results in people people donating out of fear of hell; punishment and guilt. Some
would claim that these organisations use the non- ethical strategies to attract the believers
to donate portions of their money. These strategies might include preaching about

1 Springer; Religion, Charity and the law, pdf.

2 http://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2014/06/bbc-poll-shows-that-religious-people-give-more-to-charity-
than-non-religious-maybe,
3 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/13/religion-charitable-giving
donating on Sunday masses, Friday prayers, when people are very vulnerable, and would
do anything for healthy, happy life. This means, more religious people are, more
influenced they are by faith organisation, more money goes to these organisations.
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with this if all the money donated to these religious
organisations would go for aright cause and those who need it. At least those who need it
would get the help they need, no matter for what reasons were donors giving it.

However, there are so many cases where faith charities are exploiting the money for
private uses; construction and decorating the institutions or even worse used to promote
violating of human rights.
-International Caritas and many other organisations were accused of using the money
collected for the migrants, for promoting communism and preaching against the
LGBT communities. 4

There are many who strongly believe that such strong influence of religion should be
taken seriously and used as influence for promoting the good. It Is inevitable that religion
influences people, their values, worldview, and behavior. It is a element as strong as
economy and politics. – One study claims that religion is a tool to relate to a whole
different reality, where That different dimensions bring them meaning, hope and
inspiration to be a better man. People tend to turn to their religion in all difficult
situations. 5 It Is believed that changes in political, social or development world could
only be made If understood in which way Is religion significant for people. It Is well
known fact, where religion is important not just on personal level, but country’s politics
and development can be influenced by it. - This brings an understanding of why does so
much money Is collected exactly through faith based social organizations.

Important question to ask now, is to what extent religions engage in charitable work that
tackles the physical needs of the poor, sick, less fortunate? Many do, but there are many
cases which add to opinion that Is not their primary focus. Is believed that only small
percentage of collected money actually goes to charity causes, and the rest goes in other
bigger causes such as influencing more people, promoting their values, reconstructions
and so on.

For example, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon
Church), which regularly proclaims its charitable donations, gave about $1 billion to
charitable causes between 1985 and 2015. That might seem as a huge number, until you
divide it by those 30 years, and realize church is donating only about 0.7 percent of its
annual income.6
It was found by US congregations found That religions have operating expenses of 71%,
where poor get only 20% of those expenses, but rest goes to salaries of ministers and
priests. 7

4 http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/2112/caritas-consultant-accused-of-embezzlement-in-migrants-scandal
5 Faith in civil society religious actors as a drivers of change, diva. Pdf.
6 http://www.newsweek.com/2013/10/25/are-churches-making-america-poor-243734.html
7 http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/charity.html
When comparing to the secular organisation’s donations, difference Is massive.
The American Red Cross spends 92.1 percent of its revenue directly addressing the
physical needs of those it intends to help; only 7.9 percent is spent on "operating
expenses. 8
There were some arguments, where many argue That charity should be only qualified as
one, if spends up to 60% of revenue on charitable work. Most believe That there wouldn’t
be single religious organisation which would be able to classify as a charitable
organization.

Additionally, it Is important to mention, religious institutions are not obliged to disclose

their financial statement, meaning all the revenue they gain no one can know how much
does it go to right causes. This has led to many cases of fraud by these kind of
organisation. Most famous Is case of City church harvest, where the pastor was accused
of spending 11,5 million of dollars instead on charity causes, but on financing musical
career of his wife and private purposes such building millions euros worth private villa. 9

In addition to that, it Is well known That religious organisations do not have to pay taxes
on any of their revenue. This just adds up to how much money they manage to get at the
end of the year, and where does it end?!
After many cases of fraud The Secular Coalition for America asks the Internal Revenue
Service to withdraw the tax-exempt status of religious organizations that violate rules by,
for example, supporting political candidates or not using their funds for charitable
reasons.10

There are more and more demands that the finances of religious charity organisations are
strictly regulated. It feels like they are taking advantage of all these policies being exempt
from, an instead of being example for pure and clean, they misuse as much money as
possible.

Many claim that religious NGO’s are useless, as profane charities don’t use donations on
rebuilding institutions and buying religious items. These secular organizations like
Doctors without Borders, UNICEF, the Red Cross USAID, UNHCR, or the most of the
top donors who are one of wealthiest people in the world are atheists including Bill Gates
who give majority of his wealth to the charitable causes.

Religious institutions often claim how most donors and generous people are believers,
and That believers if they want to be pure they have to donate explicitly to religious
charity organisations.

Many believe that there should not even be religious institutions for humanitarian aid.
That these two do not and should not go together. In a recent anonymous survey of mega

8 http://www.newsweek.com/2013/10/25/are-churches-making-america-poor-243734.html
9 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/singapore/9356921/Singapore-church-founder-misused-
11.5-million-in-donations.html
10 http://www.newsweek.com/2013/10/25/are-churches-making-america-poor-243734.html
churches, more than half of respondents admitted That they spend only up to 15% of their
budget on ministry beyond their congregation. 11
Since that includes money missions spending, only a portion of that was going to
humanitarian causes. - Also according to the results; smaller churches are less percentage
of their budget goes to the charity12. Similarly, many argue that churches get their money
from donations and that they should be 100% transparent of what they do with those
donations. How do they want to be example for their followers, if they cannot disclose
and show where they send the money off?
- Many non-believers say, that money should be donated directly to the secular groups
who are transparent of doing good, so people don’t give their money anymore to
institutions who spread lies, manipulations and false information.

In the United States, in 2011 almost 100 billion dollars was donated to religious
organisations- one third only to charitable donations. Many are trying to imagine if all
that money was donated directly to medicine for research, educations, poor countries or
promotion of sciences.13 These are departments from which we all can benefit from.
Maybe then, the Vatican rooms would not be made entirely of gold.

The famous American media has spread a survey if there is place for religious NGO’s in
21’st century. Still majority of scholars answered positive to the question. They believe
that religion has to much power over communities, and therefore they could be the most
effective NGO’s to work in those places.- They believe That religious NGO’s can bring
many social changes to people as they have lot of influence over people. 14
Additionally, faith based organisations attract more donations. This might be true, but
according to many research, these faith based humanitarian organisations, have used the
help as cover for spreading their faith, and creating faith based organisations, which
create cultural and religious expansionism. 15
-What might be worth mentioning, these organisations’ biggest tool and advantage Is that
both for Islam and Christianity, donating Is a very important pillar of religion, therefore
they use this as argument for believers donate to them, instead of secular ones. Again,
they use methods of fear, instead just call to do good to attract people.

There are lot of people who do not agree. They believe That both religious and secular do
very inspiring work. With their massive impact over so many centuries even before
secular organisations, they help so much, all religions preaching are that donating and
giving Is crucial in order to be good man. 16

11https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?
toURL=https://www.forbes.com/2003/09/17/cz_lk_0917megachurch&refURL=https://www.google.be/&referr
er=https://www.google.be
12 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/budget-religion/520605/
13 http://www.holykoolaid.com/secular-vs-religious-charity/
14 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/07/aid-without-faith-is-there-a-place-for-
religious-ngos-in-the-21st-century
15 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/07/aid-without-faith-is-there-a-place-for-
religious-ngos-in-the-21st-century
16 https://lifehacker.com/seven-important-lessons-from-world-religions-everyone-s-1613615832
Again, other believe, that religious NGO’s do lot of harm. They promote non- ethical and
collective events. They discourage use of condoms in place where HIV Is main cause of
death and misery. Also, they obstruct rights of women, and many refuse to donate to
societies which support homosexual relationships. - This should be unacceptable, as what
they try to be involved in social happenings and intervene with country’s law, rather than
selflessly help, and put life of human before, their own life and social choices.

There are countless examples of how religion has been used to discriminate women, keep
people obedient, promote and fuel conflicts, and to keep HIV/aids out of the agenda.
For example, in Tanzania, so many people die out of HIV, only because church preaches
That HIV Is punishment from God, or That people living with HIV did not follow the
word from God and therefore they do not deserve the help. Therefore, people there do not
donate to charities who are trying to help those with HIV. This results only in 10% of
people with HIV, treating it actually. 17
- Also, seven Muslim charitable organisations, including International Islamic relief
organisation, have found having links with terrorist organisations in many countries. They
are accused of misusing the money given by people as charity al Qaeda and encouraging and
funding militancy in Bangladesh. 18

This has left impact, as according to recent studies, increased mistrust in faith based
charities, has resulted in societies trusting trusting them much less, as many believe they
only want to convert people, and help exclusively to those who share their beliefs.
Charitable giving in the US reached a record $358.4 billion in 2014. Although, still
counting for the biggest portion of donations, religious giving has stagnated as not as
many Americans claim religious relationship and turn their focus to secular all kind
charity organizations19.

Many religious believers state, that religious people ae more generous, a they have the
reason and motive to be generous and good, whereas atheist have no motives. However,
what they want to do Is to manipulate people into thinking that religion and generosity Is
related, meaning That church/mosque/synagogue equals charity.
According to articles, 75% of giving by all Americans goes directly to places of worship
and faith-based charities.20 What Is even more strange, the money does not go to helping
the less fortunate and those in need, but It’s going to the institutions itself.

Statistics show, that in America, 65% of religious people donate to charity and 56% of
non believers. However, according to the study, the 9% difference is credited to religious

17 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656538/
18 http://www.ipcs.org/article/terrorism/charitable-organization-and-terrorist-funding-the-case-of-muslim-
aid-2423.html
19 https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/0616/Charitable-giving-sets-new-record-but-why-are-religious-
donations-waning
20 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-religious-people-really-more-generous-
than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-myth-to-rest /
organizations.21 So this just confirms That they do not donate for charity causes, but for
religion.

So this just supports the claim That religious people give more to the religion itself,
instead those who needs it! - This could support the statement, that their contributions Is
just self serving, instead of helping others. Habitually, the donations grant their faith

There Is so many attempts to motivate people now to give directly to charity, instead of
church or other religious organisations. They claim That people who have a pure and
good heart, will do good with or without religions. They believe That donating to religion,
Is the least effective way to give charity. There are good hearted people, who were easy
manipulated into donating to religious organisations, because back then it was the only
right thing to do. Today, people are less and less convinced that religion and morality
have to go together.

There Is a huge debate now that religious charities are working against human rights.
They have run campaigns against homosexuality, contraception and campaigns for
discriminating women.

Cardinal who Is the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, and the Muslim
Council of Britain have started a campaign to get the government to give exceptions to
Catholic Adoption agencies so that they won't have to give equal rights to gay parents. He
says that for reasons of morality, Catholics should only follow only the religious books,
but not the law.22

Besides, opponents of these organisation believe, that churches, mosques, synagogues,

use huge amount of these public giving for their wages, for reconstruction of the worship
places (Vatican has huge room made of gold)
In Bosnian’s biggest Muslim organisations, the main imam and his cardinals have the cars
worth 100.000 euros and they claim that every good Muslim, should donate only to their
organisation directly their zakat if they want to go to heaven. 23

Vatican has an yearly profit of $169 million (USD). 24 - How much more useful it would
be if all these donors, would just give directly to charities, for causes they would know
off.

-There have been conducted many surveys on the churches. Many results have found that
huge amount of money Is fraud before it even gets to the official records, so this means
That percent misused by religious charities is even higher than the figures above
mentioned.

21 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-religious-people-really-more-generous-
than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-myth-to-rest/
22 http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/charity.html
23 https://hamdocamo.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/kako-i-koliko-novca-je-izetbegovic-oprao-i-uvakufio-
preko-islamske-zajednice-u-bih/
24 https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/popes-personal-income-200-million-annually/
Another study by academics at Villanova University in the USA have found that 85
percent of Roman Catholic organizations revealed fraud of church funds in the past five
years where more than $500,000 had been taken and misused. Three of those cases were
discovered that two priests spent $8.6 million on trips to Las Vegas, dental work, property
taxes and other expenses over four years. In June, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. fired
its second-ranking financial officer, Judy Golliher, after she admitted stealing money that
church officials put at more than $132,00025

Since it was proven That caritas internationals, which Is the biggest social religious
social establishment in the church of catholic studying was involved with communism
and pro abortion activism, Vatican had to issue new guidelines regarding catholic charity.
All organisations will now be controlled by Vatican and have to disclose their annual
reports and documents.

There Is many believers who would claim, that it Is not only faith and charity
organisations who sometimes could use good cause, for fraud and misusing the money,
but every possible secular organisation. This Is true, as there are lot of cases, where
founders of charity were found guilty of fraud and many believe secular charities are just
business.
There has been huge controversy where Red Cross had spent $124 million on internal
expenses, in the time of earthquake in Haiti 2010, this Is one quarter of what donors gave.
26
It Is out of doubt That secular organizations, just like religious can be equally
beneficial, or not efficient at all.

However, when talking about religious charities, religion is something that has biggest
influence and effect on people’s lives, where people find peace and hope, believing That
religion and faith Is the only thing you can only rely on and believe in. People connect it
with morality and right actions. Therefore, these organizations should not present
themselves, as perfect, non sinful and example of moral behavior. If however they
absolutely want to, then they should not argue with requests for all their budgets and
annual spending to be disclosed publicly. If you are perfect, you don’t have anything to
hide?!

Nothing Is black or white. It Is important to acknowledge importance and benefits of all

charity NGO’s, who are daily saving lives and helping those in needs. Both faith and
secular charity organizations have their inspirational and dark sides. People should
remember one thing. Donating only religious charity is not a ticket to heaven. It should be
all about helping in need, no matter how, because again, that is the right thing to do, and
every man should have an obligation to ease another’s man life. Faith based
organizations have to stop tricking people into thinking, that only by donating to them
one man Is a good man. One organization Is not better than the other because it is faith-
based, but because it does more good than harm.

-Important thing to conclude, Is That we should not judge people or dismiss religions
NGO’s who want to do good because they follow religious principles. Aid should not be
25 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/us/05church.html
26 https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/30/547435136/red-cross-exec-doesn-t-know-what-
portion-of-donations-will-go-directly-to-harvey
denied, based on principle Is based on, as long as it does not harm others. There Is one
thing left to do. We should not assume one NGO Is better that the other based on their
principle and method of work. The crucial way to assume the effective one Is the one
doing its job; donating most/ all of the profits for the right cause, they are claiming to
exist for. This what Is going to give people faith in all charity organization regardless
whether they are faith or not.

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