Every
November, thousands of schools in Western countries take part in
Operation Christmas Child,
during which young children and their families are encouraged to pack shoeboxes
with toys, personal hygiene items, and school supplies for less fortunate
children around the world.
اضافة اعلان
Since
1990, some 186 million children in more than 160 countries have received
shoeboxes, according to
Samaritan's Purse, the US-based
charity behind the initiative. In 2019 alone, the boxes were given to 10.5
million children in more than 100 countries.
For
parents in a relatively wealthy consumer society such as the UK, having their
children take part in such a seemingly generous and heart-warming scheme is a
no-brainer. In the season of unbridled excess, it’s also an opportunity to make
a virtuous, guilt-absolving gesture, and certainly not something to be
investigated too deeply.
But
few of the parents or schools that promote the scheme, let alone the children
who take part in it, know that Operation Christmas Child is run by an
organization rooted in America’s most fundamentalist Christian evangelistic
tradition.
The
president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse is Franklin Graham, the son of Billy
Graham, the prominent Christian evangelist who died in 2018.
It
is likely that, if program participants knew of the Graham family connection to
Operation Christmas Child, many would feel uncomfortable being associated with
an organization with views on a range of issues that seem anachronistic to
mainstream Western sensibilities in the 21st century.
Operation Christmas Child is a Trojan horse, an exercise in proselytism that has no qualms about “sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ” in Muslim-majority countries.
But
there is a more problematic issue: Operation Christmas Child is a Trojan
horse, an exercise in proselytism that has no qualms about “sharing the
Good News of Jesus Christ” in Muslim-majority countries.
In
the
words of Franklin Graham, “Every shoebox represents an opportunity to reach one more
child with the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. But in the words of the UK's
National Secular Society, Operation Christmas Child is nothing less than “
Christian fundamentalism, gift-wrapped”.
What parents are not told
is what Operation Christmas Child tells its supporters: “The shoebox is just
the beginning ...one box can touch not just the child, but the whole family.”
After
children receive their gift, they are given “the opportunity to enroll in The
Greatest Journey —
12 fun and interactive Bible lessons, where they get the chance to discover who
Jesus is and how to begin their own journey of faith.”
It
is not clear at what point in those lessons the children get to learn that the
“amazing love” on offer is apocalyptically conditional, as explained in the
organization’s constitution, filed at the UK’s Company’s House.
“We
believe,” it says, “that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and that
...God will reward the righteous with eternal life in heaven, and that he will
banish the unrighteous to everlasting punishment in hell.”
It
is a sentiment that jars somewhat with the slo-mo videos on the Samaritan's Purse
website of happy little children in distant lands hugging their new teddy
bears.
After
their indoctrination course, children “graduate” and are given a certificate
and a Bible in their own language. This, boasts Samaritan’s Purse, “has
resulted in evangelism, discipleship, and multiplication across
the world.”
But
especially, it seems, in Muslim-majority countries.
Last
year, according to the organization’s annual report, shoeboxes collected in the
UK alone reached children in nine countries or regions: Central Asia, Belarus,
Moldova, Serbia, Albania, Georgia, Bosnia, Liberia, and Nigeria.
In an era of increasing tolerance of all faiths and lifestyle choices, Operation Christmas Child seems not only outmoded and disrespectful, but also reminiscent of a time when white missionaries, buoyed on the tide of imperialist expansion, felt entitled to travel to faraway countries and tell people that their faith and their way of life were all wrong.
Muslims
account for most of the population in Bosnia, Albania, and the overwhelmingly
Islamic Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, while half the population of Nigeria follows
Islam.
A
spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse declined to be interviewed, but in a
statement insisted that “everywhere we work, we follow the laws and
respect the culture of the host countries.”
Samaritan’s
Purse, she added, “does not insist that children are or become Christian in
order to receive a shoebox” and “some places where shoeboxes are distributed
have strict regulations on the distribution of Christian literature, thus
keeping us from offering The Greatest Journey in those areas.”
The
organization was, she said, “allowed to work in Muslim countries because they
see the vital work we do and the love we show.”
However,
she declined to say how permission was sought or granted, and in how many and
which Islamic countries Samaritan’s Purse had been refused permission to
operate. She also declined to reveal where the shoeboxes would be going this
December, and how many of those countries were Islamic.
In
an era of increasing tolerance of all faiths and lifestyle choices, Operation
Christmas Child seems not only outmoded and disrespectful, but also reminiscent
of a time when white missionaries, buoyed on the tide of imperialist expansion,
felt entitled to travel to faraway countries and tell people that their faith
and their way of life were all wrong.
Ironically,
even as the missionaries of Samaritan’s Purse prepare to dispatch their little
boxes, back in the UK, Christianity is shrinking. In November, the UK's Office
for National Statistics revealed that, for the first time, less than half the
population of England and Wales describe themselves as
Christian.
Perhaps
Samaritan’s Purse would be better off proselytizing on the home front, or, at
the very least, doing good without imposing its beliefs on others.
Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist, formerly with The Times,
who has lived and worked in the Middle East and is now based in the UK.
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