Charlie's Angels

Project Angel Tree is a Good Thing. Or it would be a Good Thing if the people running it would just get out of the way.

The program, part of Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship, collects and distributes Christmas presents for the children of prisoners. This is heartwarming and noncontroversial. It's also a fine example of Matthew 25-style Christianity in action: "I was in prison and you came to visit me." What's not to like?

Well, it turns out there's a problem. The folks at Prison Fellowship want to help these little kids at Christmas, but not quite as much as they want to spread the Gay-Hatin' Gospel.

Trent W. alerted me to this story via e-mail. It seems the Friends Congregational Church of College Station, Texas, is no longer allowed to collect Christmas presents for the children of prisoners. The United Church of Christ congregation had been supporting Angel Tree for 10 years before they were told this fall that their help was no longer wanted.

Initially Friends Congregational was told that this was because they were in conflict with Prison Fellowship's "Statement of Faith." Had that been true, it would have been strange enough. After all, you're not required to swear the Marine Corps Oath before your donation will be accepted by Toys for Tots. But it turns out that wasn't the real problem.

The real problem, as this letter from the church to Prison Fellowship (.pdf) explains, was that Friends Congregational doesn't hate gay people enough:

The [Prison Fellowship] representative, however, informed [Pastor Dan De Leon] that according to our church’s Web site, we are an Open & Affirming congregation. Friends Congregational Church has publicly upheld this stance since 1996 as a clear, unapologetic means of extending an extravagant welcome* to all in our community, regardless of social status, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The representative went on to say that the Board viewed homosexuality as deviancy from Scripture, and this position, when held up to our Open & Affirming identity, excluded us from the Angel Tree Ministry. Although one might read between the lines of the letter we received to come to this conclusion, this detail by which Friends has been excluded is not found in the assertion that we must be Trinitarian and uphold the Bible in all matters of faith and life; nor is this wording clearly offered anywhere in the Prison Fellowship’s Statement of Faith.

The letter recommends that Prison Fellowship should state more clearly "the criteria by which it claims that churches and millions of their faithful congregants are to be excluded from assisting the imprisoned and their children, who, consequently, will not receive joy and love in the form of gifts at Christmas." Ouch. The problem, of course, is that Prison Fellowship thought they had stated this criteria clearly with that bit about "upholding the Bible in all matters of faith and life." They assumed that "uphold the Bible" means the same thing as "excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians." That is, after all, the "most common perception" of American Christianity.

The letter goes on to pose three questions for the straight and extremely narrow ministry:

1) To the child whose parent is in prison, does it matter who is providing him or her with gifts at Christmas?

2) Is God displeased that a gay man or woman goes Christmas shopping for a child orphaned by society, or is God overjoyed that a child such as this is receiving love mirrored after God's love: expecting nothing in return?

3) Finally, at the end of the day, does it really help or does it hinder the mission of Angel Tree Ministry to disqualify churches like ours on the basis of an anonymous giver being, as you suggest, deviant from Scripture? If you feel that it helps, then we are sad to say that you have your work cut out for you, because all of us sinners who breathe God’s good air deviate from Scripture every day. This includes everyone from our congregation to the well-intentioned members of the Prison Fellowship Board.

I've got nothing to add to that except perhaps this: Don't mess with those UCC folks. They seem all meek and mild, but get between them and the people they're trying to help and they'll dope-slap you upside your self-righteous head.

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* "Extravagant welcome." I like that. When I use that, a lot, in the future, you'll know that this is where I got it from.

Comments

[Geds]

Yes, I do. It's Fred who doesn't when 'giving' is concerned. Funny thing, in turning the command from Jesus to give everything into a command to make others give some 'reasonable' percentage, not only does Fred not recognize that giving is voluntary, but he claims the unilateral right to alter what Jesus said to fit his own political needs.

Alright, Scott, we're done here unless you can do something.

Specifically, I want citations. Any time you make a claim to what Fred is doing, I want to see exactly where he did it. I don't care if you go full-on Chicago Style or just offer a copy-pasted hyperlink.

Because you're the only one seeing this stuff and unless you actually offer proof of your claims you're just wasting your time.

However, I'd be willing to bet that you can't even offer a single satisfying citation to back up your claims.

[damnedyankee]

Can't we just assume that Scott is wasting his (and our) time and move on?

[Jos]

Can't we just assume that Scott is wasting his (and our) time and move on?

We could, but where's the fun in that?

[madjoey]

People, people! As my wife and I like to say to each other (in front of the kids): "CTFO." Chill out! Scott will always assert that Fred has donned the mantle of Supreme Wealth Redistributor (With Force & Violence Clusters), even though his objections are with the notion that someone, anyone, might tell him to do something (i.e., "exert force") other than his already-established, thoroughly-thought-out Free Will (tm).

Back to the conversation at hand: Chuck Colson -- massive douchebag, or douchebag par excellence?

[Geds]

Chuck Colson -- massive douchebag, or douchebag par excellence?

Can't he be both?

[scyllacat]

Ok, I have been thinking hard about the Paul quote for a long time, because, you know, whether or not I agree with him, there's just a whole lot to think about there. On the one hand, there's part of me that rebels and doesn't want to be "in the closet" when I'm "not doing anything wrong." There's another part of me that plainly sees how much strife it causes when people taunt the weak-minded.

Personally, I think I will go read more Ms. Manners. Polite is nice. Nice matters.

Also, I would like to know what Scott has said that Fred is doing today, and yes, citations please. I don't know these people, and so I don't know if Fred is criticizing them for doing something they are not.

I do feel like a lot of these Christian donation plans don't tell you what kind of message is given out with the gift... I was ok with the little Bibles; after all, it just tells you that A Christian made the gift, and if you don't want it, you don't have to read it, you can give it away. I also accept any Watchtowers or other tracts, except Chick tracts--people who try to give me those are lucky to get away with only blisters from the invective.

So, if I got a present from these people, would I feel blest or burnt?

[Izunya]

So . . . who exactly is supposed to add the evangelism in? The individual churches, or the Angel Tree workers?

'Cause, my church contributes to Angel Tree (quite subversively, it seems) but I suspect many members of the congregation would be Very Upset to have Christian evangelical messages added to their gifts. Especially if said members are Jewish, Wiccan, etc.

If that last sentence seems at all odd to you, you are not a Unitarian. Colson is not only a douchebag, he is a *dumb* douchebag. Going after the UCC for lack of "orthodoxy" *before* the Unitarian Universalists? I am either insultedly amused or amusedly insulted.

Izunya

[Rosina]

@ scyllacat and Izunya

It seems from the website that the churches collect money, buy gifts and deliver them themselves - so in that case it would up to the individual churches how to deliver the gift and the gospel. But delivery of 'the gospel' seems to be an integral part of what Angel Tree is promoting. And if your church is passing money on for others to do the giving and evangelising, then that someone else may be doing it in your name, in a way your members would not like.

[magistra]

so you harm no one, do as you will is a perfectly good rule to live by.

Yes, but it's going to make the comments sections of blogs rather short, isn't it?

[VS]

“so you harm no one, do as you will is a perfectly good rule to live by.”

It doesn't become a good rule to live by just because you use stilted / archaic English to write it.

It's not enough merely to "do no harm". Life just isn't that simple. We must constantly choose what to do without even certainty of the immediate outcome, let alone its long term implications. And when we do have some idea of the consequences, who is to say what will harm another? An easy way to talk yourself out of the simplistic "do no harm" approach is to play one of those Choose Your Own Adventure game books. Oops, the bad guy stole the money AND he killed your dog. Let's try again, now he's holding you hostage and has killed a policeman. Hmm, this is hard.

Augustine gets closer with "Love, and do what you will". To love others is a much stronger standard than only to avoid harming them.

So far I've only managed to really love six people. But it's a start. Maybe I'll be able to love more later.

[Jesurgislac]

VS: And when we do have some idea of the consequences, who is to say what will harm another?

Eating a cheeseburger in front of me will in no way harm me.

So far I've only managed to really love six people. But it's a start. Maybe I'll be able to love more later.

And how many people have you directly harmed?

[Tonio]

Augustine gets closer with "Love, and do what you will". To love others is a much stronger standard than only to avoid harming them.

The "no harm" standard isn't some dry, clinical Prime Directive. One avoids harming others because one loves them and because one values the principles of happiness and suffering. Those two principles mesh well with the principles of universal love and universal value of life.

[Ember Keelty]

What Jesu said. And I'd also like to add that if I'm tempted to eat meat (if I haven't entirely stopped missing it after ten years, I don't think that I ever will) that's 100% my problem.

However, anyone who slipped meat into my soup would probably get punched in the face.

[McJulie]

My brother told me a story once about sitting at a bus stop, with a homeless woman who didn't have socks, and it was cold. The whole time they talked, he was thinking what his evangelical background had schooled him to think: I need to help this woman because it will be a great opportunity to evangelize!

And then, suddenly, it struck him that his thinking was wrong. That Jesus didn't help people in a calculating, mercenary way as some kind of "in" that would make them more receptive to his message. He would just have given her socks.

[Izunya]

Rosina: I think we probably do it ourselves. I just got hired (I'm a church secretary now) so I haven't had much to do with the Angel Tree project besides putting notices on bulletin boards. I just wasn't sure whether or not Angel Tree *insisted* on having its own volunteers distribute the gifts.

'Cause if they did--with the intent of including their own chosen evangelizing materials--that would be a special holiday stew of weird, wrong, dishonest, and creepy.

Izunya

[Rosina]

I just wasn't sure whether or not Angel Tree *insisted* on having its own volunteers distribute the gifts.

'Cause if they did--with the intent of including their own chosen evangelizing materials--that would be a special holiday stew of weird, wrong, dishonest, and creepy

I'm not at all sure of the set-up - what with being English and living in the UK. But it does strike me that if the Angel Tree project is supported widely, it's probably going to get a lot of support from the sort of areas which have fewer incarcerated criminals (or fewer of the type that need Christmas gifts). And churches with the highest number of imprisoned parents among their parishioners are going to have less ability to collect (not saying that that area would be less generous - just that they would be poorer and have more children to give gifts to). So how does it work? Do rich churches fly gift-givers and gospel tracts in from their gated communities to the areas with most need for charitable Christmas gifts? Or do they send money to a local church - and leave giving and proselyting to the other church. What role does Angel Tree play?

Because of the 'threat' of evangelism, only 'committed Christians' would be really happy with the idea of little Annie and Jack Junior being told of Jesus, and Love and the Holy Spirit - not just at Christmas but also invited to camps where they will live a Gospelly life with Gospel messages... Children who don't have any other holidays are easy game for this schtick. What is the position of people who don't subscribe to evangelistic Christianity? Are they made to feel guilty because their intransigence is denying little Jack his very own Left Behind video game. As a life long (if sometimes concerned, sometimes unconcerned) Anglican, I wouldn't want my children to be visited by evangelists bearing gifts. And getting a free pass on a sermon. If they existed, they would have had that sort of talk from me (or from Hubby if we'd gone back to Ireland and raised them as Catholics).

And how much pressure is put on parents to agree? Atheists, who would previously have given their kids Christmas presents; Jews who (unless there's a Menorah fairy fund) have no one to give Hannukah presents to their children, Muslims who might accept a Christmas/Season of Goodwill present, but no way the evangelising. But think o the little ones! Those little faces, gazing up into the starlit sky looking for the presents to arrive.. But their parents were made of sterner stuff, and they have to go back to being the only kid without a //**^^whatever.

Divisive and intrustive, even if some donors keep it low key.

[Cyllan]

It's not enough merely to "do no harm". Life just isn't that simple. We must constantly choose what to do without even certainty of the immediate outcome, let alone its long term implications. And when we do have some idea of the consequences, who is to say what will harm another?

I've found the "do no harm; do as you will" rule often gets mouthed by folks who are more interested in the latter portion of the rule than the former. I've heard debates that claim that the rede (and we must use that word when referring to these particular debates in the same way that I'm about to use a K) only refers to magickal harm -- i.e. no cursing folks. Other debates say that it means that you merely shouldn't intend harm; accidents happen and oh well.

Most folks who pay in-depth attention to the full thing realize that it's not possible to sum up all of the rules for life in 7 words or less. Like St. Augustine's rule, it's short-hand for a whole host of things that need to be considered, weighed and factored when making a decision. Sure, there's no way to go through life without doing harm, but we can at least take steps to minimize what harm we do inflict and attempt to rectify those situations where we have caused harm unwittingly.

Short-hand. That's all any Golden Rule can ever hope to be.

[Liz]

Frankly, if I'm going to give toys to the children of prisoners, I'd rather find a group like this one to support. :D

[NBarnes]

UCC represent! My mom's a UCC minister, and she will drop a beatdown on you if you and your self-righteous schmuckery stands between her and Christmas.