Quite Random

Giftwrapped God

It all sounds innocent enough. Operation Christmas Child “is a unique ministry that brings Christmas joy, packed in gift-filled shoeboxes, to children around the world”. Over the past 10 years, 24 million shoeboxes have been delivered, making it the world’s largest children’s Christmas project. Every US president since Ronald Reagan has packed a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child. In the UK, thousands of schools, churches and youth clubs are doing the same. Some will fill their boxes with dried-out felt tip pens and discarded Barbie amputees. Others spend serious money on the latest GameBoy or Sony Walkman.

But what many parents and teachers don’t know is that behind Operation Christmas Child is the evangelical charity Samaritan’s Purse. Their aim is “the advancement of the Christian faith through educational projects and the relief of poverty”. And a particularly toxic version of Christianity it is. This is the same outfit that targeted eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and was widely condemned for following US troops into Iraq to claim Muslims for Christ.

The evangelicals who like to giftwrap Islamophobia | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited.

My friend Nick has received a barrage of protest letters after writing an article in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner about Operation Christmas Child. His article is a lot less strongly worded than the one above, and the one above was written by the vicar of Putney, The Rev Dr Giles Fraser. Nick expressed disappointment that there were so few letters of support for his article – but he can’t be surprised. Zealous god-botherers are bound to get steamed up and writing letters if anyone buggers about with their warm-and-fuzzies, and most people who agreed with it couldn’t be bothered to write and say so, even though they should.

So I’m working in a developing country – Siem Reap’s slick bakery cafe, free wi-fi and numerous bars are an island of affluence in a country where most are below the poverty line and earning less than a dollar fifty a day, HIV/AIDS, dengue fever and TB are widespread, and, well, you know the rest. Samaritan’s Purse shoeboxes have already already been delivered to Cambodia. It’s bad enough that a child in one of our classes at the Sangkheum Center the other day was found looking up ‘Sin’ in the dictionary after being given a copy of The Book Of Hope, now I dread the prospect of these boxes showing up, containing as they do more evangelical literature, aimed at converting children to Christianity. As mentioned in the article above, this is partly achieved through bigoted statements about other faiths, and partly through bible study courses after the children receive the gifts.

A video on the Samaritan’s Purse website features several dewey-eyed god-botherers talking of Operation Christmas Child giving gifts of unconditional love, but it isn’t unconditional love when you bribe children into adopting your belief in God with a cuddly toy, any more than it is when you ask a poor person to pray in exchange for food. If the gift is so unconditional, give it with no strings attached. Donate money to an aid organisation, come and help, do something more useful and sustainable than sending someone a teddy bear in a shoe box, and feel justifiably warm and fuzzy – but no-one has the right to force a particularly bigoted and pernicious brand of the Christian faith down children’s throats, even if it is giftwrapped.