Faith organizations have a complex relationship to disaster relief
Church volunteers have played a big role in the wake of Hurricane Helene. But for some survivors, the accompanying proselytizing feels unwanted.
I find it interesting how... transactional modern christianity is. You can't just help anyone for free, it's gotta be a in to the unfaithful for your particular sect, or a way to earn cash for your church, or a way to earn brownie points for god. The end result is less being a Good Samaritan.. or even the shepherding the flock. What emerges is more like a multi level marketing scheme where the faithful are desperately trying to recruit others to get some of their salvation passed up the chain to them.
If you read Luther’s 95 thesis you’ll find they were always transactional.
I wouldn’t be shocked to find that when Jesus was ragging on the rich, he was doing so with a hand out and a cheesy grin on his face.
To be fair, I think it always has been. Think about the unimaginable wealth the Catholic Church has amassed over the past couple of centuries.
I saw something recently that the Trinity Church in New York by itself has like $7 billion in assets.
It's always been that way. It's called "the great commission".
Yeah because on one hand they WANT you to suffer, because suffering "leads to Jesus", and on the OTHER hand they would like to insinuate themselves into the disaster relief situation to get their claws on some of that juicy relief money. Very complex.
“It’s complicated” and “ you wouldn’t understand” are tied as “the favorite excuses narcissists use to gaslight the shit out of you.”
Tie mostly because they’re used frequently in the same sentence.
In this case there’s a few things going on.
Churches love the warm fuzzies (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t??)
Also, they love getting federal aid money that’s being passed around without too many questions getting asked.
They also love the positive news and reputation washing they can do. The photo ops.
But mostly, churches need to be the center of the aid because if you can get help from somebody outside the church, why the fuck would you sit through that sermon to get said aid?
And if you didn’t need to rely on the church for social support, you might stop tithing. And you might start letting your kids sleep in or do other things on sundays. And you might start getting funny ideas about following their annoying rules.
Maybe even come out of the closet or marry somebody who looks different than you. (But mostly it is about tithing…)
They had to give their deity multiple personality disorder to account for Jesus loves you, but God has been smiting the shit out of you. Pediatric cancer sure is a funny way to demonstrate love. Child cannot even form coherent thoughts yet, but Huntington's is going to kill him.
I have never understood how something with such a dumb premise got so popular.