Charity: Lecture One Handout

14/10/19
Dr Stephen Plant (Trinity Hall)

Introduction
Aim: to think historically, ethically and theologically about questions raised by global
poverty and injustice.

- Has Christian thinking and practice in relation to poverty changed through time, and if so how? (e.g.,
Christian Aid strapline – ‘We believe in life before death’)
-Why and how have/should Christians [and others] respond to poverty, need and injustice?
- What reasons are/should be given for giving to those in need; is a Christian response to poverty/want
best construed as an act of charity (love), an act of justice – or both?
- what should be the relationship between the work of Church-based NGOs and the mission of the
Church? In charity sector, ‘Rice Christianity’ considered highly problematic. [Times article]
- Are Christian NGOs distinctive? If so, in what ways ? e.g., (Hope and belief in progress; role of faith
in the ‘public square’? love and rights; understanding of human flourishing)
Some Church-based Agencies may be ambivalent about their roots.
[e.g., UMCOR Sarajevo]

- Professionalization of charitable activities of Church

My aims are descriptive and reparative:

I argue for a recovery by Christians and by Christian agencies of charity as an idea that motivates and
shapes response to global poverty and injustice. I propose that ‘charity’ has been displaced in
significant ways by the practices of global development. I propose that this displacement brings some
gains (e.g., addressing the causes of poverty), but also some losses…

The seven acts of corporal mercy

Master of Alkmaar, Seven works of mercy, ca. 1504, polyptych (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum)

Mtth 25: 31 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his
glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king
will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was
in prison and you visited me.” 37Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave
you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you,
or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” 40And the king will
answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to
me.”
Plus … bury the dead

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 1/ Parable of judgment. Link between charitable activity and salvation.
2/ Acts of charity are construed in the parable as acts of service to Son of Man – i.e., to Christ, and
thereby to God.
Charity serves those in need: but (unintentionally in the parable) it also weighs in one’s favour in
relation to salvation.

Jesus’ summary of the Law:

Mark 12: 28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them
well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ 29Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our
God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.” 31The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other
commandment greater than these.’

The origins of Christian almsgiving in Jewish practice

Gary A. Anderson: Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition (2013).
Similarities between Jewish and Christian almsgiving. Basic to both:
‘almsgiving funds a treasury in heaven, a treasury that can pay down the debt owed on one’s sins … if
almsgiving funds a heavenly treasury, then the hand of the poor provides a privileged point of entry to
the realm and, ultimately, being of God’.’ (p.3)

Biblical roots:
Deuteronomy 10:17-19 ‘For the Lord your God is God of gods … who executes justice for the orphan and widow, and
who loves strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the
land of Egypt’.
Use of financial metaphors, e.g., Proverbs 19:17 ‘Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid
in full’, i.e., treasury in heaven funded by almsgiving

2nd century BCE Ecclesiasticus [Sirach]:

Discussion of almsgiving linked to giving of loans to neighbours.
Warning against love of wealth.
Tobit 4:7-10 [written 225-175 BCE]: ‘give alms from your possessions, and do not turn your face away from anyone
who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you … So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself
against the day of necessity. For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness’ .

Love in the NT
Anders Nygren: Agape and Eros, Vol. I 1932, vol. II 1938.
Christian love is essentially Agape. But among the other views which have confronted Agape and forced it to a decision of a
life and death struggle or to a settlement by compromise, far and away the most important is the rival idea of love, which
finds its most perfect expression in the Platonic doctrine of Eros. (Vol. I, 23)

Agape is Christian love, God’s way to humanity.

Eros is longing, striving, desire. Eros is the human being’s way to God; it’s egocentric, focussed on the
soul and it’s fate. Christian thought has confused Eros and Agape: needs repair

John 21. 2 words used for love: John 15:9ff and John 21:15-19 – uses agapas and philo. probably
interchangeably.
John’s ‘love’ is explicitly a condescending love; ‘a heavenly reality which in some sense descends from
stage to stage into this world’ – [see Theological Dictionary of the New Testament on ].

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John’s ‘love’ appears to share some characteristics with Eros – mystical, ascent/descent.

Paul’s use of agape perhaps closest to Nygren’s

David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (2005).
Chapter 6 – The strong and the weak: ‘Paul’s response [to the question of whether it’s
permissible/lawful to eat meat offered to idols] … is to argue for a different kind of foundation and
motivation for ethical decision making, essentially a relational, other regarding ethic with a specifically
Christological shape’.
Two fundamental norms: the unity of the community (solidarity) and the imitation of Christ (other
regard).
‘… so the Christian’s responsibility is to look to the interests of the other, even when that means
abandoning one’s own legitimate rights and sacrificing one’s legitimate freedom’ (Horrell: 181).
BUT, n.b., such ethical and loving other-regard is primarily towards one’s siblings in faith.

Chapter 7: Other-regard and Christ as moral paradigm:

Philippians 2:5-11 – ‘Christ Jesus … emptied himself, taking the form of a slave’
Christological hymn? A history of salvation? Ethical example?
Self-lowering other regard – a response to Christ’s initiative.

The collection for Christians in Jerusalem

(Keith F. Nickle, The Collection: A Study in Paul’s Strategy (London: 1966); David G. Horrell, ‘Paul’s
Collection: resources for a materialist theology’, Epworth Review May 1995, Vol. 22/2, 74-83.

c.48-51 Apostolic Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29) – probably same one described in Galatians 2:1-
10. At its end, Paul encouraged (Gal 2:10) to ‘remember the poor’.
Acts 11:27-30 describes relief (money and/or food) sent from Antioch to Jerusalem. §
Paul in Jerusalem – probably to deliver his collection – Acts 21:17.
The collection is described by Paul 1 Cor 16:1-4.
2 Cor 8-9 – most extensive description.

Paul holds Macedonian Christians up as example (8:1-7).

Why give?
 Because Christ first gave to you:(8: 8-9) ‘for you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus
Christ’. Giving is sign of God’s grace at work.
 Just distribution of resources: (8:13-14) ‘I do not mean that there should be relief for others
and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance
and their need’

Romans 15:25-27, further description of collection ‘for the saints at Jerusalem’

 Vs. 27: ‘they were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have
come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought to be of service to then in material things’.
Possible Paul has Isaiah 60:3 in mind ‘The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the
brightness of your rising’ [also, e.g., Isaiah 2:2-4 & Micah 4:1-3].
The collection has an eschatological dimension – Gentiles returning to Jerusalem.
Collection functions symbolically, like a ‘sacrament’ unifying Gentile and Jewish believers.

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Unity of Church.