A Big Helping Of Christmas Guilt

Frederick Meekins 
12/16/2003

Retailers have made a science of manipulating consumers during the Christmas season to part with their financial resources for products they would not likely purchase other times of the year. Seems various nonprofit organizations resort to similar tactics to pull off financial transactions not quite as reciprocal in nature.

Most Evangelicals as well as many Conservatives know of Prison Fellowship Ministries as the organization, headed by Watergate personality Chuck Colson, charged with taking the Gospel of Christ into prisons around the world. One outreach the ministry employs in pursuit of this goal is the Angel Tree Project where presents are given to the children of prisoners on behalf of their incarcerated parents.

While such efforts can be considered laudable, the way in which funds are solicited for the program and some of the assumptions underlying it leave something to be desired. As with many other fundraising campaigns, this one makes ethical appeals of dubious moral logic.

Brother Colson begins his annual Christmas appeal in virtually the same manner every year (those Breakpoint commentaries he has ghost written for him must be taking up most of his word-smithing efforts) by laying the guilt on thick by intoning against the recipients of his melancholy epistle, "Over '_____ number of' children [the quantity is one of the few aspects of the letter to change from Yuletide to Yuletide] might be alone and forgotten this Christmas if you and I don't reach them through Angel Tree."

Unless there's been a moral coup I'm not aware of, the last time I checked the delinquent parents were the ones responsible for ruining the holidays --- not to mention the other aspects of their children's lives that they neglect --- as a result of the consequences resulting from their felonious activity.

Colson continues, "Now I want to ask you to help us in reaching the littlest victims of crime --- the children of prisoners who through no fault of their own are without a parent during critical years of their lives." This is a clear case of putting the paddy wagon before the horse.

Had Mr. Colson not been blinded by his affinity for jailbirds, he would have realized that the children of prisoners aren't the littlest victims of crime after all. That is an infamous distinction belonging to the children of those these scumbags victimized or to children who were themselves victims.

Does Prison Fellowship do anything to brighten the Christmas seasons of these miserable youngsters whose parents --- unlike the ones sitting in the jail cell --- did not abuse their moral freedom? Probably all these kids get is some sanctimonious sermon on how if they don't forgive these lowlifes for inflicting often unspeakable evil upon them how they are in fact bigger sinners than the criminal, a common tactic among pietists seeking a radical ontological leveling.

Whether they realize it or not, Prison Fellowship is inadvertently rewarding criminals for criminal behavior. Just because someone is poverty stricken does not mean they must resort to a life of banditry and mayhem.

Does Chuck Colson therefore care to make a claim as to why children of law-abiding parents are less worthy of Christmas cheer than those with mommy or daddy in the state pen where they belong? Taken to its logical conclusion, maybe economically challenged parents ought to consider going out and committing a crime so their progeny might have a shot at a descent Christmas, or at least the possibility to avoid strafing by these hit-and-run direct mail artists.

Part of the irritating nature of this kind of charitable campaign comes from this and affiliated ministries' questionable philosophy regarding crime and the criminal. For while Prison Fellowship is a step above most other social policy outfits in that it recognizes the role of sin in the penal dynamic, it is surprisingly soft on crime in relation to the beliefs held by many in its conservative base of support.

While it is sad for these children to endure life (not just Christmas) without their parents, it must be remembered that these inmates were not nabbed off the street as part of some cruel, extended "Candid Camera" prank. There use to be the concept of the "Noble Savage" where adherents believed individuals from backwards cultures were somehow morally superior since they had not been sullied by the perceived decadence of more developed nations. Chuck pretty much not only feels the same way about foreigners but about convicts and felons as well.

In a Breakpoint commentary entitled "Smashing idols: why God loves the poor" appearing in the November 2003 edition of the Maryland and Delaware Baptist Convention's Baptist Life newspaper, "...Scripture teaches that Jesus has a special passion for the poor, and who is more impoverished than a prisoner."

The Bible's message is the same today as when it was written. However, the way certain words are used today are not.

The poor aren't exactly what they use to be. Most of those covered by this particular sociological classification are that way because they chose to be or think of themselves that way because they do not enjoy a standard of living they find satisfactory. Don't come crying to me that you are starving because you have to dine on discount ramen rather than filet minion; I don't think Jesus had you in mind.

And aren't we lying to the children when we propagate the illusion that their parents care for them? By giving them a gift with the parent's name on it, aren't we in effect saying, "Well Susie, daddy might be an ax-murder, but he's still a swell guy." If these convicts were truly outstanding citizens worthy of the continued admiration of their offspring, they would not have committed the deeds that put them behind bars in the first place.

It's not enough for Colson to embellish the ethical credentials of the statutorially challenged. He must also castigate the self-sufficient in the process.

Colson argues that many Christians have a "middle class" spirit where we want Jesus to save us but aren't "dependent" enough on Him in meeting our daily needs. Expressing his disapproval of average believers mustering their own resources to solve their daily problems, Colson writes, "When the car breaks down we fix it." But what else are you suppose to do when you don't have your own fundraising staff?

While the thinking Christian realizes that the strength and ability to provide for themselves is a gift from God, you're going to get mighty hungry if you wait around and expect food to plop down from Heaven onto your plate. Maybe if more people abided by those abhorrent middle class values of hard work, self-reliance, frugality, and playing within the rules while struggling to get ahead, there would not be as much need for the services provided by Prison Fellowship and the Angel Tree Project.

As a former government official, I suppose Chuck just can't get over his need to see individual initiative squelched and dependency encouraged. His problem is probably not so much with Christians not relying on Jesus for their daily needs but instead with them not needing self-appointed ecclesiastical overseers to make decisions for them.

If Mr. Colson was sincere about relying solely upon supernatural intervention to provide for all of his needs, then why is Prison Fellowship soliciting funds? Employing Colson's own logic, if Angel Tree is within God's will, won't finances be made available through slightly more immaculate means? Interesting how those preaching the loudest against self-reliance hardly even turn down the fruits of such labor when bestowed upon them as a beneficence of charitable patronage.

If individuals feel led by the Holy Spirit to donate to Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree Project, they should feel free to do so. However, the very least Prison Fellowship can do is resist the urge to become just another voice in the growing chorus whose only carol assigns culpability for the faults of the world onto the shoulders of the common man whose only shortcoming is minding his own business and providing for his own.



Frederick B. Meekins

American WorldView Dispatch

Copyright 2003 by Frederick Meekins

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