Christian Aid Week in May is an established national institution. Thousands of volunteers, including me, drop red envelopes through people’s letter-boxes and collect them at the end of the week. Thousands who never attend church respond generously to appeals to help the most deprived in the world.
Christian Aid began in response to the refugee crisis at the end of the Second World War. It puts into practice the teaching of Jesus to love our neighbours and to obey him in helping the poor, the hungry and the naked. Jesus did not specify that these poor people had to be Christian.
Household of faith
What the New Testament does teach is that when one part of the Christian body suffers, all suffer; and that followers of Christ should do good to all people, especially those of the household of faith.
The importance of this teaching has become very evident in the last nine months as Christian communities in Syria and Iraq have been persecuted and driven from their ancestral lands and homes, purely because they have been targeted by the ISIS militias for their religious commitment. Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Diocese of Erbil in Iraq spoke movingly to the General Synod of the Church of England at its sessions in February of the plight of 125,000 Christians who were internally displaced people.
No help for Christians
The Church of England has found itself in an acute dilemma over the situation of these Christians. On the one hand, it has close links with the orthodox churches of the Middle East through dialogues and ecumenical visits. General Synod has been regularly addressed by some of their leading theologians and bishops.
The Church of England does not of itself have a relief and development agency. In common with 40 other denominations in the British Isles it acts through Christian Aid.
Yet Christian Aid on this occasion, by its own admission, has provided no specific aid to the displaced Iraqi Christians. Our Government has only offered asylum to less than 60 applicants from the area. There is no possibility of providing security for these Christians by military means. Their own churches are, through the slender resources available to them, housing people in their church properties, or in half-built warehouses and buildings in a safer part of the country.
Why the problem?
Why is there this disjunction between our ecumenical fellowship in religious dialogue and practical support in real aid?
There are a number of reasons. First, in the Church of England, the work of Christian unity was separated from the work of mission about 20 years ago in the Church’s structures and commissions. Secondly, Christian Aid is very clear that its work is to share Christian love indiscriminately and that its mandate is humanitarian relief to the poorest and to tackle the structures that keep people poor. So it focuses on gender discrimination, climate change and an ending of tax havens through a campaign for tax justice. A third reason is that Christian Aid works through local partners. This is a worthy principle. But Voices of the Poor, a World Bank report in 2000 surveying 40,000 poor people, discovered that the agencies that poor people trusted were: first, their own organisa-secondly, tions; and the churches. That is because the churches remain with them through thick and thin.
Questions arising
When one consults the Christian Aid website about the Iraq emergency, no reference is made to Christians or churches.
This leads to a number of questions.
• Why could not the Iraqi churches be suitable local partners for Christian Aid to work through? Archbishop Warda insisted that his church shared the help they received with Christians and those who were not. Can such churches not be linked with Christian Aid?
• Why does the British Government through DFID insist that it does not discriminate on account of religion, and yet it provides help to Islamic Relief. Islamic Relief does not pass on help to Christians.
• Why are British churches being effectively prevented from sending their aid to Christian refugees in the Middle East through their own official church aid organisation?
Generosity but...
Individual Christians in the UK have been generous in helping Aid to the Church in Need, Foundation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction in the Middle East, Open Doors and Barnabas Fund. But the task is enormous. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and perhaps even Egypt are all embroiled and some heavyweight support and funding is needed. DFID ministers are clear that the support for the 0.75% of GDP ring-fenced for overseas aid depends very significantly on the support of the churches and Christians for this policy. But so far DFID and Christian Aid have provided little solid support for the persecuted Christians around whom the refugee crisis in Iraq and Syria currently revolves. So this current policy is losing credibility with the Christian voting public.
