to think 'Christian Aid' is a religious charity?

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

A woman came to my house this evening to collect a Christian aid envelope that had been posted through our letterbox last week. I looked for it but I think it had gone to the recycling bin and I had no intention of giving any money as

1. I do not give to religious charities I prefer secular.

2. I do not like people coming to my house to ask for money - no matter the ccause - I like to choose when and how to make my donations.

I told the woman this and she made a very sour face and said 'well we are not a religious charity' as I bade her a firm goodnight and shut the door.

I do appreciate that Christian aid are doing there best to help people all over the world in very difficult situations and not just evanglalising to the poor. But they are still imo a religious charity - so I prefer not to donate to them - or Sally Army etc. There are plenty of good works being done by other charities without religious affiliations so I do not have to.

Well until recently I was one of those awful people who cold calls and have been working for Christian Aid (better than being on the dole) and the brief we had which was direct from the charity was to say that no they are not a religious charity.

It was founded in the basement of a church based on Christian values but helps all people. I was a bit dubious about this but obviously you have to say what the charity wants so maybe she was just following what she had been told.

So is it now a bit like the Red Cross, where the 'cross' doesn't really carry a religious connotation any more and they're happy to have Red Crescent alternative to avoid alienating Muslims?

If its really not religious any more they should probably rename themselves to avoid confusion.

I did ask that question and apparently they are reluctant to rename themselves because of the huge amount of help they do get from churches in the UK.

But yes they are sort of trying to go down the Red Cross route.

I've done the rounds collecting for a couple of years, and I did get a fair amount of negativity on the doorstep. It left me feeling a bit shit, TBH, and I ducked out of it this year.

YABU and way too grumpy.
Christian Aid help the most desperate they don't give care if they're christian or not. I love the "we believe in life before death"
You are inconvienienced once a year.

YABU
I admire people who give up their time to knock on doors to raise money for the poorest people in the world.

It says quite clearly on the website Christian Aid is a faith based organisation.

So I think anyone who tells you it's just a historical thing is disembling.

They are not evangelical, and as faith based charities go I think they are ok. I still choose to support other charities instead.

The red cross has never been a religious symbol though, it is the Swiss flag inverted as that's where the Geneva Convention had been held and the Red Cross created.

On the other hand I do wonder how many people would turn down the help of a Christian organisation if they were at say a concert or football match and collapsed? Most of these are covered by an organisation that is nearly 2,000 years old, was started as a Christian organisation and does still have some Christian ties.

I think the point was that what the caller said about CA not being a religious charity was not wrong, and if organisation is going to send volunteers out door knocking they should brief them enough to be able to accurately represent the organisation they are collecting for.

It's not the biggest deal, but then not everything that people start a thread about had to be...

I mean was wrong. Duh.