To have written to the school about the Christmas shoebox scheme?

[gastrognome]

Just had a look through the leaflet sent home from DD1's school about the Christmas shoebox scheme that they are involved in.

Turns out the organisation adds religious literature to the boxes before they are distributed.

I love the idea of filling and sending a Christmas shoebox for somebody less privileged than us, but I really don't like the fact that these schemes are used as a means to evangelise. Of course Christmas is by its very nature a Christian festival but I don't think that it's right to "spread the word" by stealth.

So I just wrote to DD's school and suggested that next year they look for a similar scheme that isn't so evangelical in nature. I said I'd be happy to help research any organisations they could work with.

Do any others feel the same way, or have I turned into Scrooge?

Agree with exexpat. Most UK Christians find the far-right fundamentalist brand of Christianity not to their taste.

And if we are on the topic of salaries, Franklin Graham's $1.2m pay package...

HitTheRoadJack, I haven't asked the school to do it at another time of year as I've only just emailed them about it and am still waiting for their reply. It's not a faith school, by the way.

We do celebrate Christmas in our family. As I have said, I have no beef with Christianity or indeed the giving of gifts at Christmas. I do, however, have an issue with the evangelisation of children, particularly when material goods such as boxes of toys are used as the vehicle for this.

Do you not think that your children are exposed to "evangelisation" living within a Christian country?

HittheRoadJack - the brand of evangelicalism these people promote is completely and utterly not normal

I lived with it. I know from my experience.

Can you explain further? I read that they offer discipleship groups-so do churches near to where I live. What is it they do that is so terrible?

My now XH became saved by a very fundamentalist Christian group which would be very similar to the evangelical Christian views espoused by Mr Graham and his church - XH has gone way way out of his way to attend rallies that the Graham family spoke at for example.

What they do that is so terrible, where do I start. Every gathering must be for the purpose of worshipping God. Every meal/cup of tea/bun must be prefaced with a grace. Women are expected to do all the cleaning/cooking/child rearing and not work outside the home. Women should defer to the man of the house on everything. Women should not wear trousers/make up/short skirts

There is a pervasive casual racism and and casual unacceptance of anyone who isn't "one of us" - it's a if you're not with us you're agin us kind of view.

If you aren't one of us, if you're anything else, you aren't getting into heaven.

If you're one of their brand of Christianity then it doesn't matter what else you do, as long as you sit in Church on a Sunday and sing halleluiah.

And they are never wrong because God makes them right. About everything. You can't argue with them or put forward an alternative view because you are just wrong and they are just right.

So they think their right within the realms of their own religion-that doesn't make them different from any other branch of their religion.

Their lifestyle mirrors that of predom. Islamic countries and that of the Amish faith.

Jehovah's Witnesses think pretty much the same thing, almost down to a T "If you aren't one of us, if you're anything else, you aren't getting into Heaven".

No hittheroad - they are right about everything, everything and anything they decide to pontificate about - not just within the realms of their own religion.

And the point is that Amish/Muslim/Jehovah's Witnesses aren't going into state schools and spouting their particular brand of religion sugar coated in tripe to get the kids to buy into it and then sending that tripe half way round the world.

But no one is forcing them to read the leaflets or "sign up" to whatever they're offering, are they? (genuine question).

Well, that's not what I've read while googling - kids don't get the shoeboxes if they don't agree to accept the leaflet and most are pushed to sign up for a further 10 or 12 step programme afterwards.

The point of the shoeboxes is to give these evangelical people a foot in the door to convert sinners.

But they are targetting childrden, hittheroad. Do you think that's fair?

Oh and another thing: this shitty fake 'charity' does not meet minimum standards.

Hittheroadjack
Do you really expect the person who leads a company with 5000 employees to not earn any money for doing this job?

And 100k is nothing compared to what she would be able to make if she worked for a private company of the same scale.

As a cub scout pack we arranged for gifts to be given to the local women's refuge for both the women and their families. This also allowed for personal contact if any of the women felt up to meeting the cubs that year.

This thread has therefore inspired me to get around to emailing the local women's shelter asking if they accept donations of christmas gifts at their office (its a trek into town, I'm not doing it if they feel unable to distribute them) as I get inundated with posh toiletties sets every birthday and christmas by family members (I currently possess about 3 years' worth of smellies...) and would like to know they made someone having a hard time happy. This is the only thing I can donate due to currently retraining due to unemployment...

To my mind this is much more "Christian" than trying to convert foreign kids who may not even be all that poor.

HitTheRoad, yes my kids are certainly exposed to the Christian (Catholic) faith here in Belgium. And also, to a lesser extent, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on.

Doesn't mean I want to pay to have them, or indeed others (which is what I meant by the evangelisation of children) converted.

Franklin Graham draws two salaries. One from his father's ministry works and one from Samaritans Purse. And he swans in and out of the poor areas he's supposed to be helping in a private plane.

Bet the woman from Oxfam doesn't do that

Between the two jobs, last year, Mr Graham made over $1.2million

And his Samaritans Purse income alone in 2008 was over $500,000

Hittheroadjack -

What MmeLindor said.

Not-for-profit doesn't mean no-one-gets-paid ... to employ qualified, dedicated staff you have to pay them.

To be honest the thing that gets my goat the most about all this shoebox sending nonsense (which is small beans in the grand scheme of aid) is that it teaches another generation of children and parents not to think clearly about charity, aid and development.

Oh Gastro- I thought you were in the UK.

MME- I wasn't debating how much she earned, I was asking where the money comes from. No one has answered that.

Franklin Graham is also retired.

I'd rather not give shoe boxes/gifts to people in shelters in the UK. They have a roof over their heads and provisions in place to ensure they are fed.

It's horses for courses.

Well Mr Graham is certainly able, through having worked for a charity, to fund a very nice retirement for himself indeed.

People in shelters don't have a roof of their own you know HitTheRoadJack

And you have no problem with the right wing clap trap spouted by the particular brand of Christianity espoused by this organisation?

HittheRoadJack
Do you have any idea how hard it is to live in poverty in UK? Link. And how difficult it is for those born into a life of poverty to escape it?

And Oxfam is funded by donations, with which they pay their staff. Just because it is a charity, doesn't mean to say that the staff work for nothing. What else do you expect? Not sure about Oxfam, but the information on Save the Children is here. For every £1 they raise, 87p is spent on benefiting children.

I have no problem with a religion claiming to be right. All religions claim they have superiority whether it's "this type of evangelism" or the Red Crescent offering prayer mats and Qu'rans. THe children are not forced to attend these classes and they are not forced to believe what they hear, any more than children in faith schools. There's so many threads, on MN, in particular who moan about the teaching of religion in faith schools..and the response is usually;

"They won't believe everything they hear...they can make up their own minds..." and I feel it's the same thing. If a church is sending out little shoe boxes with scriptural messages inside then that's fine with me-they are probably, more often than not, discarded anyway.

People in shelters, are in shelters and not on the street and therefore have a roof over their heads.

HitTheRoadJack

She gets paid, like all other charity staff out of their operating income. Oxfam get their income from a mixture of grants (from government, the EU etc...), corporate donations, personal donations and trading income (charity shops).

The problem using gift delivery as a model for thinking about aid and charity is that is not just how it works.

Charities are not like the Royal Mail or Western Union for delivering 'stuff'. Nurses who are paid to run vaccination programs are not 'profiting' from delivering the vaccine that you as a donor have paid for - they are part of the program.

If you want to help people less fortunate don't start by thinking about gifts. Think about the people that you want to help. Then look for an organisation that you think (or experts think) is doing a good job at helping those people. Then ask that organisation what kind of donation would most help them to do their work. They are going to say money, not shoe boxes.