Breaching the subject of Operation Christmas Child

[BeanBag7]

Over the last few years it has become clear to me and many others that Operation Christmas Child is not as "good" and charitable as they appear to be. Many schools and youth groups still put together shoe boxes for them.

I want to let others know about this when they ask about which shoebox charity to support, or post pictures of their shoe boxes ready to go. But I dont want to look like a dick about it and be preachy.

Should I just leave it and let it continue, or am I right to make people aware of the issues? If so how would you go about it?

My DSs senior school does an inter form completition each year to make a food hamper for the local food bank.

Another suggestion for anyone looking for ideas is to see if your local housing provider has a community programme. Ours has some community centres and my workplace usually supports them at Christmas.

NEven with schools no one is forced to do this. It is openly a christian charity, they are not hiding that fact.

june

You know full well that it is very hard for a child to be left out of something a class is doing. Furthermore, you risk creating a Christian and non-Christian divide in the classroom, which is the opposite of the inclusiveness most of us hope for.

The whole premise of these shoe box things is the quick-fix shot of feel-good happy hormones - that giving with such a warm glow when thinking of the delighted child allows us.

It’s all about us. Giving usually is, but not usually as blatantly. There are far less harmful and more productive and financially sound ways of getting that fix.

I bought a toilet a few years ago www.toilettwinning.org Might the children like to do that? I think they would all relate to how awful it would be not to have a toilet to use. You are given a little plaque which you can put up in the school toilet telling you where the new toilet has been built.

Within giving, I mean.

A PP mentioned Blythswood as an alternative - they are also a Christian charity. I've not been able to confirm what evangelising they might do alongside the boxes. Has anyone else?

@FamilyOfAliens Yes.. he was handed his arse, and in retaliation, a lot of us posting on those threads were directly contacted by MNHQ informing us if we didnt allow them to remove our posts, then SP would be demanding our personal details to sue us for defamation.

So please dont tell people not to worry about legal action.

"I don't support Samaritans Purse but if others want to then surely that's up to them?"

Of course it is. The trouble is, the vast majority of people IMO are doing so in ignorance that they are supporting a charity with such evangelical and non-inclusive views and positions.

If people read up about the charity, how it works and what its leaders believe and advocate, and still want to support it, then fine. If schools want to do it in breach of their public sector equality duty, that is not fine as they are breaking the law.

This Wikipedia article on Franklin Graham is all well-sourced. If people read all about him and his views and actions, and still want to support his charity, they are making an informed individual decision about the kind of views they want to align themselves with.

But I'm certain no one I know who supports OCC would choose to align themselves with those views. And certainly the two HTs of schools I have raised this with felt the same way, and would not want to align the schools they were leading with such views either.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/08/christmas-evangelical-christians-samaritans-purse-children-muslim-countries

Here you go to the posters up thread who discounted the blog piece as being opinion v fact

Our school supports fsci, anyone know anything about them?

I had no idea about what was behind this, thank you! I'm going to speak my son's school about it and suggest some local alternatives.

@Over600Ecalyps - it doesn't sound great. They say they're respectful of other faiths, but...

www.blythswood.org/sharing-our-christian-values

I hope this doesn't make people overly negative about charities set up by churches/church members though. The vast majority don't. or no longer have any religious purpose. I'm an atheist, but am a trustee of an organisation that was set up by our local bishop and the diocese. While they still support us, the charity doesn not, and never has had any direct connection with the church or religion.
Whatever my thoughts on faith, fact is that a lot of churches do take action where they see unfairness or need. The group/community/shared purpose thing tends to make thing happen, and I respect that a lot.

As a representative of OCC I can tell you this is untrue. The children are givin the box first to keep before committing to the program nor is it required to commit to the program to get the box. It does come with a 12 step discipleship program if they choose to persue it. No one is pushing evangelism. The boxes go into 3rd world countries where people have never heard of Christ. We are simply a tool for that.

Samaritan’s Purse states that it is a Christian Evangelical Organisation.

My children go to a multicultural school and are not Christian. It would not be appropriate for their school to adopt OCC as a school project.

BTW all Muslims have heard of Jesus - it’s just they believe he is a prophet not God.

I too fell for this when my dc were younger.
However after doing my research and finding out various facts ( not just opinions) I stopped doing it. I also wrote to the large Tesco nearby, my employer ( a huge children's organisation) and my DH wrote to his employer who were all going to do this appeal, thinking it was a kind thing to do.
Without exception they all withdrew from it after being presented with the facts.

Yeah right, chinny reckon @Lsbc

”No one is pushing evangelism”

Really? “Discover how Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts lead to evangelism” say Samaritan’s Purse own website on the subject of OCC.

The boxes go into 3rd world countries where people have never heard of Christ. We are simply a tool for that.

That's evangelicalism.

A lot of people seem very touchy about me saying that I've noticed a lot of people who rail against OCC don't actually go on to do anything better. If you do, I'm clearly not speaking to/about you so no need to list your good deeds.

I don't support OCC, by the way.

Goingonagondola

You throw out a blanket negative comment and expect people not to respond. That’s a bit unrealistic.

People have legitimate concerns about the underlying purpose of OCC. That doesn’t automatically make those people uncharitable.

The boxes go into 3rd world countries

Bloody hell.

Another one here who successfully persuaded her children's (CofE) school to encourage charitable giving during the festive season in a way without evangelism and or Islamophobia. Very proud to have done so.

@Lsbc601601 - for a 'representative of OCC' you don't seem to know much about your own organisation.

To take one of many, many examples from the OCC/Samaritan's Purse websites, if (in your words) "no one is pushing evangelism", why does the Samaritan's Purse website say: "In the hands of local churches, every gift-filled shoebox is a powerful tool for evangelism and discipleship"?

So please dont tell people not to worry about legal action.

Was anyone actually sued? As far as I remember MNHQ deleted any posts that were problematic and the thread died a natural death. But before that a lot of people had their eyes opened to how the campaign operates.