Evangelicals and the Case for Foreign Aid
In a recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece, Richard Stearns—the head of World Vision, a charity I personally support financially—makes some good points in a compelling argument for American aid to other countries…but not for government aid.
He states that,
Yes, individuals and churches play a vital role in aid and development. But governments play a unique and vital role that private organizations cannot.
But he fails to provide a single example of such a government role. Christian aid organizations have smaller budgets but are much more efficient than the government, with a significantly higher portion of their funds going to aid rather than to bureaucracy. Further, our federal aid far too often props up governments which not only oppress Christians (and adherents to other locally minority religions) but bear little resemblance to anything we would recognize as democracy—one of his (correctly) stated goals of foreign aid.
Stearns is also confused about the meaning of the word “dependence”:
And at a time when more than a billion people do not have enough food to eat, President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative provides nutrition assistance and helps 21 South American, African and Asian countries feed themselves, without dependence on aid.
The sentence is self-contradictory. If these countries don’t depend on our aid, then why are we providing it?
He is also perplexed by Christians—who quite rightly should be concerned with the plight of the poor throughout the world—supporting large cuts to our federal foreign aid. As the leader of a Christian aid organization, this shouldn’t be such a puzzle to him. Government aid is strictly secular in nature. Christians, in particular, should prefer that our foreign assistance be accompanied by evangelism—something that can only be done by Christian groups.
Christians do care about the less fortunate among us, both at home and abroad. We are also concerned that our tax dollars are so frequently spent in ways we believe to be contrary to both America’s interests and to the primary calling of the church—to reach the lost for Christ—which the government cannot do.