FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Limits of Charity - text

[Carol Koepp (carolkoepp]

e Limits of Charity {Originally in The Other Side magazine, September/October 
2000.}

David Hilfiker

What does the Lord require of you? 
To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 
-- Micah 6:8, NKJV

These words of Micah are familiar. But what if our love of mercy chokes out our 
ability to act justly?

Since 1983, I have worked as a doctor with poor people in the inner city of 
Washington, D.C. I began at Community of Hope Health Services, a small 
church-sponsored clinic, and at Christ House, a 34-bed medical recovery shelter 
for homeless men. In 1990, I founded Joseph's House, a 10-bed community for 
homeless men with AIDS, where I work now. Throughout all of my years in 
Washington, I have yearned for justice and felt ready to sacrifice for it. I 
have hoped that my work brings attention to the plight of the poor and thus 
contributes to justice. 

What I actually do, however, is offer help to poor people. Though I believe God 
calls me to do this, I could leave at any time. The poor people I have served 
over the past 17 years have had no "right" to what I was giving them. While I 
believe in justice for the poor and in challenging the structures of our 
society that deprive them of that justice, in fact I have offered charity. 

Side Effects of Charity

I intend to continue working in Washington. But I've been having misgivings. I 
have begun to see some "side effects" to the kind of work I do, and they 
concern the important difference between justice and charity. To put the 
question most bluntly: Do our works of charity impede the realization of 
justice in our society? 

This is not a question of personal commitment to justice. My overall concern is 
this: Charitable endeavors such as Joseph's House serve to relieve the pressure 
for more fundamental societal changes. In her book Sweet Charity, sociologist 
Janet Poppendieck writes that charity acts as "a sort of a 'moral safety 
valve;' it reduces the discomfort evoked by visible destitution in our midst by 
creating the illusion of effective action and offering us myriad ways of 
participating in it. It creates a culture of charity that normalizes 
destitution and legitimates personal generosity as a response to [injustice]." 

An Appropriate Sense of Outrage

I was reminded of this recently when I attended a Walk for the Homeless in 
Washington, one of those many good and important efforts to raise money for 
Joseph's House and similar organizations. Before we began to walk, a nationally 
known sports star gave a little pep talk, exhorting the walkers to "go out and 
do your part to end homelessness." I have nothing against the walk, and I 
suspect the sports star did not really intend the implication. But walking five 
kilometers on a beautiful Saturday morning is not "doing your part to end 
homelessness." 

Something similar happens at Joseph's House itself. How many of our 
contributors and volunteers end up feeling that their participation with us 
fulfills their responsibilities to the poor? It will not be a conscious 
thought, of course. But you come down and volunteer for a while, or you write a 
check, and it feels good. Perhaps you develop a close relationship with a 
formerly homeless man with AIDS, and you realize your common humanity. You feel 
a real satisfaction in that. You bring your children. But in the process you 
risk forgetting what a scandal it is that Joseph's House or your local soup 
kitchen is needed in the first place. You forget that it is no coincidence that 
your new friend is black, poor, illiterate, and unskilled. It is easy to lose 
an appropriate sense of outrage. 

I am also concerned that places like Joseph's House may reassure voters and 
policy makers that the problem is being taken care of. Joseph's House gets a 
fair amount of publicity; we are well known around the city. So when the issue 
of AIDS and homelessness arises in people's mind, it can be mentally checked 
off: "Look at Joseph's House! Isn't it wonderful? I guess things aren't as bad 
as we thought."  

Just a Standard Response?

Soup kitch