Ethical issues about charity
Here we look at both sides of a couple of thorny ethical questions about charitable giving.
Should Christians tithe?
YES |
NO |
| The tradition goes back thousands of years. | Tithing means giving money to the church - Christians should give this money to people who really need it. |
| The money is all God's anyway, so you should happily give it away. | You are meant to give with a joyful heart, not by standing order. Give when you feel moved to do so! |
| The church needs to budget and plan - it can't do that if people only give when they want to. They need a steady stream of income. | Forcing people to tithe is wrong - people should give as much as they want to. |
| Money isn't important anyway - you shouldn't become too attached to it. | The very rich give the same percentage as the very poor. They can afford more, and the very poor shouldn't give anything. |
| When you give money, you feel part of the church and what they are doing. | The rule about tithing is from the Old Testament - nothing in the New Testament supports it |
Should we help people in our own country first?
YES |
NO |
| If we don't help the needy around us, who will help them? | A little bit of giving goes a long way - the average wage in Africa is £100 a year. Your money goes further there. |
| You can do a lot more good locally than you can by giving to other countries because you see where the need is | Millions of people are dying - the need is far greater in the developing world. |
| You can see the effects of giving in your own country - when you give abroad you don't know if it's done any good | There are many reliable charities with proven track records who have made a huge difference in the developing world. |
| The UK is a stable democracy - giving to devloping countries is a waste of money and you could be funding a dictatorship | In the UK, people can appeal to the government for help. We might be the last hope for people in developing countries. |
| It's worse to be poor in the UK because the gap is even bigger between the rich and poor | Unfair laws and unsafe lending by Western countries caused many of the problems in the developing world - it's our fault, so we chould put it right. |
