This week Matt and David read some more mail from listeners. This week they get some constructive criticism! We going to be talking about charity and suffering…
Please send any objections, comments or questions, either via email through my website or tweet us @pintswithjack or message us via Instagram!
Episode 27: “Mailbag Episodes (Part 2)” (Download)
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Show Notes
Quote-of-the-Week
I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Toast
- They continued with last week’s drink-of-the-week, Deceptivus.
Discussion
01. “
• We read some iTunes reviews…
• iTunes Review #1: “I’m very happy to make this podcast a part of my week. Matt and David share funny banter, good theology, and personal application. Having read Mere Christianity many years ago, this is a great review of Lewis’ work from two men that are pleasant to listen to.“
• iTunes Review #2: “Clearly, not all Christians are out to prove they are right, but are rather out to prove that Christianity can help in some of life’s biggest problems and struggles. I feel less alone and more joyful in my movement closer to God through Lewis’ work… and because of the work of the men on this podcast.“
• We read an email from listener Francis who, in response to Episode 8, asked us to comment further on suffering and evil from the Christian point-of-view. In that episode we had mostly spoken about our inability to see the good which can come further down the line as a result of something unpleasant and painful.
○ We spoke about the difference between the intellectual problem of pain and the emotional problem.
○ We will be speaking more about this subject in an upcoming video episode.
○ Matt explained that even the secular understanding of suffering is that it can form you into the sort of person who can achieve great things.
○ I commented that the Christian doctrine reflects reality – we don’t live in Heaven, we live in a world which is fallen and, as a result, broken.
○ The presence of danger in the world allows for the possibility of courage, which would be impossible in a world where danger did not exist.
○ We pointed to the cross as the supreme example of how God can bring good out of evil, no matter how hopeless the situation seems.
• We had an email from Greg who wanted to comment about Episode 15 on social morality. Lewis had said:
“The first thing to get clear about Christian morality between man and man is that in this department Christ did not come to preach any brand new morality”
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 3)
Greg pushed back on this, saying:
“Every ‘new fangled’ fad is nothing more than a warmed-over regurgitated old fad”.
– Greg
Matt and I talked about how studying Church History allows us to see that modern-day heresies are really recycled heresies from antiquity. Lewis says this himself in Book IV.
• Concerning Lewis’ comments about “giving until it hurts”, Greg had this to say about charitable giving:
Lewis’ view is something of a mixed bag in my opinion. Certainly, we must be generous with our resources. But Christian charity does not demand, in the normal course of things, that we give more than we can spare. In fact, barring extraordinary circumstances, it would be counterproductive. I would go so far to say that if our first consideration is what it may cost us to help others we have the cart before the horse. We are actually make it about ourselves, my sacrifice, what it is costing me. Our first consideration should always be considering the others’ good. To be sure, that may, and often does, entail sacrifice and difficulty on our part, but that’s really ancillary. The need to exercise good judgment in how we charitably give was not really addressed in the podcast. Nor does Lewis really address it.
– Greg
○ Matt and I largely agreed with the points made here, however we pointed to the very exacting passages of Scriptures which speak about money, generosity and trusting in God.
○ We also pointed to similar examples and sayings of the Saints: St. Kolbe, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Francis, …
○ I told a story about my time at school to make the point that different people need different messages. I suggested that today’s Church needs fewer lessons about moderation when it comes to charity – today’s problem is not that we give too much, it’s that we give too little. Matt gave some statistics to back this up – only 5% of Americans give 10% of their income to charity, 80% give less than 2%, with Christians only doing marginally better at 2.5%.
○ Paraphrasing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Matt explained that “the rich young man” of Scripture couldn’t spiritualize away Christ’s command to “go and sell everything”.
• Greg then criticizes the story of Lewis giving money to a beggar (Gresham says it was when he was with Tolkien, but I have since found out that the companion was Lewis’ future secretary, Walter Hooper):
“I would heartily agree with Tolkien that Lewis should not have just indiscriminately given his money to the panhandler. I would suspect the reason Tolkien made the admonition was that what Lewis did harmed the man as opposed to helping him. So what if Lewis was going to spend the money on beer? He probably would have done less harm in doing that, unless he was an alcoholic of course. But, to my knowledge Lewis was not. I don’t think Tolkien would have had an issue if Lewis would have emptied his pockets and put the money in a poor box at a church. I would also suspect Tolkien thought Lewis had other motives, in addition to charitable ones, for doing what he did like feeding his own pride. Here I think Lewis was engaging the very “showy” form of generosity he laments about those who tip more than they ought and less on those who are in real need. But since it was Lewis’ own money, he is free to disburse it as his will and conscience bids him. The main reason why I don’t give to panhandlers is that I honestly believe it does more harm than good. I think Mother Teresa also discouraged giving to panhandlers for that reason. Jesus’ admonition to as wise as serpents as well as being as innocent as doves applies as much to how we should should go about helping the least among us (which include not only the materially poor) as it does to everything else”
– Greg
○ Matt and I discussed the issues in giving to panhandlers, about prudential judgement and about the excuses we tell ourselves.
○ Although I said I was on “Team Tolkien”, I also quoted Jesus on the subject:
Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
– Matthew 5:42
○ I suggested that if we don’t care for the poor personally, we can begin to think that the care of the poor is simply the job of the state or the Church.
○ I pushed back on the idea that Tolkien thought Lewis gave the money to feed his own pride. We spoke about the paradox of giving which is found in scripture.
○ We really liked Greg’s distinction between seeing the beggar as a man and not just a poor man. Matt spoke about the documentary Poverty Inc.
• Next episode we will be starting Book IV…
On the subject of suffering. Here I think Lewis is spot on. Among other things, suffering does, it awakens the need for beauty. Take music for example. Ever notice some of the most beautiful songs are sad? And this is true in any genre. In American popular music songs like Jim Croce’s It Doesn’t Have to Be that Way or Harry Chapin’s Cats in the Cradle come to mind.
Now to respond to your response regarding Lewis and charitable giving. First of all, hearing the words I wrote spoken with a British accent makes me feel a few IQ points smarter. If I ever write a book, I know who I want to narrate the audio version.
The examples David and Matt cite from Scripture have to do with more extraordinary circumstances. The widow giving the last of what she had, an amount which wouldn’t have done her much if any good if she kept it to herself. With Jesus sending out his apostles with nothing isn’t quite parallel to the situation normal lay folk are confronted with. My point was under normal circumstances to give to the point of financial hardship or real financial difficulty would be counter productive. But then again, giving more “than just what we can spare” can mean different things to different people” and is therefore somewhat subjective. The examples cited from Scripture do nothing to refute that point.
To lump C.S. Lewis in with Mother Teresa, Ss. Francis and Kolbe is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. I am not saying this to denigrate Lewis. I am merely pointing out that as a layman, Lewis has different responsibilities from those three saints who were in religious life.
Mother Teresa was far from imprudent. For one, she didn’t sense this call to serve the poor in the way she did and just go off and do it. She spent years waiting for approval from her superiors in the Order of Loreto Sisters, which she was a member of and her local bishop. She was also required to undergo various forms of training including medical training in which, I believe she earned certification as a registered nurse. Nor did she lack talent in raising money. In the case of St. Francis, he had to be reined in from time to time. Striking the necessary balance between prudence and courage can be tricky business, but there is no way around it.
Now while I am sure Lewis lived well underneath his means, he certainly didn’t appear to live like a pauper. Every picture I see of him he is dressed modestly well. He partook of certain legitimate pleasures for a man of his stature in the manner he drank and smoked. I certainly find living underneath one’s means both prudent and laudable. I myself do my best to live that way.
The both of you admit you should give more. I would push back on that by saying if you think you should give more, than do so. You can increase it by small amounts, like 5 to ten dollars a month or something like that. That may not sound all that bold and courageous, but it’s a lot more bold and courageous than saying you should do so without taking ANY action toward that end. And you can always build on that as time goes by.
Now the reason suspect Tolkien suspected Lewis had other motives in giving money to the panhandler is the very fact he asked Lewis why he did so. It is very easy even for the best of us to have less than altruistic motives mixed in to our best motives when doing good of this sort. Did Lewis really think more of the man’s good or was he more concerned with assuaging his own feelings of guilt? This is something I think any decent person, let alone a devout Christian, wrestles with. I know I certainly do. I always feel conflicted saying no to a panhandler. It would be so easy for me to pull money out of pocket and give it to them to make myself feel better. But doing our best to consider the true good of the other always involves inner conflict and is not devoid of risks.
There are many opportunities to take a more active role in serving the poor. Parishes often need assistance with the various forms of outreach they perform. One can also use their talents to say instruct or tutor underprivileged kids to develop marketable skills that can lift them out of poverty.
It is a most lamentable fact that most people do little to no charitable giving. As sad as this is, I would suspect that the problems with poverty in this country and the west as a whole have little or nothing to do with people not giving to charity. The problems have to more to with cultural traits that are conducive to impoverishment like drug and alcohol abuse etc. I would also bet that most of these people who don’t do any real charitable giving are in debt over their heads buying things they don’t need with money they do not have.
I am surprised that someone of David’s scriptural acumen would take a seemingly hyper literal interpretation of Matthew 5:42. I would think David of all people would see the hyperbole in Jesus’ statement. Our Lord certainly doesn’t mean we should just give money to a beggar without discerning whether that’s good for him or not. Jesus is using a bit of hyperbole to speak of principles. And it’s meaning extends beyond the material as well. At some level everyone begs to be told the truth, no matter how unpleasant. And the truth often is these people put themselves in that position and throwing money at their problems often compound them as opposed to alleviating them.
One of the ways we truly trust God is to properly use the abilities He gave us. Sadly, this necessary element is often never given its due when trust in Divine Providence is discussed. Of course, at times it is the case that we have to go beyond that.
Careful judgment and a cheerful sense of generosity are essential virtues when it comes to charitable giving.