What is charitable aid for? Let us go to Christian Aid for a definition. Its aims and objectives, as currently advertised, seem to be all about justice and material well-being: “Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty…we work with local partners and communities to fight injustice, respond to humanitarian emergencies, campaign for change, and help people claim the services and rights they are entitled to.”[1]
Riding across Ukraine in the van, I wondered if the same description would apply to Ukraine Chain’s purposes. I came to the conclusion that there was a partial fit, because we do address poverty in the context of a humanitarian emergency. As to entitlement, that is a much more difficult question. The people of the Donbas cannot claim much by way of legally-bestowed rights, because the legal structure has been put into suspense by war. That might leave you with ‘human rights’, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which would be useful if you happened to have access to the International Criminal Court or any other authority that transcends the conflict; but, if you live in a basement in the Donbas, you just don’t. Those who exist as civilians under fire have no such protection, though possibly there may be some retrospective legal redress later.
Anyway, if you have two vans full of ministers, they ought to have a view on what rights the victims of war have in the sight of God. What does the New Testament tell us? Did Jesus deliver basic necessities such as food, or talk about legal remedies for injustice in this world? Well, not really, though he did show dramatically how to share food out; also, he sided with those who lived in poverty and suffered injustice. His main project was to help people through the problems of this life, and promise something better beyond it.
Here, I want to focus on the words, “help people through the problems of this life”. I don’t want to directly confront the “promise of something better beyond it” at this stage. More on that later. So, thinking of all who are agnostic at best about the afterlife, I say that first of all, we should live our lives as though we face judgement at the end. Secondly, and secondly, we should prepare ourselves as though for a life after death of some sort. Our lives here and now determine our prospects.
Our little group of ministers, hurtling along the Ukrainian roads, said, you have got to live in faith. That does not necessarily mean signing up to a catalogue of the ‘facts of belief’ (such as the Creation in six days, or the Virgin Birth); but it does mean live within a form of relationship with God. So long as you allow his existence, it’s perfectly possible, because you just talk to him, and if you do, he will talk back to you. The relationship has to be sincerely sought and maintained. It’s no use just waiting and doing nothing, then when in deep crisis, asking God for a deal. That does not work.
But think about the Gospels, and the whole thing can legitimately be seen in relational terms. It begins with our relationship with God, and this simultaneously forms our relationships with other people, and vice versa. You cannot love God and hate, despise and revile other people, because one would cancel out the other. Therefore, one of the first actions is to suspend judgemental behaviour.
Our company (I speak only as an observer here) was not inclined to hate the enemy, deride authority, speak of rights, or make unfavourable comparisons of other people to themselves. They were not pious, precious or holier-than-thou. They were setting about a job in which anyone in need was a legitimate beneficiary. I am sure that, in other circumstances, they would gladly have taken aid to the Russian citizens of occupied Kursk.
Some will find this set of attitudes uncomfortable in a war, because it is not obviously centred on winning, but instead on relieving ‘the problems of this life’.
[1] Christian Aid website, accessed 23 October 2024.
There have been over 1,000,000 casualties so far in this war, a struggle in which both sides feel justified in what they do. In war, decency is often suspended, just to get the fighting done. We hope and pray for peace, but often only conditionally. A true and lasting peace will not come so much from one side backing down and allowing the other to win, as from an understanding that a solution which is not completely unacceptable to one side or the other will do the best job for all of ‘relieving the problems of this life’. That may be hard to sell to Uncle Volya (as my friends refer to President Putin). Decency is hard to broker at the macro level, much easier at the micro.
To that extent, we who are involved in aid have the easier job. We can sincerely cast ourselves as bringers of blessings and make that claim in the present tense. But can those who, by their own lights, and with equal sincerity, seek ‘justice’ make a similar claim, when they do so by sending thousands to their deaths? Only by referring to future benefits, I suggest. ‘Justice’ may not be sought by any means and at all costs, because that road leads to Hiroshima. There must be a time when the champions of justice lay down their arms and pray that God will defend what they can defend no longer[1].
One hopes that the leaders of both sides think of forgiveness, even if they do not speak of it; and that they live as though they will face judgement one day.
[1] I am indebted to Nigel Biggar for this insight. Biggar, N. In Defence of War Oxford, OUP, 2013, p.21
© James Mather October 2024.
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