Peter Singer hails from my land – Australia.
He is one of the world’s leading ethicist/philosophers, not because his ideas are necessarily more ethical but because he has gone further and pushed harder than most philosophers would dare. Euthanasia and abortion are a stroll in the park for this kid. He supports notions of infanticide. If you want to learn more about him and his views do a google search, or even better, go and download a book from the Kindle store and really try to come to grips with his ideas.
I was going to write that this post is not about his extreme ethical views, but I realised that it is. Let me explain.
Just now I read a small article in the online Australian Newspaper. It’s called, Singer’s chant for a better, kinder world. Click here if you want to read it. The article was written to recognise Singer’s winning of an Order of Australia (AC), which is no mean feat! The interesting bit of the article comes after the accolades are given. The writer uses a quote from Singer’s dad as a segue to the secondary point of the article. His dad asked Peter one day, ‘How can you make a living as a philosopher?’ Well, it appears that Singer makes a good quid out of his book sales of which, we are told, he gives 25% to worthy causes.
A good philanthropist?
Not only does he give a fair whack of his book takings but he has set up a foundation where he encourages all people to give, not just a donation, but a regular percentage of their income. The stats are startling – since 2009, 13 000 people have engage in the program and they have donated over $65 000 000. Hooley dooley!
What drives him to do this? What drives those other people to give as they have?
We can protest all day long about how evil his ethics are, but it is his ethical foundations that drive him to give to those that are dying and in need. He is the one that is being motivated to help those that are without. He is the one that is committed to giving 25% of his income to such causes.
I have to say that my giving patterns in Australia when I was earning a wage, along with my wife (Ok, so it was mostly her wage;)), were not close to that of my much despised philosopher friend here. Where do we as believers get off in not giving huge percentages of our resources to those that are in need?
If we have everything in Christ, if we have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, if we have life like we all love to boast about, then why is the church not pouring money into underprivileged contexts?
I know that some of you will be trying to excuse the church at this stage, but I think that a realistic look at the numbers tells two ordinary stories.
The first ordinary story is that the percentage of money coming into churches is nothing like 10% of the wages being earned (a figure that many churches teach). Christians in general are not giving generously through churches. Secondly, of the money that comes into churches, a relatively small percentage goes out to the needy. Yes, you can probably make a case that some people don’t trust the churches and give to charities directly, but I cannot for the life of me not err on the side of pessimism that this is not likely a norm, but rather an exception.
At the European Leadership Forum that I attended a few weeks ago in Eger, I heard this telling quote, ‘We Christians have a love affair with being challenged, without wanting to engage in change.’ True!
Have a look at what Singer writes in the preface of his book, Practical Ethics:
The most relevant ethical issues are those that confront us daily: is it right to spend money on entertaining ourselves when we could use it to help people living in extreme poverty?…Other problems, like abortion and euthanasia, fortunately are not everyday decisions for most of us…
And isn’t he right? Sometimes we Christians are so busy condemning these unethical philosophers/ethicists that we do not have the time to sort out ourselves on the most basic of ethical issues.
Perhaps a visit to the eye doctor is needed to help remove that plank from our eye.
The Otherness 