“By nature I am a very compassionate person that often responds to the needs of people. I was moved by the plight of the people in Haiti and dug pretty deep to reach out to help. But the trouble with Pakistan is……”

        So what is the trouble with Pakistan? As a Relief and Development agency that relies on donors responding to needs, we have been forced to look at this question over the past few weeks as we try to provide assistance for the flooding victims that desperately need our help.

        There are a variety of reasons for a weak response. The holiday time of year, donor fatigue related to Haiti and the fact that floods never seem to get people’s attention to the same extent as other disasters are all factors. But there is another one that has received media attention relating to issues around the Muslim population, the Taliban and the constant concern that there is a relationship between the Pakistan government and extremists who are interfering in Afghanistan.

        If I was a donor giving to an agency that was responding by raising support and giving the resources directly to the Pakistan government (and I don’t think there are any of these) or if I am a taxpayer worried about our government giving large sums to Pakistan, than the concerns would be legitimate. (By the way, our government monies largely go to agencies providing direct support to affected people not to their government.)

       Frankly we are seeing people being reticent to give to a largely Muslim population even when they know the agency is reaching the victims of the flooding directly. As a result, women and children, men and families are going hungry without shelter after losing everything they own.

       It is most troubling when we see this reticence in our faith community. For me it is very difficult to reconcile the life and words of Jesus Christ and his call to us as followers with a reluctance to reach out to people in desperate need for any reason. Is there anything in the gospels or even our theology that would suggest or support withholding our compassion from families and individuals in Pakistan because we see images in our mind of the twin towers and extremists in Somalia committing atrocities? I just don’t get it. We work in “Christian” countries in Africa where “Christian” leaders are involved in corruption and atrocities and yet there is no connection made when reaching out with compassion to those in need. My goodness, if we applied the same logic we would stop working with the homeless in Canada because Christians were committing atrocities somewhere in Africa.

      There is ample evidence that Christians by nature, commitment and by calling are most often self-sacrificing towards those in need. However I believe there are those who are influencing Christians today with subversive messages that are largely political and do not reflect the demands that the radical message of Christ puts on how we should live.

      Margaret Manning wrote the following in the email daily newsletter A Slice of Infinity:
      “When I am honest with myself, I recognize a deep aversion to this radical vision of service and sacrifice. It is not difficult to understand Nietzsche's aversion and critique. The recognition of Jesus as the Suffering Servant, and the implications for his followers to "go and do likewise" goes against the grain of my self-serving heart. Why would I choose weakness as embodied by Jesus over the will to power of Nietzsche?”

      These voices speaking into our faith community such as those of the Glen Beck’s of the world have a lot more to do with an unsavoury mix of Nietzsche’s will to power and Christianity. When these voices are allowed to stand between Christ’s message of unadulterated, self sacrificing compassion and those in desperate need the Christian community must stop and take account.