« A little too ironic.. | Home | Recent Comments | Categories | Bard too bawdy for Nashville parents »
Solar Powered Bibles for Haiti: Why Some Christians Feel Compelled to Exploit Disaster
[Quote:]
While Doctors without Borders was struggling to get anesthetics for amputations into Haiti, an Albuquerque group queued up aid of their own sort: 600 solar powered talking Bibles. Even now, food, water, and medicine are having trouble reaching Haitians because of damaged transportation facilities and supply lines, but the missionary group says some of their Bibles are “on the way.”
Like many others, I read about the solar Bible effort with a sense of revulsion. But as a former Evangelical believer, I also read about it with some sympathy for the people packing the boxes. There is no doubt in my mind that they think what they are doing is kind and good. I would bet my psychology license that their behavior is driven by genuine concern for the people of Haiti. I simply believe also that the Evangelical mindset has tremendous power to co-opt and redirect a believer’s moral priorities and sense of compassion.
One of the most pernicious attributes of ideology, whether secular or religious is its power to disconnect true believers from moral emotions like empathy, shame, and guilt. In fact, what often happens is that the ideology repurposes both these emotions and the rest of a believer’s moral machinery in the service of the ideology itself.
|