Thursday, 13th November 2003
Manchester News

Shun 'racist' kids charity, says vicar

A VICAR today urged people to shun a Christmas shoe- box charity in aid of underprivileged children.

The Rev Vernon Marshall, Unitarian minister at the Old Chapel, in Dukinfield and New Chapel, in Denton , has accused Operation Christmas Child (OCC) of "poisoning" the children it claims to be trying to help.

Rev Vernon Marshall

Every year, as part of the appeal, youngsters from across the country cram shoeboxes full of gifts ready to be shipped to war-torn and poverty stricken countries in Eastern Europe - many of Muslim origin.

But Mr Marshall has condemned the appeal and its associations with the Samaritan's Purse, which, he claims, is a right-wing movement whose leader, the Rev Franklin Graham is son of the American evangelist Billy Graham.

His comments come just days after the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, vicar of Putney and a lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College , Oxford , and the National Secular Society, criticised OCC.

Implications

Mr Marshall said: "Millions of shoeboxes full of gifts are collected, but are then inserted with poisonous literature and leaflets thrusting an intolerant and racist form of Christianity on these poor Muslim people.

"This is not a normal form of Christmas charitable giving and anyone who usually helps this appeal should think carefully about the implications."

But Bob Evans, Tameside co-ordinator for OCC, said: "We're not a fundamentalist organisation and I am insulted by the claims that our annual appeal is racist.

"To say that we include `poisonous' literature in the boxes in nonsense. Whispering campaigns like this help nobody, least of all the underprivileged children."

David Vardy, executive director of Samaritan's Purse International UK, added: "The most recent criticisms are particularly disappointing as they imply that donors who carefully prepare individual gift boxes are uncaring. Nothing could be further from the truth."

SOURCE: http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/72/72804_shun_racist_kids_charity_says_vicar.html

Letters

Reverend Vernon Marshall is quite right to draw people's attention to the darker side of Operation Christmas Child. This organisation manipulates the generosity of ordinary people (Christians and non-Christians alike) to further it's own ends. Why else do they insert Christian propaganda into the boxes? What right have they got to ouse our gifts to "blackmail" children of other faiths into their religion? Can you imagine the uproar if deprived children in the UK were to be provided with gifts to celebrate a Muslim or Hindu festival, that came along with "colouring books" aimed at converting them to the religion of the sender. It is even more sinister than Mother Theresa's sect - the people who offer people dying of cancer asprins provided they turn their back on thousands of years of their own culture and become Catholics!
Alan Line, Leigh
14/11/2003 at 20:03

The fact is that Samaritan's Purse International is, no matter what David Vardy and others say, a fundamentalist organisation. It uses the shoe boxes as a Trojan horse to carry the material of its militaristic campaign to convert the world to its own brand of Christianity: fundamentalist, right-wing, bigoted, anti-women, homophobic. Franklin Graham has infamously criticised Islam, and has spoken of two gods, one a god of light and one a god of darkness. I'll give you one guess as to which god he sees as the Christian God. Other charities - including religious ones - manage to do their work without the payload of a proselytising religious message. We should be vary of Operation Christmas Child and its mother organisation, Samaritan's Purse International. You may like to know that South Wales Fire Service have dumped the charity this year after I, as a member of the National Secular Society, alerted them to it; the Co-op are continuing with their involvement this year (because I guess it has momentum), but will be looking again at it before committing again.
Andy Armitage, West Wales
14/11/2003 at 14:13

SOURCE: http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/comments/view.html?story_id=72804

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