Faith, hope and charity: St Paul’s three great virtues

Believe in me; give to him

And the greatest of these is charity, said St Paul. A better-educated man than I am once advised me that charity doesn’t mean giving to Oxfam, and, whilst that is true in the specifics, it actually isn’t in terms of what St Paul said. He may have been better-educated than me, but he wasn’t brighter.

Before you turn off, thinking this is a theological expedition into an ancient piece of letter-writing to Thessaly (which it also is), bear with me, as I tell you how mean you are and why you’re that way. And it is life’s bitter experience that lends me the audacity to tell you.

A taxi in The Gambia (by AI)

In June of 2023, after corresponding for nine months with a family in The Gambia, during which time I made certain donations to them and offered advice and verbal support, I devised a business plan that would allow my friend there to set up as a taxi service. It cost me a lot of energy and late nights but, in the end, it was done, and I launched the appeal. Mainly to close friends and to the community that is represented by my contacts on a website called LinkedIn. Some close friends donated; one LinkedIn contact also donated. What I myself didn’t do is donate.

One reason why I didn’t donate was because I’d already donated, about 500 euros-worth of food and a freezer to keep the food in, and various small sums of money to tide the family over. When making these donations, I was initially in contact with a close friend on LinkedIn who lives in an entirely different part of the world, in Asia. I hadn’t realised that my Asian friend also knew my Gambian friend, who, on one interpretation, was “pumping us separately for money.” Yes, and why not? If I stand on flag day at the corner of Lewis’s asking for donations to Save The Children, and you stop with a friend and pop a pound in my tin, am I rude if I ask your friend also for a pound?

My LinkedIn buddy suggested a gift of a food package, which I’d not heard of; nonetheless, I was relieved that actual sustenance could be sent to Africa without the obvious dangers of giving money to a virtual stranger. The Asian guy couldn’t do it himself, but he would repay me if I did it. In the end, I said it was okay, and he didn’t need to repay me.

This was BIG STEP #1: deciding to make a first gift; broaching the unknown and placing trust in another person. When you commit to an act of trust, the trust itself does nothing to change the actual situation. (Fraud is committed based on trust after all, just as honest dealings are.)

Sometimes we act on trust and are disappointed. “You let me down,” we say when we learn of the deceit. So, what do we say when the trust is not abused? “Thank you for not deceiving me”?

The easiest way to confirm your trust in somebody is to trust them again. And, the second time, it should be easier. If it’s as hard as it was the first time, then the truth is that you didn’t previously engage in an act of trust: you gambled. And every time anyone gambles, they recognise that they could lose. There is no trust in gambling, there is only statistical chances of winning and losing. But no trust. The only trust is that a gambling house that loses will actually pay you the winnings. But there is no trust in actually winning.

When people give to a charity, they will either already know about the charity or someone else will tell them about it. In the case of my Gambian friend, he is the charity and, as far as you’re concerned, I am the someone else. But, what is it that impels people to give? Do they give because they believe in the charity? Or do they give because they believe in the someone else? Next comes BIG STEP #2: someone else persuading you to give.

When appeals are made around Christmas time, which is traditionally a time of giving in the Christian calendar, it is TV personalities and respected members of society who effectively say to the TV or radio public: “This is a charity that I believe in, and I think you ought to believe in it as well.” There is one category of public figure that I have never personally known to make such appeals: active politicians. Politicians don’t make charity appeals. Because people don’t believe them. People trust politicians the way they trust gambling houses: folk know they may win or lose, but they trust that, if the house loses, it will pay out its jackpot. Of course, just like a gambling house, a government never pays out its own money. It pays out winnings with the funds it rakes in from losers. That is what politics is about: not distributing freely disposable income but deciding who the losers and who the winners are.

When it comes to charity, that is an outlay in respect of which there is no compulsion. If you have children, then there is an element of compulsion in your outlays for the child. If you earn a wage, you need to pay tax: there, there is legal compulsion. And, if you fancy a new pair of shoes, there is also compulsion: your own weaknesses, upon which advertisers impress with their slick publicity. Advertising works because advertising exerts compulsion whilst denying that it compels anyone; and consumers yield to that compulsion whilst asserting their freedom of action. That is a perfect storm.  

But, charity is devoid of compulsion. It is the only outlay you will ever make in respect of which you have an absolute, unadulterated, independent, freely exercised prerogative of donation. More free, even, than what you leave in your will. So, why do you give to charity at all?

What you give to is, of course, the charity, which, as my better-educated friend wanted to tell me, is not giving to Oxfam but rather love. In this, he erred: BIG STEP #3 is giving to Oxfam is love. The someone else persuades you to love the charity.

In English law, covenants of money qualify for a tax rebate, and are common when parents finance their children’s university attendance. The covenant has to be made in due form and, if it is, the parent can at least recoup the tax paid on the money shelled out to the kid at the varsity. The problem in English law is that even a covenant (a promise to pay) is void in law unless there is a quid pro quo, what lawyers call consideration. Scots law is not encumbered with such considerations, because, like a good civil law system should, it recognises that you don’t need to pretend to love your children in order to give them money. But, in England, they pretend, and call it non-valuable consideration. It’s a form of charity, even if it’s to your own progeny; and it’s based on love, whether you’re in England or in Scotland, or anywhere for that matter. The compulsion you are under when you give to charity is precisely the same as that which you are under when you love someone: none whatsoever. That, or is it rather an irresistible urge? In a way, just like loving another human being, it’ll all depend on you. Not the charity, and not the someone else, but the you. You may give to the charity and whether you give to it may depend on you, but what brings you together is the someone else, who is the REASON why you give. Even if there is no other incentive to giving at all.

In my Gambian case, I simply don’t have 3,000 euros to help him. If I had 3,000 euros, however, I don’t know if I would help him. Because not having 3,000 euros is one thing; it’s easy in fact: I cannot help him. But having only 3,000 euros would mean me giving him everything I have. I would then have nothing. I still have nothing now, but that’s not because I gave him 3,000 euros.

If I had 6,000 euros, I could give him 3,000 and still have 3,000, but I’d probably still not give him 3,000, because I’d say to myself, “Perhaps I’ll need 6,000 euros a short way down the road, and, if I give it to Abs, then I won’t have it when I need it. So, I’ll hold onto my money.”

Perhaps I wait until I have 12,000. But the same argument applies. In fact the reason why the same argument always applies is because, fundamentally, I don’t want to give my money away, so I just keep reasoning to myself that the money I earn is for me, and not for giving. All we do is keep our money because one question never gets answered in people’s minds: “What did Abs do to deserve this money?” And the only answer to that is, “He needs it, that is deserving enough.”

But that doesn’t convince people. I don’t convince people. Because who the heck am I? I am not a TV personality, and, even though I’m not as bad as a politician, I’m nobody. I don’t have the power, the compulsion to separate people from their money or, more to the point, to bring people together with their better sides. The problem doesn’t lie in Abs. It lies in me. People don’t think I’m worth investing in, so they won’t invest in him.

There’s a way out of this. Two, in fact.

1. Another friend has told me that, if I can raise investments of 1,500 euros, he will match them, euro for euro. I don’t have a pot of 1,500 euros yet, but if I get one, I will have a pot of 3,000 euros. Effectively, if you invest one euro in Abs, it’ll count for two.

I need 50 49 people to be prepared to part with 30 euros. And the target is then reached. Don’t believe in Abs, don’t believe in compulsion, believe in me. I will underwrite your investment. If you haven’t been paid back within two years, I will pay it back myself. That’s the extent of my trust. Or, alternatively, ...

2. Pack up and go home. Abandon all hope, faith, and, of course, charity.

Here’s the website: https://gofund.me/39237fa3.

Please share. If you can’t help me, perhaps you know somebody who can:

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