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It's a tradition!
Ah, Christmas in mid-November. A time when stores are pushing aisles of decorations and Bing Crosby CDs but haven't yet started playing the yuletide tunes over the PA system. A time when forward-thinking Midwesterners string up the lights while they clean out the gutters. And a time when Samaritan's Purse again faces criticism for its popular Operation Christmas Child. Actually, criticism of Samaritan's Purse is becoming like Christmas at Hallmark stores: It's not just a seasonal thing anymore.

Frankin Graham's organization already saw some backlash last month, when the South Wales Fire Service dropped its support, saying the program was too religious.

Now, from merry olde England, come complaints that up the ante: the problem with Operation Christmas Child isn't that it's religious, critics say, it's the particular kind of religion that Samaritan's Purse promotes.

"A particularly toxic version of Christianity it is," Giles Fraser, a Church of England vicar and Oxford philosophy lecturer, wrote in Monday's edition of The Guardian. "This is the same outfit that targeted eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and was widely condemned for following US troops into Iraq to claim Muslims for Christ … Across the U.K., children in multicultural schools are being encouraged to support a scheme that is, quite understandably, deeply offensive to Muslims." The relief effort, he says, amounts to nothing more than " promoting Christian fundamentalism through toys."

Elsewhere in England, Unitarian minister Vernon Marshall called Graham's beliefs "an intolerant and racist form of Christianity" and similarly called for a boycott of Operation Christmas Child.

Samaritan's Purse has faced this kind of thing before. Last Christmas the debate was largely limited to Calgary. In March 2001 The New York Times criticized the charity, wrongly saying it mixed government aid funds with "seek[ing] converts among people desperate for help. And over the last year, Samaritan's Purse was the focus of much vitriol for its efforts to bring aid to Iraqis (see CT's recent article on what really happened when the ministry went to the country).

This latest round of attacks seems to be the most venomous yet. In a letter to the Guardian, Muslim Association of Britain spokesman Anas Altikriti called Operation Christmas Child "emotional and humanitarian blackmail." And Weblog has never seen SP accused of racism before.

It's all complete nonsense. Leftists' attempts to make Graham and Samaritan's Purse into anti-Islam boogeymen would the equivalent of trying to claim that Mr. Rogers was a radical gay activist.

Graham hasn't commented yet, but Samaritan's Purse U.K. executive director David Vardy earlier told the BBC that the ministry goes "to strenuous lengths" to make sure that evangelistic literature isn't included in the more than 6 million gift-filled shoeboxes sent to children in 95 countries. "Our leaflets which we give to anyone who wants to send a shoebox, contain specific guidelines on what to put into a box and what not to put into a box," he said.

Very clearly we tell people not to put in any literature that is of a political, religious, or racial nature. Furthermore, we actively check every box we receive and remove any such literature which we find.

Where it is appropriate, and in approximately half of the distributions it is not, a booklet of Bible stories, in the language of the country is offered separately from the shoebox. There is no obligation whatsoever on any child to receive a booklet.

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November (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47