Using the Bible as an inspiration for sacrificial good works

[Steve H]

PVJ,

Just out of interest, what makes you think they were “inspired by the bible to do good” rather than by their innate decency or fellow feeling? Had they not been religious do you think they’d just have sat on their hands or gone down the pub, or would they perhaps have done good things anyway just a many non-religious people have done?

We've had that from LR as well, but it cuts both ways: no doubt all the wicked Christians whom LR never tires of telling us about would have been just as wicked if they'd not been Christians. What is clear, though, is that people who are kind and do good, Christians or not, are acting in the spirit of Christs teachings, and evil-doers, Christian or not, are acting contrary to them.

[ProfessorDavey]

As my post above makes clear, with a link to and quote from the SA website about their fundraising, you're wrong, anyway.

In what way am I wrong PVJ?

So just to put it into context - from their accounts, in 2019 their income was £237million. Their expenditure on their social charitable activities (i.e. excluding evangelising) was just £99million. So if you put £1 into a Salvation Army collection thinking that money is going to help the homeless or disadvantaged etc, etc, in fact just 40p is spent on those activities. The rest is going on evangelising, admin and building up yet more reserves. The level of reserves increased by £16m between the 2017/18 and 2018/19 accounting years and increased by £35million between 2016/17 and 2017/18.

[bluehillside Retd.]

PVJ,

We've had that from LR as well, but it cuts both ways: no doubt all the wicked Christians whom LR never tires of telling us about would have been just as wicked if they'd not been Christians. What is clear, though, is that people who are kind and do good, Christians or not, are acting in the spirit of Christs teachings, and evil-doers, Christian or not, are acting contrary to them.

She’s right, it does cut both ways. If you want to claim Christian (or any other religious) belief as causal of behaviours, you can’t pick and choose the behaviours you think were and weren’t “inspired”. For every positive you pick I can cite the Crusades, numerous holy wars, forced conversions, the Inquisition, violence against Jews, the enthusiastic support for slavery etc all done “in the spirit of Christ’s teachings” as those people thought them to be.

Your argument by the way is the corollary of looking for genocidal monsters who were atheists, and then claiming atheism to be causal of genocides as if not believing in gods somehow entails murdering lots of people. The most you can say I think is, “here are some people who were religious/atheists, and here are some of the good/bad things they did". Building a logical path from the former to the latter though is a whole different issue.

[ippy]

The Sally Army
The Trussell Trust
The ending of apartheid - Archbishop Tutu etc.
Tear Fund
Christian Aid
CAFOD
Etc.
Etc.

Every time I get annoyed by some nonsense posted on Facebook by some fundy nutter, and seriously consider abandoning Christianity and becoming a humanist, the member of this forum who started the other thread that this is a reply to comes out with some outrageous, one-sided slur against Christianity, and reminds me how bitter and negative I found myself becoming during my year out back in 1992-3, before I came back to a much more liberal version of the faith, which makes me decide not to throw it over just yet - so keep up the good work for the gospel, RJG!

There are a number of Secular Humanists that hold religious beliefs, I think most religion based organisations mainly try try to represent the Secular Humanist section of society as their sworn enemies mainly because we keep on hitting at the many privileges the various religions have and in a lot of these cases it involves the financial advantages that accompany these privileges.

Secular Humanism's main aims are for a level playing field like at the moment we're trying to rid the The Bishops Bench from the House where 26 of these Bishops sit there in the H o L as of right whilst having no objection to Bishops being there on merit.

Then the Chaplaincy in the services, prisons and the N H S, whilst as far as I know there's no objection to the chaplaincy services in these places whilst they do some very good well intended helpful works for people in these places it also happens to be a nice, not so little, earner for mainly the C of , E in the UK where these services, are 100% government funded.

Any of the Secular Humanists I know have no wish to curtail any of the chaplaincy services they generally do a good job I don't think the whether of if they do a good job or not is a up for discussion in any way, it's the the source of where the funding comes from, surprisingly, doesn't come out of any of the religion based organisation's coffers. 

The unwanted Catholic academy in Peterborough just over 80% of the local population don't want a religious educational type anything in their area the point being when opening these places the religions only need to supply 20% of the funding to open it up for use and then our government funds the rest from then on, why should we, UK citizens be funding the promotion of Catholicism in this academy or anywhere else for that; just another case of religious privilege that the secularist humanist organisations are trying to gain a level playing field, no small wonder the religious organisations do their best to demonise Secular Humanism.

On the other hand the secular society has been collecting donations for the relief of the predicament the Rohingya are in, in Myanmar, it's   Secular Humanist approach of where it should be a case of freedom of religion for all people and freedom from religion as well, that's roughly my understanding of Secular Humanism.

Regards, ippy.

[Nearly Sane]

If Jesus was all that is claimed for him, I suspect if he ever met up with you, he might greet you with the phrase,  'Depart from me for I never knew you.' Your nit picking posts are not doing Christianity any favours at all. You should be ashamed of yourself, people looking in on this forum who are interested in the faith, would more than likely be put off by your constant jibes. I know some very good and decent Christians, but you aren't one of them. I wonder if you are actually Satan's little helper, he would certainly be very proud of the way you are behaving on R&E.

I disagree with Steve on many things but at base he seems like a decent person.

[ProfessorDavey]

In what way am I wrong PVJ?

So just to put it into context - from their accounts, in 2019 their income was £237million. Their expenditure on their social charitable activities (i.e. excluding evangelising) was just £99million. So if you put £1 into a Salvation Army collection thinking that money is going to help the homeless or disadvantaged etc, etc, in fact just 40p is spent on those activities. The rest is going on evangelising, admin and building up yet more reserves. The level of reserves increased by £16m between the 2017/18 and 2018/19 accounting years and increased by £35million between 2016/17 and 2017/18.

For context for every £1 of income Shelter spend a little over 70p on helping the homeless, the rest being used for admin and fundraising activities. Shelter also spend their money - holding about 6 months worth of normal expenditure as reserves (in line with the government/charity commission recommendation) rather than the 3+ years (and growing) that the Salvation Army have sat in reserves.

[ProfessorDavey]

I disagree with Steve on many things but at base he seems like a decent person.

I agree with that comment. And he's certainly given details of his own fundraising activities in the past (I think - wasn't it a bike ride), so I don't doubt he is active in supporting good causes. But then so are many people in various ways.

[Nearly Sane]

'O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!"

[bluehillside Retd.]

I disagree with Steve on many things but at base he seems like a decent person.

Ditto

[Steve H]

In what way am I wrong PVJ?

So just to put it into context - from their accounts, in 2019 their income was £237million. Their expenditure on their social charitable activities (i.e. excluding evangelising) was just £99million. So if you put £1 into a Salvation Army collection thinking that money is going to help the homeless or disadvantaged etc, etc, in fact just 40p is spent on those activities. The rest is going on evangelising, admin and building up yet more reserves. The level of reserves increased by £16m between the 2017/18 and 2018/19 accounting years and increased by £35million between 2016/17 and 2017/18.

91p in every pound goes on their social work, as my link makes clear. Their income is not just from donations, presumably. They also sell stuff, and probably have investments as well.

[ProfessorDavey]

91p in every pound goes on their social work, as my link makes clear. Their income is not just from donations, presumably. They also sell stuff, and probably have investments as well.

Their accounts tell a different story. In 2018/19 their income was £237million and their spend on social work was just £99million.

And at 31st March 2019 they were sat on reserves of £640million.

[Steve H]

Thanks to NS, PD, and BHSR for the kind words!
LR - I will do my best to completely ignore you from now on, unless you say something exceptionally stupid or outrageous even by your egregious standards. I hope that will ease your mind.

[ProfessorDavey]

91p in every pound goes on their social work, as my link makes clear.

I have no idea how they derive that figure - must be some serious sleight of hand because it simply isn't consistent with their published accounts.

Their income is not just from donations, presumably. They also sell stuff, and probably have investments as well.

Of course, hence I talk about total income - but unless you use creative accounting to imply that donations are spent on one thing, but other income is spent on another thing then you can reasonably assume that the proportionate spend on various expenditure elements is the same across each income stream.

The only way in which this wouldn't be the case would be is certain income streams were 'restricted' rather than 'unrestricted', but virtually all the public donations are indicated as 'unrestricted' and where restricted this appears to align to spending in the local area rather than spending on a particular activity. So as far as I can see the Salvation are free to spend donations how they wish, and just 40% of their expenditure is on social programmes.

[Steve H]

I have no idea how they derive that figure - must be some serious sleight of hand because it simply isn't consistent with their published accounts.
Of course, hence I talk about total income - but unless you use creative accounting to imply that donations are spent on one thing, but other income is spent on another thing then you can reasonably assume that the proportionate spend on various expenditure elements is the same across each income stream.

The only way in which this wouldn't be the case would be is certain income streams were 'restricted' rather than 'unrestricted', but virtually all the public donations are indicated as 'unrestricted' and where restricted this appears to align to spending in the local area rather than spending on a particular activity. So as far as I can see the Salvation are free to spend donations how they wish, and just 40% of their expenditure is on social programmes.

Let's say, to keep things simple, that they get £100 per annum from donations, and another £100 from investments, sales, etc., and they spen £91 on social work, the other £109 going on admin, evangelism, etc. They can then say, quite truthfully, that 91p in every pound donated goes on social work. No deceit, no need to split the income from donations from the other income, or restrict any portion of it. You are trying hard to accuse them of dishonesty, but it won't wash, I'm afraid. The SA is signed up to the fundraising watchdog, who would be on to them if they were doing anything dodgy.

[ProfessorDavey]

Let's say, to keep things simple, that they get £100 per annum from donations, and another £100 from investments, sales, etc., and they spen £91 on social work, the other £109 going on admin, evangelism, etc. They can then say, quite truthfully, that 91p in every pound donated goes on social work. No deceit, no need to split the income from donations from the other income, or restrict any portion of it. You are trying hard to accuse them of dishonesty, but it won't wash, I'm afraid. The SA is signed up to the fundraising watchdog, who would be on to them if they were doing anything dodgy.

Not really because unless the funds are restricted in some way, this is smoke and mirrors creative accounting as they would need to justify why the monies raised through other mechanisms (e.g. legacies, which are effectively just donations from dead people) are all spent on admin and evangelising. I doubt those legacy donors would be happy about that.

Regarding the fundraising watchdog (who exactly is that pray tell), well the oversight is via the charities commission and it is the account they provide to that organisation that tell the story I'm telling - 2018/19 - Income £237M, expenditure on social programmes £99M, reserves (i.e. funds unspent at 31st March 2019) - £640M.

Those are the figures.

And my comparison with Shelter used exactly the same source - annual accounts on the charity commission site and the same approach - proportion of income spent on social activities (in their case homelessness). For every £1 of income Shelter spends 70p on social programmes, for every £1 of income the Salvation Army spends 40p on social programmes. Those are the facts.

[Robbie]

 bluehillside Retd. Today at 12:46:33 PM
Quote from NS
I disagree with Steve on many things but at base he seems like a decent person.

Ditto
____
Ditto from me.

[ProfessorDavey]

The SA is signed up to the fundraising watchdog, who would be on to them if they were doing anything dodgy.

Just checked this out - it is the Fundraising Regulator. They only started publishing the names of organisations it is investigating last September and they produce quarterly reports. So there have been only two reports so far - Sept and Dec.

The Salvation Army has been found to be in breach of the Code of Fundraising Practice in both of the reports. To given context - so far only 15 complaints have been upheld (i.e. the charity breached the code) - two of those, 13% of all breaches, are from Salvation Army. Remember that there are 185,000 registered charities so for one to be responsible for 13% of the upheld complaints is astonishing.

Now there is no suggestion that either of those upheld complaints related to creative accounting in relation to the proportion of money going to social programmes, but it does demonstrate that the charity plays fast and loose with the rules.

[Steve H]

Both complaints were about them failing to update their records quickly enough, causing people who had asked not to receive mailings to continue to receive them. Big deal. The regulator said:

We were encouraged to see how proactive the charity was in acting on the learning from this complaint in order to ensure its future compliance with the code. 

As for the percentage of their donation income used for their social work, I repeat: their income comes from donations and from other sources. 91% of the donated income goes on their social work. The other income goes on other things. What's deceitful, or hard to understand, about that?

[ProfessorDavey]

Both complaints were about them failing to update their records quickly enough, causing people who had asked not to receive mailings to continue to receive them. Big deal. The regulator said:

It shows they don't comply with the regulations. And to be found to have breached the regulations twice in as many reporting periods when there were a total of only 15 such upheld breaches suggests that they are likely to be the worst offender of the 185,000 charities.

As for the percentage of their donation income used for their social work, I repeat: their income comes from donations and from other sources. 91% of the donated income goes on their social work. The other income goes on other things. What's deceitful, or hard to understand, about that?

Of course it is deceitful, because you cannot make that kind of link between income and expenditure unless the income is restricted, which isn't the case.

For most people the key statistic is the proportion of income spent on social programmes - most people would assume the 91% meant that but in fact it is just 40%.

And of course there is no detail to back up that 91% stat - come back to me when you've found the 'working out'. I on the other hand have demonstrated, using the Salvation Army's own published accounts that from an income of £237million in 2018/19 they spent just £99million on social programme type activities.

[ProfessorDavey]

And of course there is no detail to back up that 91% stat - come back to me when you've found the 'working out'.

Don't bother - I've worked it out, and yes it is completely dishonest. Effectively it is just the ration of expenditure on total 'charitable' activities as a proportion of that plus the cost of fundraising.

But that includes the money spent on evangelising which isn't in my mind and I suspect in most people's minds when they talk about '91 pence in your donated £1 goes to the delivery of caring services and the support of those services.' Nope - £50million of that expenditure is evangelising activities.

Also it doesn't cover the monies unspent which have been used to increase their reserves by tens of millions per year to reach an eye watering £640million. With well over half a billion £ in the bank it is rather hard to justify one of their other Q&A answers, 'We need to raise funds to keep us going.' They could fund their social programme activities for 6 and a half years just from their reserves without raising a penny.

[Steve H]

The proportion of donations which go to their social work is 91%. That is perfectly clear to anyone except those who, like the prof., are determined to find fault. As for the size of their reserves compared to shelter - the SA is a much bigger organisation than Shelter. It has to maintain citadels (or churches - I think they've dropped the name "citadel") in most towns and cities of any size, and pay a full-time officer in each (though they are not paid much). The size of their reserves compared with their total income is probably proportionate to Shelter's. I can't be arsed to check that out, but I bet you do, and find some other ridiculous excuse to criticise them. You may not be a Christian, but you don't have to go out of your way to find fault, and could acknowledge goodness wherever it springs from. Leave the mean-spirited carping to another poster I don't need to name.

[Anchorman]

The proportion of donations which go to their social work is 91%. That is perfectly clear to anyone except those who, like the prof., are determined to find fault. As for the size of their reserves compared to shelter - the SA is a much bigger organisation than Shelter. It has to maintain citadels (or churches - I think they've dropped the name "citadel") in most towns and cities of any size, and pay a full-time officer in each (though they are not paid much). The size of their reserves compared with their total income is probably proportionate to Shelter's. I can't be arsed to check that out, but I bet you do, and find some other ridiculous excuse to criticise them. You may not be a Christian, but you don't have to go out of your way to find fault, and could acknowledge goodness wherever it springs from. Leave the mean-spirited carping to another poster I don't need to name.

   




The SA bought a redundant CofS building in Ayr a few years' back.
I can absolutely guarantee that the purchase costs, and the running costs, were not, nor ever could be, taken from monies raised for work with homeless or other vulnerable groups.
I was on the Presbytery committee which oversaw the transfer of the building; we were concerned that givings from the general public would be used to run the building, rather than congregational giving. However, the SA opened their books, and OSCR (the regulatory body which oversees charities in Scotland( confirmed by letter that the two branches of fundraising were entirely separate.
Indeed, wheras we in the Kirk, hve only to submit one set of accounts, OSCR insists that each SA congregation submits two - one for the general running of their congregation, and one showing charitable giving for purposes outwith the running of the congregation.

[Steve H]

   




The SA bought a redundant CofS building in Ayr a few years' back.
I can absolutely guarantee that the purchase costs, and the running costs, were not, nor ever could be, taken from monies raised for work with homeless or other vulnerable groups.
I was on the Presbytery committee which oversaw the transfer of the building; we were concerned that givings from the general public would be used to run the building, rather than congregational giving. However, the SA opened their books, and OSCR (the regulatory body which oversees charities in Scotland( confirmed by letter that the two branches of fundraising were entirely separate.
Indeed, wheras we in the Kirk, hve only to submit one set of accounts, OSCR insists that each SA congregation submits two - one for the general running of their congregation, and one showing charitable giving for purposes outwith the running of the congregation.

Thanks for that backup! (Love the Scottish "outwith"!)

[Anchorman]

Thanks for that backup! (Love the Scottish "outwith"!)

   


Love it?
It drioves me to distraction!
The combination of eighteenth century Scottkish legalism and bits of Latin left over from pre-Reformation legalism which still peppers 'Practice and Procedure' in Presbytery makes my hair ache!

[ProfessorDavey]

The SA bought a redundant CofS building in Ayr a few years' back.
I can absolutely guarantee that the purchase costs, and the running costs, were not, nor ever could be, taken from monies raised for work with homeless or other vulnerable groups.

Obviously I cannot comment on a single project, but that absolutely isn't the case for the main Salvation Army work.

And just to hammer home the point in 2018/19 the Salvation Army raised just £19million from its congregation (defined in the accounts as Donations - members), yet it spent £49million on running the church defined in the accounts as Church and Evangelism programmes). Even I can work out the the amount the congregation is giving is £30million shy of supporting the costs of running the church.

I was on the Presbytery committee which oversaw the transfer of the building; we were concerned that givings from the general public would be used to run the building, rather than congregational giving. However, the SA opened their books, and OSCR (the regulatory body which oversees charities in Scotland( confirmed by letter that the two branches of fundraising were entirely separate.

Indeed, wheras we in the Kirk, hve only to submit one set of accounts, OSCR insists that each SA congregation submits two - one for the general running of their congregation, and one showing charitable giving for purposes outwith the running of the congregation.

The Salvation Army is a cross border charity and is based in London - therefore it is regulated, regardless of whether activity is in England or Scotland, by the Charities Commission, not the OSCR. In fact if you got to the OSCR and search for Salvation Army, you will find them, but click on it and it links to the Charities Commission. So the OSCR do not and will not request separate accounts for the simple reason that the Salvation Army does not submit accounts to them.