Faith-based Charities

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In 1949 and in the early 1960s, faith-based charities proliferated in the world. These charities have been extremely effective, as the trust level to them in the developing world surged. Trust has been the key and critical in understanding their level of success. Recently, due to the rise of extremism in the countries like Iraq and Syria, people have begun questioning the credibility of faith-based charities, as aids might have fallen into the wrong hands of Islamists and Jihadists. We heard people from donor countries saying, “(I give charities), but not ‘outside the country and not with religion’”. Hijacked by extremists, religion-based charities are oftentimes perceived to be associated with conflicts. While support for faith-based charities is waning, churches are grappling with the theological groundings for these non-government international organizations. The core argument is: We are all created in the image and likeness of God. There is oneness in the belief in the God of justice. Poverty and injustice are affronts to the Creator. Similarly, in the Islamic view, it states that giving alms, especially during Ramadan, is obligatory, since it is a means of purification.