Maggiedoll Alter

There's really no way to know the tone of the question from an article.

I'm imagining the way kids from WEC would just ask "Would you like to come pray with us?" if you were chatting with them right before they were about to go pray. It certainly can be done in a polite and friendly manner that's simply invitational.

..But it can also be done aggressively.
That they still give food to people who don't want to pray really doesn't say much in itself.
It sounds like it was just a question meant as an invitation to people who are at a point in their lives where if they believe in prayer, they probably appreciate the offer. But that's not really something you can tell from an article.

ETA: Simple test: do they mind somebody of another religion doing exactly the same thing? If they think only they should be doing it, it's wrong. If they don't have a problem with a charity of another religion politely asking people if they'd like to pray, then it's fine.
How they feel about other religions doing the same thing demonstrates their intent to some extent.
Just my opinion.

Joshua Nightshade

By wagging your finger on the internet.

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Thystle Blackheart

First, you are making the broad-brush assumption about a lot of people here, that none of us give our money and time to charitable causes. While this assumption may suit to support your desired POV, I doubt that is true. In my own case, I assure you that a significant portion of my yearly income goes to charity.

Second, the "people on the internet" you are wagging YOUR finger at are likely helping PAY for the program in question.

Amity Slade

Asking the question before the application is approved is aggressive, no matter tone of voice. Before the application is approved, the applicant is the captive audience of the volunteer taking the application. That volunteer, as a gatekeeper to the food the applicant needs, is in a position of power over the applicant.

That power situation is similar to the workplace sexual harassment power situation. Sort of like if your boss is considering you for a promotion, and tells, you, "Do you want to go have sex? It is completely optional and will not affect your promotion if whether you want to or not." He may say that is a completely sincere tone of voice, but there is no way to take that request as not aggressive.

"Is there anything you would like us to pray with you about?" is a very personal question too. You don't pray with someone about trivial, small-talk issues like the weather report for the day. You pray with someone about personal, intimate issues like illnesses and relationships. I'm a Christian, but a stranger asking me that question is prying into my personal life. It's about the same level of prying as a stranger asking me out of the blue, "So how's your sex life going?"

If the pantry wants to make the offer to prayer, at least wait until the application is approved. Or have pamphlets or a sign off to the side, something that the applicant can ignore without confrontation. By making it part of the application process, they force confrontation, and take advantage of power over a desperate person.

eku Zhong

first word that popped into my head... rice christians..

its not like its a new tactic with missionary types

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Zaida Gearbox

So what's next? People on social security can't go to church because they're receiving government funds?

Every single person on this board pays taxes. I, personally, have no problem with what these people are doing. But, I also don't care if the Mormons, Muslims, Hare Krishnas, Buddists do the same thing.

Eris

I don't care if they do it either, as long as they do it on their own dime. The money they're taking comes with strings attached. They agreed to the rules when they took it, then decided they weren't going to follow them.

Aribeth Zelin

I know that the Vincent de Paul society [catholic] gets government money - to my knowledge, they do not proselytize, or at least, aren't supposed to. If they can manage to leave religion out of it, then so can others [of course, her store's previous manager got fired for doing such things, but she wasn't doing it for the catholics, but for her own church].

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Richie Waves

Bottom feeding religious taking advantage of the hungry... wow they never do that!

Zaida Gearbox

Taking the religious aspect out of it - Federal funds also aren't supposed to go to help illegal immigrants. Yet, I know for a fact, that several non-profits in town, that receive federal funds, still persist in helping illegals. They just claim that the services are being paid for from one of their other funding streams. So, should all of these non-profits stop providing to undocumented immigrants in need because part of their funding comes from the federal government?

I always say: If you don't like how a non-profit is doing it then start your own, and compete against them for funding.

Magic Mournblade

We had to go to a local food bank run by a Catholic group this winter, first time ever in my life.

We were asked several times about our church affiliation/religion and if was there anything that we'd like them to pray for.

It was harder just going and admitting we needed help than anything else. The whole religion thing wasn't any worse than commercials while watching TV.

We weren't denied or treated less because of our N/A answers, we didn't throw it back at them that we are non-religious, it just didn't matter.

Slippery slope? Perhaps, but not as long as religious participation is not required to receive aid.

Zaida Gearbox

They asked your affiliation? Not even the Salvation Army asks non-residents that. I don't have a problem with being asked if I want to pray or if they can pray for me, but for some reason being asked my affiliation bugs me. Though I'm such a smart ass I would probably tell them I'm a Hare Krishna and break out into the Krishna chant.

Magic Mournblade

When they asked about affiliation it wasn't threatening and their responses to our no's and none's weren't in any way demeaning. That we weren't religious didn't seem to matter.

Thystle Blackheart

Nice way to compare apples to oranges.

Khamon

It really is that simple. We have two local food banks and a "soup kitchen" that all operate with local donations of money, supplies, and labour. We manage to take care of our own without collecting two-tenths-of-a-cent on the dollar, and the associated baggage, US Federal programs graciously provide.

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Zaida Gearbox

Actually, we do sometimes ask clients if they have a local faith community, but that's usually when we're trying to identify any potential support systems - even if it's just emotional support. We don't ever ask it as part of intake.

Maggiedoll Alter

How exactly does the process work? I'll amend your theoretical boss suggestion to "Would you like to go out with me?" just to make it more reasonable and less icky, but that's usually a case where the boss actually has control over the promotion, which may not be the case with the food bank thing. The boss could give somebody a promotion and then ask her out (especially if he promoted her to a job where he's not her direct boss.)
I'm imagining the food bank thing as a meeting where somebody is taking down information that might need to be reviewed or verified, so that they couldn't necessarily just say "okay, you're approved. Now before you leave, do you mind if I ask you if there is anything you'd like to pray about?" If I'm wrong in that assumption, than it would be better to ask after approving them than before. But if it's an "okay, now we've got all your information and it'll be verified and then calculated using some objective formula" then the bulk of direct personal contact would happen before approval.
(And the question isn't actually part of the application, is it? They're not writing down what they say to "is there anything you'd like to pray about?," are they?)
It is an awfully personal question, but if there's no actual pressure besides a question, somebody could answer "After going through all this application stuff, I'm already feeling awfully exposed, that just feels too personal to me right now."

When training these people, does the organization give any training on bringing up questions like that without being pushy? It's a question that has the potential to be done in a very benign and caring way; almost like an "is there anything you feel like you want to talk about" but with a structure that could make it easier to actually say something.

The "How is your sex life going?" example just doesn't seem comparable; that would be a request for specific information, while "is there anything you'd like to pray about?" is a nonspecific invitation to pray about anything that might be on somebody's mind.

Pamphlets are an informational thing, but "is there anything you'd like me to pray with you about?" is a person-to-person thing. Applying at a food bank is going to be personal no matter what. It's not a social small-talk kind of meeting to begin with. The prayer offer could also add an extra human element to it.

I don't know exactly how they're phrasing it, but maybe a "do you mind if I ask if there's anything you'd like to pray about" or something like that, to emphasize that it's an offer.

Awhile ago on another forum somebody was asking about what to say or how to help somebody going through a difficult time, and one of the main pieces of advice was to offer something specific instead of saying "let me know if there's anything I can do," because people never know what to say to that. "Anything you need" or "anything I can do" is too open-ended and non-specific, and even if somebody can think of something they need help with, without some basis for knowing what you're offering they won't know how to ask. People suggested things like "Would you like me to bring over dinner?" or "Would you like me to come over and give you some help cleaning up?"
It's not exactly the same, but the prayer offer is still an offer of a specific type of support, with some degree of structure that makes it less overwhelming. Praying with somebody can also be a way of making it easier to share problems.

Tranquility

Another example of separation of church and state taken way too litteral imo. It is a religious charity to begin with. Wtf do you expect when you go to get free food FROM A RELIGOUS CHARITY! Its bullshit to make the stipulation that if a religous charity accepts one penny from the government, it has to cease being...yep, a religous charity. They are providing a public service that is apparently not being met by non-religous charities. If there were a shortage of fed funds and non-religous charities were meeting most of the food drive public needs...then I could see an issue with a religous organization operating in this manner. However, take the money away from the op charity and all it does is take away food from the poor and the loss of service/food will not be replaced by anyone, much less a strictly non-religous charity.

Eris

Do I get to ignore the rules I don't like too?

Artemis Fate

They didn't need to accept the food, accepting it meant accepting the rules that comes with it. They did accept it, and they accepted those rules, they just chose to ignore them in order to proselytize. If they choose to deny the food to preserve the evangelizing, then it means they're more interested in converting the poor then feeding them. The government won't have trouble finding another charity to follow the rules.

They're not even asking the charity to be completely secular in everything, they're just saying that they can't put anything religious in the application process, or it could be mistaken as being required, even if it's totally optional. They can still fill their charity with Christian brochures, signs, people asking them to pray and beg forgiveness, just so long as none of it can ever be mistaken as a required part of the actual process of getting food.

Really, the people making a big deal about it is the religious, if this prayer is such a small thing, why not move it out of the application process in order to keep getting 15% of their food donation quota free?

Khamon

It's not really separation of church and state. The first amendment of our Constitution only states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Jefferson later cited the verbiage in a letter and added the phrase "thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

This is actually just a matter of a Federal program establishing rules to which funding recipients must agree and adhere. The Emergency Food Assistance Program can just as easily mandate that pickled cucumbers not be made available under penalty of disqualification. Unless those rules are challenged, and legislatively updated, they're the rules.

Large-scale Federal programs are never going to operate reasonably, or efficiently, due to the overly large and diverse population represented and the necessarily colossal administrative costs. Our defense against the waste is providing as much local assistance as possible. When we reach a point of translating local responsibility into lower taxes, the economy will begin to recover. Or we'll continue slipping down the empirical slope giving all our rights and freedoms to the oligarchy who'll pay our debts and keep us healthy and support us in our old age because they care; no really, they do.

Tranquility

And you want to deny people food on the stipulation that nothing remotely religous can be uttered. Aside from the apparent fallacy that this charity is denying anyone food if they don't pray (wasn't it just a question if the recipient wants to pray for anything?) Is there a line of non-religous charities just waiting to pick up the slack of taking money away from the op charity? My guess is no.

Again, 85% of the money is provided by the religion. No doubt it can operate just fine on its own. The downside being that the poor recieve 15% less food. The all or nothing bs isn't going to fly. Compromise is the key.

Aliselia Aeon

You have no idea what any of us are or are not doing to help people.


I agree that asking could make me think they might not feed me unless I said yes. On the other hand, if I was hungry enough I wouldn't give a shit if I had to pray or if they prayed over me, as long as I had food in my belly. It's not going to convert me.

I do want to say however, that I abhor that federal money is going to faith based charities.I don't think any federal financial support should g to any religion. I also think churches should have to pay taxes in income

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Artemis Fate

Nobody ever said it had to be absolutely secular, the post you quoted from me above explicitly mentions this. It just can't be even suggested that anything religious is required to get the donation. They accept the donation from the government, even if it's 0.01%, they follow the rules, what's so hard about that? Do you think the religious should get the right to ignore rules in the name of their religion?

Eris

How about offering their religious support in another manner? Without making it part of the application process. The volunteers can be available for people who want prayer or other religious needs met, but don't actively push it on them.