Samaritan's Purse/ Operation Christmas Child/ Franklin Graham

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MinistryWatch.com’s Take
October 2004
By J. Andrew Preslar

Modernism, Fundamentalism, and the Social Conscience of the New Evangelicals

The first half of the 20th century was a particularly trying time for evangelical Christians in the U. S. The intellectual force of Modernism, with its built-in suspicion (or outright rejection) of the supernatural, was beginning to shape the theological agenda of several mainline denominations and theological seminaries. The overall effect of this assimilation of naturalistic philosophy by Christian institutions was a radical redefinition of the Gospel. If miracles are impossible, or (at best) past believing, then the central message of the historic Christian faith, namely, the sacrificial death and bodily resurrection of the incarnate Son of God, could no longer be taken as the literal truth. When mainline denominations began to accept the Gospel as myth, they were forced to turn its meaning into a kind of allegorical affirmation of human potential, or social responsibility, or a coming utopia, or some other revisionist interpretation. The reaction of many evangelical Christians to all of this was, perhaps, to be expected: they left the compromised churches in droves and began to establish their own schools and denominations. As a result of this reaction to Modernism, orthodox belief was preserved, but faithful believers also became largely disengaged from the broader culture. The old evangelicals were now the fundamentalists, distinguished from the progressive, or modern, branch of the visible Church.

Some conservative Christian thinkers soon came to realize that this exodus of the Christian faithful from the American intellectual and social scene was actually a disservice to the true Gospel. In his groundbreaking book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, Carl F. H. Henry issued a wake-up call to his Christian brethren. Henry argued that the mission of the Church includes both evangelism, with its necessary correlate of doctrinal purity, and social involvement, which meant that the Church could not remain isolated from the culture. The Church must engage society by fearlessly (and intelligently) proclaiming the Gospel and by reaching out to meet the physical needs of the poor and outcast among us. Just because the Modernists would reduce the Gospel to social good works does not mean that the Church should neglect to actively engage in such works on a broad scale. Given these emphases of the culturally-engaged New Evangelicalism which Henry and others were promoting, it is interesting to note how the ministries of Billy Graham, world-renowned evangelist, and his son Franklin Graham complement one another. The elder Graham, himself a seminal figure in the new evangelical movement, has proclaimed the old-fashioned (i.e., orthodox) Gospel to more people than any other individual in the history of the Church. The younger Graham, who has served as president of the relief and development organization Samaritan’s Purse since 1980 (he is also the current president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association), is actively engaged in the second aspect of Christian mission as recaptured and reemphasized by the New Evangelicalism: meeting the “needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ.”

Witnesses to the World

Samaritan’s Purse was founded in 1970 by Bob Pierce. Pierce was inspired to find and support Christians who were working, often in remote places, on behalf on poor and suffering people. This basic plan of action is still implemented by Samaritan’s Purse, which provides funding and supplies for more than 100 relief and development projects in more than 100 countries. Samaritan’s Purse focuses on providing “immediate, no red-tape response to the physical and spiritual needs of individuals in crisis areas of the world, especially where few others are working.” The ministry of Samaritan’s Purse can be analyzed in terms of two major components: (1) Project Support and (2) Ongoing Programs. The unifying feature of this ministry is its commitment to be a witness to the world by caring for the poor and afflicted and by proclaiming the biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ to lost souls. The conversion of the lost is the ultimate and expressed goal of Samaritan’s Purse. This fact distinguishes them from many other relief and development organizations, even some others which are Christian in name and in charter. Samaritan’s Purse makes good on its commitment to evangelism in a number of ways. They seek to work through Christian organizations and churches so that those groups can use disaster relief efforts as an occasion to share the gospel. Samaritan’s Purse also supports overseas Bible schools, various kinds of outreach ministries (e.g., Christian coffeehouses), evangelistic programs, and individual pastors. Samaritan’s Purse staff and volunteers seek to use their relief and development ministries as occasions to share the Gospel. Because Samaritan’s Purse is a government-recognized (and, to a small degree, government-funded) relief and development organization, they have had opportunities to bring the Gospel to places which missions organizations have trouble reaching. There are often great dangers (political and otherwise) attendant upon Christian witness in many of these locations (e.g., parts of Sudan), so evangelistic outreaches are not always overt. Even in such circumstances, however, Samaritan’s Purse seeks to be a witness for Christ in deed and, when prudent, in word.

Project Support

Because of the scope of relief and development projects which Samaritan’s Purse supports, it is instructive to simply consider the four major kinds of work supported by the ministry through providing a few examples.

War Relief. Samaritan’s Purse has been helping needy people in civil war-torn Sudan for a number of years. Relief efforts include the operation of a surgical hospital which serves thousands of people every month, agricultural projects covering 7,000 acres, providing supplies and teachers for 50 schools, and, at the invitation of president Umar al-Bashir, participating in ongoing peace talks between the government of Sudan and the Southern People’s Liberation Movement. Samaritan’s Purse has also been very active in aiding people afflicted by the war in Iraq. In addition to providing 16 tons of medical supplies and equipment to refurbish a damaged hospital, Samaritan’s Purse has completed the construction of a medical clinic, provided supplies to several other clinics, and is sponsoring a church that provides food to poor families.

Disaster Response. Samaritan’s Purse sent an international relief team to Iran in response to the Bam earthquake in December 2003. This team helped provide emergency shelter and household items for survivors while working on plans to rebuild the city. In El Salvador, Samaritan’s Purse has built more than 1,800 permanent houses to replace those destroyed in the 2001 earthquakes. Disaster response efforts in the United States include sending crews to rebuild houses destroyed by Hurricane Isabel in North Carolina and Virginia, helping communities in California recover from the 2003 wildfires, and working on the homes of the poor and elderly throughout the country who are too poor to make needed repairs to their homes. Samaritan’s Purse coordinates teams of skilled volunteers and maintains two tractor-trailers stocked with emergency supplies and equipment in order to facilitate better and faster responses to disasters in the U. S.

Poverty Relief. Many of the poverty relief projects overseen by Samaritan’s Purse are implemented in the context of responding to war or natural disaster. Thus, rebuilding homes and providing emergency food and shelter are often priorities in these projects. Other poverty relief efforts include livestock projects and feeding programs in rural communities in Central America and projects in Mongolia which supply emergency food and heat for children and the elderly in order to sustain them through that region’s harsh winters.

Fighting Disease. Samaritan’s Purse has in many ways been a leader in the Christian community’s response to the international HIV/AIDS crisis. In Romania, Uganda, and Thailand, Samaritan’s Purse has helped develop homes for hundreds of children infected by AIDS. In Uganda and Honduras, programs are being developed which will train local churches to teach AIDS prevention, offer care, reduce stigma, and show compassion. Samaritan’s Purse combats disease in Brazil and other Third World countries by supporting clean water projects. Something as simple as a water filter can make all the difference between health and sickness for people who have little access to clean water.

Ongoing Programs

The ongoing programs of Samaritan’s Purse constitute the core of the ministry. The majority of the ministry’s program expenses go towards these activities, with the highly visible ministry, Operation Christmas Child, alone accounting for well over half of total ministry expenses.

Operation Christmas Child. This is the flagship program of Samaritan’s Purse. Operation Christmas Child (OCC) involves a simple concept – providing boxes of Christmas presents to needy children. Executed on a grand scale, OCC will bring gift-filled shoeboxes to an estimated seven million children in 95 countries on six continents. Each box contains items such as small toys, school supplies, personal hygiene products, hard candy, and a Gospel booklet in the child’s own language. Individuals, families, schools, churches, and numerous independent organizations work to fill these boxes, which are received at Samaritan’s Purse collection centers across the U. S., where they are inspected by teams of staff and volunteers in preparation for overseas shipment. Once the gifts reach the various countries around the world, teams of Samaritan’s Purse representatives and national partners transport them by whatever means necessary to their final destinations. Then the Christmas box is hand-delivered to a needy child. These boxes generally go to children living in war-torn regions (e.g., Sudan, the Balkans), areas affected by natural disaster (Honduras, Nicaragua) and AIDS (Uganda), and to children living in abject poverty (some major urban centers in the U. S., for example). One particularly interesting indication of the way this program has captured the hearts and stirred the charitable impulses of this country is the fact that every U. S. president since Ronald Reagan has packed an OCC shoebox.

OCC may seem like an overly-simplistic, perhaps even trite, response to the needs of children the world over, but such a judgment seems to overlook something very important about Christmas, and that on two levels: (1) many of the children who receive these boxes have never been given a gift. Samaritan’s Purse works in many ways to improve the overall living conditions of children, families, and communities (see above). Why not try to bring a special joy to individual children at this most special time of year? (2) Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, God’s great Gift to every person. OCC carries that message to children the world over. The Gospel tracts in the boxes as well as the evangelism efforts of the Christians who work in the program help to ensure that OCC dispenses more than a temporal blessing to spiritually and physically needy children.

Children’s Heart Project. This program provides life-saving surgery for children with congenital heart defects. Samaritan’s Purse locates doctors and hospitals in the U. S. and Canada willing to donate their services, then goes to countries with limited facility for treating defective heart conditions, identifies children in need of treatment, and arranges for round-trip transportation of the children, their mothers, and an interpreter overseas for surgery. Children’s Heart Project has saved the lives of more than 200 children. Some 45 hospitals in North America have participated in this program.

World Medical Missions. This program specializes in placing Christian physicians in short-term service at mission hospitals and in providing those hospitals with technical support, medical supplies and equipment, field installation and service, training, and referral. World Medical Missions coordinates all the details of short-term assignments for physicians, including: matching doctors with overseas hospitals, providing orientation and spiritual resources before and during the assignment, and coordinating field housing and transportation. The need for this kind of ministry escalates in times of disaster, and practicing physicians are encouraged to offer their services in response to international crises. Transportation of donated medical equipment supplies to mission hospitals can be arranged via World Medical Missions. The program has quality assurance protocols in place so that only good and serviceable equipment and supplies are sent. A list of needed materials and instructions is posted at the Samaritan’s Purse website.

Organizational Information

Samaritan’s Purse is headquartered in Boone, N.C. They have international offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany; plus field offices in several developing countries. Samaritan’s Purse sets up field offices in response to specific crises. These offices feature a core staff consisting of a Country Director, Logistics Coordinator, and Office Manager / Bookkeeper. Other positions may be created and filled, depending upon the need of the project. Their international field staff serve as full-time missionaries for a period of 3-12 months, the length of service being determined by the program needs and applicant availability. Only fully qualified individuals are hired. Volunteer service opportunities, for individuals and groups, are also available.

Those interested in supporting Samaritan’s Purse financially are given the chance to specify which project(s) they would like their donation to help fund. If the money donated towards a project exceeds the amount needed to fund that project it will be used for some similar project elsewhere. Samaritan’s Purse is committed to seeing that at least 90 percent of these donations are used in direct support of the project specified. A perusal of several issues of the organization’s newsletter/fundraising vehicle, The Call of the Samaritan, reveals that the ministry’s fundraising appeals are direct, simple and free from needless dramatization. This publication alerts prospective donors concerning any recent disaster to which Samaritan’s Purse is responding with aid, tells what kind of aid is being provided, and asks the reader to prayerfully consider supporting that specific work. The Call of the Samaritan also provides updates on the progress and needs of ongoing programs.