I am still a supporter of OXFAM – just.  The recent stories of scandal and mismanagement might have persuaded me to withdraw my modest contribution to their funds but I am still hanging on.  What has happened is that I have made a personal reappraisal of why I give at all to relief organisations in the first place. 

Thirty years ago, I heard about a school contemporary who went to Ethiopia to help with the humanitarian disaster in that country when millions were caught up in the famine.  His time there scarred him seriously and he returned to Britain a broken man.  The talk then was of a nervous break-down.  Now we might well describe his plight as Post Traumatic Stress.  My link with him was only indirect so I never heard how the story developed.  Even if he made a full recovery from his ordeal, my hearing a bit of his story taught me one thing about myself; helping the starving and the destitute in poor parts of the world was not my personal vocation.  Admitting that to myself allows me to understand how important it is to give so that others, more robust than I, can do this work.  So, it is not just that I, like most people in our society, realise with the mind that the problems of starvation, poverty and refugees are overwhelming in the world today.   People like us need to own this reality personally and try to do something about it.  If we cannot work ourselves to relieve these needs then we need to enable others to do this work.  That requires our money as well as our imaginative concern.  Even if we describe this giving as conscience money for not doing anything practical ourselves, it probably does not matter.  The important thing is that we care and we give.

OXFAM have, this week, been given a dramatic and severe telling off by the Charity Commission.  A story of sexual sleaze in Haiti and later cover-up was discovered with people high-up in the organisation putting reputation above people.  Some words from the report and quoted by the Times in its leader: ‘No charity is more important than the people it serves or the mission it serves.’  This is followed by comments from the Times leader writer.  ‘The Commission concluded that OXFAM’s priority had been to protect its reputation and its relationship with its donors rather than protect those it was supposed to be helping’. 

Am I the only one to note the telling parallel with the Church of England?  Both organisations are being accused of sexual abuse in the past with attempts by current leaders to cover-up in order to protect reputations.  The situation in OXFAM is potentially dire.  Reputational damage could destroy the organisation completely.  If donors and the government withdraw their support, the organisation may go into a spiral of decline.  The more it has to cut back on its work, the more would-be donors may look elsewhere to place their money.  The next few weeks may be crucial in deciding whether OXFAM has a future or not.  In spite of everything OXFAM will, I think, survive.   It has been functioning far longer than most other aid organisations, having been founded during the war to help feed Greek children starving as the result of the German occupation of their country.  By chance in the 1960s I met one of the founders, Dick Milford, and no doubt this personal contact with one of the original OXFAM group has helped to cement my long-term loyalty to the organisation.

The Church of England is of course far bigger than OXFAM, both in terms of its assets and the numbers of people involved in its work.  But like OXFAM, it faces an issue of trust with its supporting base.  The Charity Commission was not talking about the Church when it spoke about a charitable institution making it’s ‘priority … to protect its reputation… rather than protect those it was supposed to be helping’ but the description fits very well.  OXFAM will recover if it can regain the early vision of its founders, to feed the starving and the destitute in the world as well as providing the tools for self-sufficiency.  The Church of England, insofar as the Commission’s description of OXFAM applies to it as well, has a similar uphill task to restate its vision of itself.  Time and time again the IICSA process has revealed occasions where the Church acted, not for the benefit of those it had hurt, but to protect its reputation.   It is interesting to reflect on the fact that Jesus did not anywhere urge the disciples to become expert on public relations/reputation.  He realised that if they did what was required of them, then that would be a sufficient indication to the world that they were his disciples and thus servants of God himself.  ‘By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.’

The care of the Church for survivors is not just a matter of justice.  It may be a matter, long-term, for the Church’s very survival.  Caring for and helping those who have been damaged is part of the core reason for its existence.  If ever protecting reputation is put above that, it is hard to see anything but shrinkage within the institution alongside a steady decline in its integrity.  A generation of young people are growing up who look at institutions and are quick to spot hypocrisy and loss of nerve.  If a Church talks about justice, reconciliation and care and then fails to deliver on these with a vulnerable group of its own members, the young are going to depart in droves.  OXFAM is facing its own crisis, having been charged with exploiting some of those that it was supposed to be helping.   All the photos of boxes of aid are going to look different when it is realised that the organisation have been employing individuals who appear more interested in having a good time than in serving the poorest on earth.   Now that significant numbers of clergy and bishops have also been revealed to be exploiters of the weak, the Church also has to work hard to show that any impression of widespread corruption is a false one.   To change the impression being given, one that breeds cynicism and distrust, the Church must labour hard to overcome any bad publicity.  The present generation of bishops and leaders must stand up and demonstrate that they care, they serve and they are ready to stamp out the abuses of power that are currently so damaging to the Church and to its reputation with the people of this country.