Untied Methodists Join With Muslims to Spend Tithes and Offerings

United Methodist Committee on Relief is partnering with Muslim Aid to amass up to $25 million dollars for disaster relief, conflict relief, and other kinds of trouble in places like Sri Lanka. It is likely, however, that not one dollar of that money is earmarked for spreading the Gospel.

These days there are almost always restrictions placed on humanitarian aid providers, particularly in Muslim areas, that prevent them from proselytizing. Several Christian organizations and churches embark on programs of providing aid and comfort in those places anyway with the hope that over time resistance to sharing the Gospel will soften. Results have usually been disappointing even when not handicapped with a huge Muslim oversight committee.

Coming in under the cover of Muslim Aid, United Methodist should easily be able to divest themselves of several million dollars with little or no resistance. As an interfaith partnership, the only message to be preached will be that “cultures can work together to help humanity.” That probably wasn’t the message that put all that money in the Methodists’ collection plates back home. Was it?

David Dansker

(Read about it in The Christian Post)