Hush-hush--What makes Christian philanthropy Christian?

Two years ago they gathered at the swank Four Seasons in Seattle. Last year they gathered in Cancun. Next week to the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia they will doubtless come again, bringing their checkbooks with them for a Nov. 1 and 2 conference. "They" are scores of wealthy believers looking for ways to use their earthly riches to advance the heavenly kingdom. In a good example of upper-class understatement, their organization is called simply The Gathering. What the group lacks in rhetorical flourish, however, its members more than make up for in net worth. Imagine Abraham, Job, and the father of the Prodigal Son getting together for a seminar, and you have a pretty good idea of The Gathering. Every day wealthy believers across America write checks to help finance worthy causes in evangelism, education, social work, politics, and many other fields. Though no one is sure just how much money is given, there's no doubt that the total is staggering. "You won't find any good numbers on Christian philanthropy," says Craig Hammon, executive vice president of Gordon College and author of a forthcoming study on giving commissioned by a major foundation. "These people aren't out for publicity, and more often than not, they don't like to see their names in print." Not to mention the extent of their wealth. Unlike secular foundations that often produce lavish annual reports listing their endowments and the causes they support, Christian givers are much less forthcoming with such information. Not surprisingly then, the words "secretive"-even "shadowy"-are most often associated with Christian philanthropy. But there are at least two reasons definite figures are so hard to come by. First, Christian philanthropy, to a much greater extent than secular, seems to demand anonymity as a matter of principle. "A lot of us have real problems with the idea of talking about what we're doing with our money," says one philanthropist. Although her family name is one of the best-known in the field of Christian giving, she will not agree to having it used in print. "We try to be biblical in our giving," she says. "If we publicize our efforts, that would seem to violate the principle of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing." On a practical level, many donors see anonymity as the key to their strategic success. A group of four Christian businessmen in Southern California, for instance, was infuriated when The Los Angeles Times published a report of their bankrolling of conservative political candidates throughout California. By flying beneath the media's radar, these donors had for several years been able to pour millions of dollars into obscure but important races. In March, however, the group's cover was blown, thanks to a Republican primary in Fresno that drew intense media interest. There, a 31-year-old political unknown named Robert Prenter upset the former speaker of the California Assembly, a liberal Republican who had drawn the ire of conservatives because of his alliance with longtime Democratic speaker Willie Brown, now the mayor of San Francisco. In that race, the men's California Independent Business PAC donated some $200,000, lifting Mr. Prenter to victory. It was all perfectly legal and perfectly ethical-but perfectly awful to secularists worried about a Christian "takeover" of California. Suddenly, Christian political giving became a hot media topic. The LA Times devoted page one of its Sunday Metro section to the normally obscure school board races in Ventura County when it learned that a spin-off PAC had been created to support conservative candidates there. As awareness of Christian involvement increased, so did the anti-Christian rhetoric, with one liberal candidate warning darkly of extremists "trying to force their personal values on the entire county." With secularists on guard against Christian influence in California politics, born-again philanthropists there find themselves getting less bang for their buck. Meanwhile, big donors in other parts of the country work hard to avoid a similar situation. "We try to stay behind the scenes as much as possible," says one philanthropist who recently sold his family's consumer-products company in order to give his money away full time. With much the same political strategy as his friends in California, this man believes secrecy is essential: "We're most effective when we don't draw attention to ourselves. When you become the focus of attention, you give your political opponents an issue to beat you up with." Political causes in general are popular with Christian donors, and the givers do tend overwhelmingly to be conservative, according to Mr. Hammon. "Of t

he 10 or 15 biggest givers I'm thinking of, I would classify all of them as being conservative. I mean, I'm fairly certain I know who they're voting for in November. Still, just because they're conservative, you can't assume they're going to think a certain way about a list of 10 social issues. They may be all on the conservative side of the political spectrum, but they're all over the map on that side."

Of course, not all Christian philanthropists give to political causes. Some, in fact, scrupulously avoid anything that smacks of politics. "I have trouble with Christians getting into a lot of things politically. Jesus never did," says Marty Moore, president of the Moore Foundation in Indianapolis and one of the leaders of The Gathering. Instead, Mr. Moore describes his focus as "Christian-oriented youth programs" in his home state. Community and youth development programs seem to be a common concern among Christian donors. A survey of The Gathering newsletter shows that in the past year 40 percent of the articles focused on either youth or community. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to see what makes these projects distinctively Christian, other than the fact that the people writing the checks are believers. For instance: * In 1995, the Burbridge Foundation in Oklahoma City changed its mission from direct support of Christian ministries worldwide to community improvement. The foundation now wants to "show what working together-regardless of faith or race-will accomplish toward the countless catastrophes that diminish the quality of urban life.... We feel that the 'faith' community as a whole is a critical seam in the moral fabric of our country. Jewish, Islamic, Christian, and other faiths share a common bond in the desire to see our families grow and prosper within moral and safe neighborhoods. It is the goal of the Burbridge Foundation to see a united Christian Church work with other faiths at the community table." * An article on community development in Third World countries says that "absolute poverty could be wiped from the face of the earth in a few decades for about one percent of the cost of operating the U.S. Department of Defense." The article goes on to suggest that wiping out poverty through "microenterprise development" would in turn "replace dysfunctional communal activity with life-enhancing, creative activity." Among the dysfunctional behaviors (not sins) with economic roots are "adolescent pregnancy, youth gangs, substance abuse, [and] violent crime." * In Birmingham, Ala., the James Rushton I Foundation recently bought an entire block bordering the city's largest public housing project. The foundation will now try to develop this block "in a way that helps transform Metropolitan Gardens into a community characterized by economic opportunity, strong families, safety, and hope." Interestingly, the foundation is "convinced that job creation and business opportunities offer the greatest promise for transforming the community." The role of faith in that transformation is never mentioned. Such quotes sound like they could have come from the United Nations or the Agency for International Development, yet they were taken from a newsletter with an explicitly Christian mission. All of which raises the important question: What is the essential difference in philosophy between Christian and secular philanthropy? "That's something we should ask ourselves more than we probably do," says Craig Nauta, executive vice president of the Mustard Seed Foundation in Arlington, Va. "I guess there's a question of what we should be involved in. Evangelism and the local church should be priorities for Christian giving, but foundations will inevitably find themselves involved in issues of justice and mercy when they get into direct evangelistic efforts, especially in the Third World. It's fleshed out differently for different organizations." Dennis and Eileen Bakke, worldwide developers of power plants and founders of the Mustard Seed Foundation, decided that evangelism would be their first priority, with community development merely serving as a means to that end. "If you're making a big pie chart of all foundations, Christian foundations are the only subset of that pie interested in salvation. That means we have serious responsibilities toward making that a high priority. Being creative, trying new things, taking risks-those are luxuries that foundations can afford that churches might not be able to afford" in seeking to spread the gospel. Toward that end, the Mustard Seed Foundation makes hundreds of small donations-typically under $5,000-each year to churches and parachurch organizations around the world. Last year, the foundation made 318 donations totaling nearly $2 million in categories such as Acts of Mercy, Unreached Peoples, and Christian Discipleship and Training. The scope of those gifts was incredibly diverse: $700 to help a Bible college in Sri Lanka purchase books for its library; $1,000 to enable a church in Amman, Jordan, to establish a congregation for Iraqi refugees; $25,000 to support t

he planting of a Presbyterian church in New York's Greenwich Village; and $15,000 to print and distribute the Gospel of Luke in Arabic. Even the category of Empowerment, which can take on distinctly secular overtones at some foundations, remains evangelistically rooted at Mustard Seed. According to the 1995 annual report, "Grants in this category are targeted specifically for the empowerment of Christians. This is a function both of the biblical mandate to care for our brothers and sisters, and of our desire to equip Christians with the resources necessary to care for their communities in a similar manner." "We look for local church financial involvement," Mr. Nauta explains. "Local churches tell us which projects are highest priority to them by what they put their own money into." Last year, Mustard Seed matched church investment in empowerment projects such as $2,000 to help American Indians in New Mexico establish a jewelry production project and $6,000 to help Palestinian Christians start an income-generating fish farm that will provide educational scholarships for their children.

Karol Emmerich, another Gathering member, believes such an evangelistic emphasis is the rule rather than the exception among Christian philanthropists. Effective organizations distribute relief through the church rather than through government agencies or secular NGOs: "While [Christian donors] care about the poor in general, many want to make sure that the delivery mechanism is done by Christians so that you don't end up with a full belly and a lost soul." In addition to being a philanthropist in her own right, Mrs. Emmerich advises other believers seeking to be good stewards of the money that's been entrusted to them. In her role as consultant, she says she sees many differences between secular and sacred giving. For one thing, "Most secular philanthropists want their names on things. Secular people are often doing it for self-aggrandizement or peer pressure. Many Christians, on the other hand, just really give out of the spiritual gift that they have." Another difference is the proportion of their income that Christians give away. "The concept of sacrificial giving is not talked about in secular circles," Ms. Emmerich notes. "If you use the term, they don't know what you're talking about. I know few wealthy non-Christians who would consider giving away the majority of their wealth,"-a practice not uncommon among believers, she says. Finally, Mrs. Emmerich sees a difference in the types of causes supported by Christian vs. non-Christian philanthropists. "Many nonbelievers put a very large percentage of their donations into the arts. That's not where the bulk of Christian money goes. I'm seeing more support for conservative think tanks that aren't necessarily explicitly Christian, but support Christian values. Also, the breakdown of society and family has led to support for groups like the Council for National Policy, the Family Research Council, and Promise Keepers. That's a major wave." Craig Hammon sees other trends as well, most notably an increase in giving. He attributes this to baby-boomer Christians who have been successful in business and don't want to wait until they retire before they start giving money away. "I see more and more people my own age who view giving as an integral part of their work, what they do. They want to give while they can still enjoy it, and they have very firm opinions about how it should be done. In the past, wealthy retirees tended to open the mail and respond to requests. Now, baby boomers are much more likely to take the initiative themselves, and they demand a higher level of accountability for how their money is spent." Ultimately, though, Christian philanthropists believe that they themselves are accountable, too-accountable to the one who gave them their wealth and charged them with the responsibility of being faithful stewards. For some, that may mean defining more exactly just what it is that distinguishes them from their well-meaning neighbors who give merely out of human compassion, not spiritual passion. For his part, Craig Nauta of the Mustard Seed Foundation isn't even sure that "philanthropy" is the best word to describe what Christian giving is all about. "If you look at the root of the word, it has something to do with the love of mankind," he says. "That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth asking ourselves whether, as Christians, that's the proper focus of our love."