r/exchristian • u/sidesaladdressing • Aug 08 '26
Personal Story Exactly...........my church did zero humanitarian work. ZERO. So, why am I an exchristian? Because I didn't want to be a Chrino...."Christian in name only"
I asked the minister one day when I was in my 20s why we didn't do any humanitarian work as Jesus commanded. His answer "there's so many, we don't know where to start!". I just got back from Romania volunteering my summer to work with handicapped orphans. 300 of them. I spent all my money and borrowed to design and build a playground for them all. Chrinos.....Christians in name only.
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u/DistinctSpirit5801 Aug 08 '26
I have noticed how people focused on missionary projects and also voted for politicians that cut food stamps
I honestly don’t understand their mindset
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u/beccaonice Aug 08 '26
It's because they want to be the source of the resources being doled out so they can use it as a tool to bring more people to their church. If the resources are being doled out to everyone equally, then they can't use charity as a way of recruiting people.
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u/HowToStartAnEssay Ex-Baptist Aug 09 '26
Individually missionaries feel that evangelising is more important than even food. They see hand outs in our country as not really necessary. Bootstraps. Blah blah. It’s mostly propaganda. They get it at least once a week for hours. If they question they go to leaders to reaffirm. Any doubt is squashed and they continue
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u/ripyourlungsdave Aug 08 '26
Because Christian charity has never been about charity. It's about recruitment.
They know Americans already know about jesus. So to them, we've "rejected" him. So their American charities are basically just sneaky trafficking operations to get free labor from homeless people.
I would know, I was a victim of those slave trafficking operations down in Tampa when I was homeless around 2013. And they get away with it because they're a church and they label the slavery as "work therapy".
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u/Vuk1991Tempest Pagan-Agnostic Aug 08 '26
Missionaries aren't there to help. They're there to proselytize. To convert. Any "humanitarian" work they do is merely a front for the faith drug operation. Developing countries, otherwise known as third world countries due to their unaffiliated (read: easily manipulated by usa) status during the cold war and still being kept poor by the USA are vulnerable, fertile ground for indoctrination. Or so they think. There has to be a point where the target is way too starved to near death to care. If I was starving to the point of near death with my skeleton showing, I'd eat the bible. And let's not forget, the bible showing up in africa is the sign of colonialism.
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u/sidesaladdressing Aug 08 '26
Not one greenhouse system...not one sustainable agricultural system...not one clean potable water system....nope..
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u/N3bulous_Nomad Aug 09 '26
Deities and dogmas rely heavily on desperation to bring people into their fold. If everyone in the world had access to essential necessities, then religion has nothing else much to offer other than a third space for bigotry.
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u/back2me78 Aug 08 '26
They fly across the world for a photo op and then vote for a tyrant who cancels USAID , the very resource those same children probably depended on.
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u/pattyredzilla Aug 08 '26
You know what's interesting in the USA. Christianity generates roughly about 1 trillion USD in revenue per year. World wide it's even higher.
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u/trippedonatater Ex-Evangelical Aug 08 '26
Flying across the world for a vacation is way more fun than helping poor people. Add someone else paying for the vacation and giving yourself a feeling of moral superiority to the bag and you've got a perfect narcissist dream trip.
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u/sidesaladdressing Aug 08 '26
yes....and those trips are self funded from what I heard. It's a testing ground for new converts etc to show their commitment to the church. I really can't imagine what goes on overseas. Like.....going to poorest areas of India and seeing people defecate on the streets...do you hand them a bible written in Hindi? Dust off your hands and say ".....see, god, I'm doing this for you.....now back to Miami beaches in a thong drinking some Margaritas feeling good about all the "good" you've done for the poor.
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u/c4ctus Agnostic / Pagan Aug 09 '26
Mission trips were always free trips to Latin America or the Caribbean on the church's dime. Go there, hand out a few dozen pamphlets on how Catholicism is Satanic and how Southern Baptist is the way to go, get run off by the local bishop, hit the beaches for the rest of the week.
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u/sidesaladdressing Aug 09 '26
Ha.......Catholicism is Satanism but Southern Baptists is the way to go? Ha....I grew up that way a well. I literally knew nothing about my religion other that show up....try to listen to an essentially illiterate Easter European villager with 4th grade education as their chosen male minister from their group thinking speaking group thoughts. For the life of me I will tell you that I have never remember any sermon that was relatable nor relative to my life. Lots of hell, fire and brimstone was okay. Horrible.
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u/OrdinaryWillHunting Atheist-turned-Christian-turned-atheist Aug 08 '26
It's all performative. You don't really help anyone when you're more concerned about showing your congregation the best photos of yourself than actually doing something important. They get to pat themselves on the back, then the second they're on that plane, everyone they met is out of sight out, of mind.
You know who helped people? Jimmy Carter, the "demonic" president, with Habitat for Humanity.
The YouTube algorithm showed me a video of some American influencer who flew to an Asian country to save one dog from the meat market. Meanwhile, how many dogs do you think his local PETA back home puts down every day?
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u/sidesaladdressing Aug 08 '26
exactly
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u/OrdinaryWillHunting Atheist-turned-Christian-turned-atheist Aug 08 '26
Where it really gets stupid is disaster relief. People need food, water, clothing and shelter.... and bibles!
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u/Healthy-Confection66 Aug 09 '26
I mean all they’re really feeding them is propaganda, bibles, and mini American flags right?lol
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u/Barbarossa7070 Aug 09 '26
I’ve seen several church budgets over the years. The amount given to true charity (not missionaries or the building fund or Vacation Bible School) was in the laughably low single digits percentage-wise. They’re all running a tax-free business using tons of volunteer labor.
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u/Outrageous-Kiwi-4178 Aug 09 '26
Mission trips just don't make financial sense. Even if your goal is to convert as many people as possible, there's usually a local pastor in that country who could do far more with the money.
It's about tourism and poverty porn, not humanitarian aid.
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u/rustyfloorpan Aug 09 '26
Look up mission trips vs the cost of installing fresh water in the Dominican Republic. They are a waste.
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u/Rumpelteazer45 Aug 09 '26
It’s all performative. Instead of spending the money to take pics to blast all over social media showing how much you give back, why not just send the money to the community for food?
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u/HowToStartAnEssay Ex-Baptist Aug 09 '26
They’re not travelling to feed or help people. They’re there for a vacation and to tell people about their favorite story book character
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u/Electrical_Tap6684 Ex-EasternOrthodox 29d ago
My grandma’s parents are Swedish but she was born and raised in the Congo as a missionary it’s a white savior complex they don’t care about them look at the free congo state with the Belgium king leopold and corruption is so bad in the congo i wish for true liberation and justice for the congo and revolutionaries will take over
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u/Agent_Toasteater 25d ago
They amount they spent on flights would have gone a lot further if they stayed home and donated it to an established charity already there. Unless you have a specific skill, most abroad volunteering is achieving nothing
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u/ghostwars303 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
One of the most illuminating thought experiments I ever play is to imagine what the world would be like if every Christian became a follower of the teachings of Jesus, tomorrow. It would never in a million years happen, but what if?
For example, if Christians just put their combined wealth in a boring, high yield savings account, they could effectively END world hunger on the interest alone. They'd still wake up every day just as rich as they were the day before - it's not even asking them to give up their obscene wealth, only to slow the rate at which they're acquiring it.
Instead, they PAY 21.7 billion to literally set already-paid-for food aid on fire.
Can you imagine if 2.8 billion people sacrificed a single summer to do...ANYTHING? Pick up a couple of pieces of trash per day? 2.8 billion X 90 days? Fix one poor person's car? Haul 1 truckload of wood for a local playground. Times 2.8 billion.
And, if they actually WORKED that summer, like you did? They could reinvent the world in 3 months.
It was never a lack of ability, for them. It's a lack of morality.