'Charity begins at home'Do you agree?

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

‘Charity begins at home’

Do you agree?

The proverb ‘Charity begins at home’ is a very vague one. The proverb seems to have two words which can be perceived by different people in many different ways. These two words are ‘charity’ and ‘home’.

The word ‘charity’ can mean to some people, making an effort to help others. This can be seen as good because they are helping people but we do not know how they would mean to help people or who they would help. Others however, may see this word as being much more powerful and meaningful. They could see it as having to make a large sacrifice of something which is very valuable to you, in order to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. This sort of sacrifice could be something like giving up time, living without luxuries, donating a percentage of income to a charity or donating a sum of money which means a lot to you. Whatever people would sacrifice as their charity, whether small or big in your eyes, it would be large to these people because these are the ones who have seen the word ‘charity’ as a sacrifice. The sacrifice which they make is personal to them and will not mean the same to anybody else.

The word ‘home’ can be read by some to mean the physical building that they live in and the people and things which are in it, where as to others it would mean the whole worlds population. There are also people who could take ‘home’ as different sized areas such as your town, county, country and continent. Some people may think that if somebody said they thought of home as their house, they are selfish and not bothered of what is going on in other parts of the world. However, we must make sure that we are able to support ourselves before we go about trying to be God and support others. If we help others before we can look after ourselves then we will dig ourselves into a big hole which we won’t be able to get out of without the charity of somebody else and so it was pointless helping in the first place. When we make the decision to think of this proverb as meaning either a local or global area, we mustn’t forget one of the keywords within the proverb. This is the word ‘begin’. When we decide what we think the word ‘home’ means, we are not making a final decision on who we are going to give charity to and who we aren’t. We are merely saying that we think it is more important to sort out local issues like the homeless, elderly neighbours or near by school. We are by no means saying that we don’t show concern and aren’t going to help those who are living in poverty or need charity in other countries, but we will be saying that we will help them after we have got our local issues out of the way and sorted.

A person who would agree to the proverb ‘Charity begins at home’ is a doctor. A doctor would make sure that the patients in their local area are all well and healthy. This is a little different to some other types of people’s opinions because it is a doctor’s job and not his personal opinion. A bible quote which agrees with how I think a doctor would think of the proverb is ‘if one of your country men becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so ...

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A mother would most probably agree with this statement in my eyes. This is because she would want the best for her children and their future. She would want them to have the best opportunities that she is able to give them with the charity that she can give to them, local schools or clubs. This was shown in the bible quote ‘if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his immediate family he has denied the faith and is worse that an unbeliever’.

A person who I think would disagree to the proverb is a coloured person. This is because coloured people have stereotypically been compared and judged throughout history and so they would not want those who are less fortunate to be judged because of their wealth or health. They would want people be charitable towards those in developing areas away from your own home instead of judging them and thinking I is not going to give it to them because they are not going to help our environment by us giving it to them. What the coloured people are saying about people not judging others is in the bible quote ‘do not judge or you too will be judged’. Also, the coloured person may use the quote ‘treat others as you would like them to treat you’ to help their argument. If you take others as humans then if they would treat those less fortunate better then the whites woud treat the coloured people better. Another quote would be ‘there is no difference between Jews, Gentiles, between slaves and freemen; you are all one in union in Christ’

The likes of a Christian, I think would disagree to the proverb of ‘Charity begins at home’. This is because Christians believe that they have a duty and responsibility to look after and help those who are less fortunate than themselves. This means that they would be prepared to, or rather have to, help those who are in need of help, so long as they are a Christian and follow Jesus’ teachings. After all they are following a man who spread good throughout the world and they are following what he did so they must also teach of helping people and help those who are in need. Helping anybody who needs help is shown in the bible quote of ‘and he who has given us this command: whoever loves God must also love his brother’. In this quote, brother is used to represent fellow human beings. Another quote which shows how a man must love all others as God has loved him is ‘Love each other as I have loved you’. Also, these people will really want to help as many people as they can and have got motivation because they would not want to be seen as if their faith was dead. This can be supported from the bible quote ‘Faith, if not accompanied by action, is dead’.

Anybody who shows agape love is disagreeing to the proverb ‘Charity begins at home’. Jesus showed agape love and also he showed charity to anybody and everybody. This tells us that those who show agape love will be being charitable. Agape love is about making a sacrifice for somebody that you may not know or may dislike for certain reasons. That is why when you are charitable, you are showing agape love. You may not know who you are being charitable towards but you are making a sacrifice for them. That is what makes it so special. Jesus showed us agape love in The Parable of The Good Samaritan in the bible. That is what we humans should all be doing if we are to get those in poverty and ill health out of poverty and ill health.

The good thing about agreeing with this statement is that it is said that if one area moves out of poverty, another moves into poverty. Therefore you could argue that you must look after yourself if you are going to stay in wealth and have a good standard of living. People would say that you are letting those who are less fortunate suffer but in fact you are merely making sure that you have a stable surrounding for your family and loved ones. They would argue that what is the point of helping somebody if it is going to cause somebody else to suffer as well. There cannot be a balance of suffering in developing and developed areas but there will be one area with far less suffering than another.

I personally believe that charity does start at home. This is because you have got to make sure you are in a stable environment before you can help others. I don’t mean that you can have luxuries and buy what you like but I think that you should have the money to be able to be healthy, buy food and keep warm. Once you are established and have enough to keep healthy, I think that u can start to give charity to the poor. Once you have got your local area, or the area which you call home which is in my case, my village, sorted, I think that you can put your maximum time, effort and in general the biggest sacrifice possible into helping those less fortunate. I don’t think that when you extend your charity area, you forget your origin area like my village but you must both give charity and be charitable towards those living and working in all areas of the world that need it. So long as people make sure they give as much to charity as they possibly can, whilst still having a suitable lifestyle, I think that nobody can accuse anybody of allowing deaths to happen within the world which could have been prevented.

Ross Fletcher