The Singer challenge

Why don’t Christians give to help the poor? | Marvin Olasky

How would you respond to a declaration by a famous atheistic philosopher that he gives over 10 percent of his income to anti-poverty efforts, followed by a challenge: Since the Bible says so much about helping the poor, why don't more Christians go and do likewise? Yes, it's time again to thank Princeton's Peter Singer (WORLD, Nov. 27, 2004, and Oct. 25, 2005) for pushing worldmagblog.com readers to offer five kinds of responses.

Some wrote that Mr. Singer (a defender of infanticide, euthanasia, bestialism, and necrophilia) must have public-relations reasons for giving: "Mr. Singer is getting something out of telling us all about his charity. He can be proud now. . . . He can feel good about it and that is a reward, too." That argument, in essence, goes as follows: Princeton gives him a large salary for promoting monstrous ideas but he may not want to be seen as a monster, so he does the equivalent of buying himself a nice meal with his ill-gotten gains and leaving a large tip.