Giving that worked

Wealth and Poverty | With "work tests" for the able-bodied and disdain for indiscriminate givers, Christians in the past fought urban poverty with generosity plus discernment | Marvin Olasky

Lewis Wickes Hine/Corbis

Christians want to be generous, and that's as it should be. But we can learn from our predecessors who emphasized that generosity is only the first step. If we act without discernment, our generosity may actually be selfishness that gives ourselves a warm glow but hurts others.

We can learn from the oldest charity still existing in the United States, the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, founded in 1657. The Society from its start resolved to "open the bowells of our compassion" but to make sure that "no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein." They viewed poor people not as standing at the bottom of a ladder but halfway up, capable of ascending to independence and even wealth if they saw themselves as created in God's image and were willing to live and work accordingly, but likely to descend into abject dependence and despair if they started to see themselves as animals.