Mother Theresa vs Christopher Hitchens

[Wissing]

It has been stated [1] that, according to Christopher Hitchens, Mother Theresa was wrong for not approving of birth control as a means of helping poor civilizations in 3rd world countries. (Rookiebatman, please correct me if that paraphrase is wrong). Hitchens thinks that Mother Theresa was neglecting root-level solutions in favor of fixing symptoms.

Is Hitchens correct in his assessment of Mother Theresa?



[1]ref:Are Christians Closed-Minded?

[rookiebatman]

I am not appealing to Teresa's authority - I am appealing to her depth of knowledge in dealing with the root causes of poverty.

But your claim (as I understand it) is that her actions, the ways she chose to help the poor, are a product of what her depth of knowledge taught her was the best way to help them. But the only way that's true is if she was actually trying to help them (physically) at all. And I'm saying that there are enough other quotes from her (not attributable to Hitchens) which clearly indicate that was not her intent. In that same National Prayer Breakfast speech, she said "We are not social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of some people, but we must be contemplatives in the heart of the world." So what does it matter how much depth of knowledge she had in dealing with the root causes of poverty, if she was not trying to deal with the root causes of poverty? I've seen no indication that she was, and plenty of indications that she deliberately wasn't. If that is the case, then her authority on the subject is moot.

Furthermore, there is no context for the quote that the world gains much from the suffering of the poor. By your own admission, this was traced back to Hitchens without independent verification. This means that there is no recorded context for the statement, and that assertion cannot be built upon.

There's no verification, but there is context. I already transcribed it in Post 4, I believe.

"Poverty's great" is not what Mother Teresa stood for, and that is an inappropriate interpretation of the quote.

Can you show me some quotes of hers that you would interpret as "poverty's not great?"

Do you not think that we can learn from the poor? That, though they are physically deprived, you and I are not just as deprived in some other way? Do you have no pain, no loneliness, no despondency?

So nobody should do anything to help their situation because they're neat little examples for us?

(And, to answer your point about Teresa's millions of dollars - if you think "millions" are a lot of money, try managing hundreds of charities in 25 different nations).

So why not take the money and spend it all on one charity that actually keeps people alive?

It would even be good "strategy" from the spiritual side of things. If you convert someone and then actually keep them alive, they can go out and convert other people. Converting people just before they die is kind of a waste of manpower in terms of evangelism.

It took years and years of experience for me to realize that practical needs are not the root of the problem. I never would have noticed, or even cared to notice the underlying spiritual problems in western society had I not gained this experience. I could not have understood this by reading about it - for I did read about it, and remained unconvinced for a long time.

But I already said that I agree with the "two-handed" approach (treating the physical and the spiritual). If you saying that helping the spiritual side of things is the only thing that matters, you're still ignoring the admonishment in James 2:16.

[Wissing]

Mother Teresa had other charities that did a ton of practical work too. This is covered in post 5, where I responded to the study you cited. Again, see page 117 of "A Simple Path". Poor hygiene is the price you pay for empowering locals instead of hiring overseas professionals.

Why not use the money on keeping more people alive? Because she wanted to start hospices instead. Perhaps that was her calling. Some people choose to be journalists, businessmen, lawyers, or engineers - there are plenty of other needs in our society. We can't all spend our money on emergency care. By accusing her of misusing funds by building hospices you are criticizing the very idea of hospice.

Before you say Mother Teresa didn't care about practical needs, I want you to read the biography I cited. This will take more than the one hour you took on the last post, but I think it will be well worth your time. It only took me a few hours to read it, and you can find it at your local library. If you can't, just let me know - I can ship it to you if you'd like.

As I've said before, there's no hurry. Take a week if you need. You don't have to respond immediately.

[lamar1234]

[Replying to post 1 by Wissing]

I think you mischaracterize Hitch's argument.

He characterized this woman's life and ministry not as a 'friend to the poor' but as a 'friend of poverty.'

Hitch accused her on numerous occasions of holding the belief that 'suffering is a gift from God.' The formulation could be based on numerous sayings of Jesus, specifically 'The meek shall inherit...' 'A camel shall pass through the eye of a......" even "the poor shall always be with us" can be used to justify avoiding solutions to help raise the impoverished out of their condition.

Either this was so or it wasn't. If she did hold this belief, then it seems reasonable to posit that someone who holding this belief would behave in certain ways not automatically in the poor's best interest.

[lamar1234]

[Replying to post 1 by Wissing]

In my opinion, the best way that the Hitch framed this was the Mother Teresa fought against what Hitch called 'the empowerment of women' her whole life.

Hitch asked "Has anyone been to Bengal or Calcutta, looked about and concluded that the thing needed was LESS birth-control?"

[Wissing]

Hey Lamar,

Sorry, I stopped watching this topic a while back. If you'd like to expand upon your opinions with counter-evidence equivalent to the research I provided above, I'd be happy to carry on the discussion. That is, if time permits.

Thanks!

[rookiebatman]

I know this is an old thread, and I don't post here anymore anyway, but I thought this was worth mentioning here. It's a letter from Mother Theresa to a judge presiding over the case of a guy who swindled people out of a quarter of a billion dollars, and Mother Theresa (who received seven-figure donations from him) is writing to ask the judge to be lenient toward her friend, the thief. The page also contains a letter to Mother Theresa from the prosecuting attorney of the case, informing her that the millions of dollars she received from this crook was not his to give, and it would be the most Christian thing for to return the money to the people who it rightfully belonged to.

She never replied.