Telegraph.co.uk, March 15th, 2011
Megachurch pastor condemned for calling quake “God’s warning” to Japan
Asked to comment on the Japanese earthquake disaster in a Sunday interview, Yoido Full Gospel Church senior pastor David Yonggi Cho told the online newspaper, News Mission, that, “Japan sees a lot of earthquakes, and I think it is regrettable that there has been such an enormous loss of property and life due to the earthquake.” [The South Korean pastor] then added, “Because the Japanese people shun God in terms of their faith and follow idol worship, atheism, and materialism, it makes me wonder if this was not God’s warning to them.”
Personally if I were a deity I’d want my people to spend their time developing some of the most awesome high-tech gadgets the world’s ever seen; it’s the chaps who run around squabbling over the minutiae of ancient books I’d strike down. But it’s probably that kind of attitude that holds me back as a mere mortal.
But across the 38th parallel, even the North Koreans have been moved:
North Korea’s state-run media said Monday that the North’s Red Cross sent a message of sympathy to its Japanese counterpart, a rare move considering the communist state has remained quiet on the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.
“Jang Jae-on, chairman of the DPRK Red Cross Society, Monday sent a message of sympathy to Konoe Tadateru, president of the Japan Red Cross Society,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Pleasing, but Japan needs more than sympathy, it needs help and money, of which the North Koreans have even less. Now’s the time to start digging in our pockets, and the Taiwanese government has already splashed out with a pledge of $300,000 to help the Japanese. But $300,000? That won’t even cover U2’s rider for the benefit gig.
In contrast, earlier today Cardinal Keith O’Brien criticised the Foreign Secretary for doubling overseas aid to Pakistan, to more than £445m, when that country has such a poor record towards its Christian minorities. “To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld and those who speak up for religious freedom are gunned down is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy,” he said.
Pakistan now tops the list of British aid recipients, and has had its total boosted in the recent review, along with Ethiopia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh. The Cardinal is right, of course, but the real question is not whether it’s wrong to fund countries which mistreat their Christians, but whether aid actually helps.
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell recently said: “I believe that the millions of pounds given around the world will make this country proud”, and that spending on aid was “not only from the British people but for the British people. It contributes to building a strong, more prosperous and safer world”. In a sense that is true, although not in a way he means. It’s for the British people in the sense that giving makes us feel good – but it doesn’t always help.
Aid has been found in numerous studies to fuel corruption, especially if those countries are divided between various factions, and so preventing development. DR Congo rates 164th on the Transparency International index of corruption, Pakistan is 143rd, Nigeria and Bangladesh are joint 134th (God, if you’re level with Nigeria in the corruption stakes, you’ve got problems) and Ethiopia is 116th. Japan is 17th, ahead of both the UK and USA. And although Japan is considerably wealthier than any of those third-world hell-holes (I mean the first five, not Britain and America), it is almost certainly money better spent.
International disaster relief aid is usually ineffective, and does not reach the right places, which is why one columnist argues we should not give to Japan. But the problem is often corruption, and Japan is perhaps the first uncorrupt country in modern times to require huge financial aid; and so this is the first international emergency where we can be confident the money really won’t end up in Switzerland.
Megachurch pastor condemned for calling quake “God’s warning” to Japan
Asked to comment on the Japanese earthquake disaster in a Sunday interview, Yoido Full Gospel Church senior pastor David Yonggi Cho told the online newspaper, News Mission, that, “Japan sees a lot of earthquakes, and I think it is regrettable that there has been such an enormous loss of property and life due to the earthquake.” [The South Korean pastor] then added, “Because the Japanese people shun God in terms of their faith and follow idol worship, atheism, and materialism, it makes me wonder if this was not God’s warning to them.”
Personally if I were a deity I’d want my people to spend their time developing some of the most awesome high-tech gadgets the world’s ever seen; it’s the chaps who run around squabbling over the minutiae of ancient books I’d strike down. But it’s probably that kind of attitude that holds me back as a mere mortal.
But across the 38th parallel, even the North Koreans have been moved:
North Korea’s state-run media said Monday that the North’s Red Cross sent a message of sympathy to its Japanese counterpart, a rare move considering the communist state has remained quiet on the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.
“Jang Jae-on, chairman of the DPRK Red Cross Society, Monday sent a message of sympathy to Konoe Tadateru, president of the Japan Red Cross Society,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Pleasing, but Japan needs more than sympathy, it needs help and money, of which the North Koreans have even less. Now’s the time to start digging in our pockets, and the Taiwanese government has already splashed out with a pledge of $300,000 to help the Japanese. But $300,000? That won’t even cover U2’s rider for the benefit gig.
In contrast, earlier today Cardinal Keith O’Brien criticised the Foreign Secretary for doubling overseas aid to Pakistan, to more than £445m, when that country has such a poor record towards its Christian minorities. “To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld and those who speak up for religious freedom are gunned down is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy,” he said.
Pakistan now tops the list of British aid recipients, and has had its total boosted in the recent review, along with Ethiopia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh. The Cardinal is right, of course, but the real question is not whether it’s wrong to fund countries which mistreat their Christians, but whether aid actually helps.
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell recently said: “I believe that the millions of pounds given around the world will make this country proud”, and that spending on aid was “not only from the British people but for the British people. It contributes to building a strong, more prosperous and safer world”. In a sense that is true, although not in a way he means. It’s for the British people in the sense that giving makes us feel good – but it doesn’t always help.
Aid has been found in numerous studies to fuel corruption, especially if those countries are divided between various factions, and so preventing development. DR Congo rates 164th on the Transparency International index of corruption, Pakistan is 143rd, Nigeria and Bangladesh are joint 134th (God, if you’re level with Nigeria in the corruption stakes, you’ve got problems) and Ethiopia is 116th. Japan is 17th, ahead of both the UK and USA. And although Japan is considerably wealthier than any of those third-world hell-holes (I mean the first five, not Britain and America), it is almost certainly money better spent.
International disaster relief aid is usually ineffective, and does not reach the right places, which is why one columnist argues we should not give to Japan. But the problem is often corruption, and Japan is perhaps the first uncorrupt country in modern times to require huge financial aid; and so this is the first international emergency where we can be confident the money really won’t end up in Switzerland.
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