Effective Compassion vs. Effective Altruism

Earlier this month, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to fraud after the shocking collapse of his multibillion-dollar crypto exchange company FTX. It’s a complicated case, but the central allegation is that Bankman-Fried used money from one of his businesses to pay the debts of a different one, defrauding investors and customers. The fallout has been incredible. Some estimates place what he owes investors at up to 8 billion dollars. 

As he tells the story, 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried never set out to be a billionaire business tycoon. While in college at MIT, he was approached by William MacAskill, a well-known philosopher, professor, and author, who encouraged Bankman-Fried to join a movement of philosophers and philanthropists called Effective Altruism. 

Most effective altruists deny the existence of both a Creator and that the universe has any ultimate purpose, although there are some who claim to be Christians. Most believe that human beings are here by chance, but as long as we are here, we have a moral duty to alleviate the suffering of the most people possible. Mostly, this is meant in a mathematical sense. 

Allegedly, MacAskill convinced the promising young techie that he had a responsibility to make as much money as possible and give a lot of it away. After all, not everyone can become a billionaire investor, and even fewer would become charitable billionaire investors. Sam Bankman-Fried believed he could and decided he would, often talking about causes as diverse as supplying mosquito nets for malaria-vulnerable areas to protecting the world from killer robots. 

This focus on consequences, rooted in an ethical theory known as utilitarianism, is a first concern with Effective Altruism. In this view, a good end justifies any means. Effective Altruism tends to measure “good ends” in terms of the number of deaths prevented. Of course, protecting vulnerable life is also a biblical value, rooted in a belief that every human being has inherent dignity and eternal value. However, in a biblical view, a life is not only measured by its length. How we live matters as well. 

Ethical utilitarian Peter Singer, also a self-described “Effective Altruist,” has a favorite thought experiment. If you see a small child drowning in a pond, should you always jump in to help? What if you were wearing a new pair of expensive shoes that might be ruined in the mud? The correct response, of course, is that a child should always be prioritized over shoes. Based on this hypothetical, Singer preaches that it’s therefore wrong to ever buy nice shoes because that money could be used to prolong life somewhere.  

This kind of moral reasoning often leads to prioritizing human life en masse over human lives in particular. Certainly, we ought to work to prevent as many deaths as we can. Preventing and treating malaria, for example, is to address the No. 1 killer of human beings in the history of the world. However, it’s essential to remember that human life has infinite value because every human life has infinite value. Thus, the effectiveness of our compassion cannot be adequately measured only in totals. 

Measuring the effectiveness of Effective Altruism requires an omniscience that human beings simply do not have. In Singer’s thought experiment, we are able to see the boy in the pond. However, we’re not able to see whether or not employment, economic mobility, and community development would have led to a fence around the pond, better schooling opportunities, or some other positive developments that could prevent future drownings or perhaps even this one. In this view, anything less than knowing everything makes living a moral life impossible. The result is kind of like a parent telling a stubborn child to eat his or her dinner because a different child is starving on the other side of the world, as if the two scenarios are related. 

A Christian moral vision does not reduce humanity or humans to a math equation. As ethicist and theologian Oliver O’Donovan has put it, “to love everybody in the world equally is to love nobody very much.” Rather, as Paul instructed the church at Corinth, real good is brought to the world when we each “lead the life that the Lord has assigned. …” In this view, an expensive alabaster jar of perfume poured on the head of Jesus, rather than being sold to help the poor, is not wasted. A widow’s mite can have infinite value, while a multimillion-dollar collaboration of government charities that prop up dictators, corruption, and horrific evils could bring more harm than good. 

This call, to steward the gifts God gives us for His ends and in His way, motivates the “Hope Awards,” given each year by our friends at WORLD News Group to nonprofit organizations that not only have worthy goals but also successfully employ moral methods. WORLD calls this “effective compassion.” The kind of wisdom we need to help without hurting God gives generously and does not require omniscience, at least not from us. 

Written By: John Stonestreet and Maria Baer

Source: Breakpoint

Kindness is Not Weakness

Years ago, when I was serving as a preaching pastor in a church, I was approached by an eleven year-old in our congregation who wanted to introduce me to his friend, Jared. Jared was on his soccer team, and had never been to church before. After a few minutes of talking, Jared told me that he needed prayer, that his Dad had left, and he didn’t know what his family was going to do. He wondered if I might pray that God would “put my Mom and Dad back together.” I prayed with him, and he turned to go back to his seat. He was wearing a shirt celebrating the inauguration of a President who was unpopular with most of the people in my mostly white, blue-collar congregation. As I watched this young man walk down his first-ever church aisle, to hear the gospel perhaps for the first time, a middle-aged man walked past him and huffed, “We need to get you a better shirt.”

I was incredulous. I wanted to yell, “He’s lost. He’s wounded. He’s hurting. He doesn’t know Christ, and you’re worried about this shirt!” My church member was lacking the full context, and he didn’t ask. All he knew was that he didn’t like the President on the boy’s shirt. I wondered how often I’ve done the same thing. How often have I fought the fight I saw in front of me, instead of the one that was really there to be fought.

The Lord’s servant is not quarrelsome, Paul commands. This is part of a more comprehensive gospel reality: as we are conformed to Christ we seek to diminish ourselves, and, by the Spirit, to live more the life of Christ within us. That’s why Paul told Timothy he must “patiently endure evil” (2 Tim. 2:24). Quarrelsomeness, the desire to fight for the sake of fighting, is a sign of pride. How often are our most bitter, sarcastic clashes with those who disagree with us less about persuading them and more about vindicating ourselves? This is especially true when we fear that those who oppose us think we’re stupid or evil (or both). We want to prove to them, and to ourselves, that they are wrong about us. That’s quite a different spirit from the Spirit of Christ.

Our Christ does not “cry aloud or lift up his voice,” and neither does he “grow faint or be discouraged, till he has established justice in the earth” (Isa. 41:2, 4). Jesus doesn’t defend himself against personal offenses, and he doesn’t allow injustice to stand without shining light upon it. This is because Jesus has a broader vision of what’s going on. Jesus doesn’t blink before Pilate because he knows, ultimately, he is setting the agenda, not Pilate (Jn. 18:36-37). This is not because Jesus doesn’t’ see the fight before him, but because he sees a bigger, more seemingly intractable, fight in the distance. Kindness and gentleness grow, not when we downplay warfare, but when we emphasize it. For Paul, kindness is not politeness. It’s a weapon in spiritual warfare. We teach and rebuke with kindness and gentleness, so that “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to his will” (2 Tim. 2:25-26).

The Scriptures, we know, present a picture of the universe as a war zone, with the present age a satanic empire being invaded by the rival kingdom of Jesus. Talk of such realities rise and fall in the history of the church, oscillating between preoccupation and embarrassment. The church around the world—especially in what sociologist Philip Jenkins calls the Global South—grasps the kind of demon-haunted universe presented in the Scriptures. But many North American and Western European Christians wince at the “spiritual warfare” novels of the previous generation, with invisible angels and demons duking it out over small town America. We cringe at the latest television faith healer describing the demons that were persecuting him right around the time he was caught with the cocaine and the prostitutes. Many liberal Protestant churches excised “Onward Christian Soldiers” and other such “martial” hymns years ago. They are not the only ones. When was the last time you heard an evangelical praise chorus speaking of the war against the satanic powers?

Listen to Christian media or attend a “faith and values” rally, and you’ll hear plenty of warfare speech. Unlike past “crusades,” however, such language is directed primarily at people perceived to be cultural and political enemies. If we are too afraid of seeming inordinately Pentecostal to talk about the Devil, we will find ourselves declaring war against mere concepts, like “evil” or “sin.” When we don’t oppose demons, we demonize opponents. And without a clear vision of the concrete forces we as the church are supposed to be aligned against, we find it very difficult to differentiate between enemy combatants and their hostages.

The Scriptures command us to be gentle and kind to unbelievers, not because we are not at war, but because we’re not at war with them (2 Tim. 2:26). When we see that we are warring against principalities and powers in the heavenly places, we can see that we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12). The path to peace isn’t through bellicosity or surrender, but through fighting the right war (Rom. 16:20). We rage against the Reptile, not against his prey.

We hear many calls, from across the religious and political spectrum, for civility. But civility is not enough. Civility is a neutral ground, a sort of mutual non-aggression pact, where we agree to respect one another and not to belittle one another. That’s important, and a good start, but that’s not enough. Just as we are not for “toleration” of those who religiously disagree with us but for “liberty,” so we should not be for mere civility, but for, from our end, kindness. Civility is passive; kindness is active and strategic.

The gospel commands us to speak, and that speech is often forceful. But a prophetic witness in the new covenant era never stops with “You brood of vipers!” It always continues on to say “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” We make arguments, even as we understand that arguments are merely the equivalent of brush-clearing, to get to the main point: a personal connection with the voice that rings down through the ages from Nazareth. We want not simply to convey truth claims, but to do so with the northern Galilean accent that makes demons squeal and chains fall. Kindness isn’t surrender. Gentleness isn’t passivity. Kindness and gentleness, when rooted in gospel conviction, that’s war.

Source: Crosswalk

Written By: Russell Moore

The Most Valuable Family Foundation - Love Worth Finding

Deuteronomy 6:4-7

Sermon: 1918 The Divine Design, Part 1

Pray Over This

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-7

Ponder This

The marriage relationship is meant to be the most intimate of all human relationships. The word intimate comes from the Latin word intimus which means “inmost.” Marriage is where we share the inmost part of our natures with another person. When we don’t build our homes on God’s definition of intimacy, we see that homes unravel and fall apart.

Somewhere years ago, I read about a city that had a landfill. After it was filled, an enterprising entrepreneur bought it from the city authorities. He went out there and began to haul dirt on top of the garbage. After he had covered it with dirt, he laid it out into a subdivision, and it became a beautiful sight for homes. Young couples moved in, and bought those homes and it was a wonderful community. Little children were riding around on their tricycles. Everything was fine for a number of years, until the walls in those houses began to sag and roofs began to crack, and the subsoil gave way. After a while families moved out, and it was deserted. The community was built on garbage, and it could be hidden for a little while, but the truth became evident.

This is what happens to us often—we try to build our homes on garbage. We don’t understand the truth of God’s Word. One wise man said, “When the bottom falls out, maybe you ought to examine the foundation.” This is a question that matters: What did God intend for the family?

• What are some things that influenced your family?

• What would it look like to have a family built on Christ’s foundation?

Practice This

Pray for five families you know and ask God to build their families on His foundation.

Source: Crosswalk

Written By: Adrian Rogers

The Heart of Fasting

The fasts . . . will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace. Zechariah 8:19

Hunger pangs gnawed at my nerves. My mentor had recommended fasting as a way to focus on God. But as the day wore on, I wondered: How did Jesus do this for forty days? I struggled to rely on the Holy Spirit for peace, strength, and patience. Especially patience.

If we’re physically able, fasting can teach us the importance of our spiritual food. As Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Yet, as I learned firsthand, fasting on its own doesn’t necessarily draw us closer to God!

In fact, God once told His people through the prophet Zechariah that their practice of fasting was useless since it wasn’t leading to service for the poor. “Was it really for me that you fasted?” God asked pointedly (Zechariah 7:5).

God’s question revealed that the primary problem wasn’t their stomachs; it was their cold hearts. By continuing to serve themselves, they were failing to draw closer to God’s heart. So He urged them, “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor” (vv. 9–10).

Our goal in any spiritual discipline is to draw closer to Jesus. As we grow in likeness to Him, we’ll gain a heart for those He loves.

By:  Tim Gustafson

Source: Our Daily Bread

Giving Our Souls a Tune Up

I’m smiling as I remember my dad’s best efforts to teach me how to give my ’67 Chevy a tune-up. 

That Chevy was the first car I ever owned, and my dad wanted me to learn a few things. I can honestly say that almost nothing I learned is helpful to car maintenance now. No one I know owns a timing light or changes their own spark plugs and filters. In fact, I don’t even know where the spark plugs are in my car today! Now, I drop my car off at the dealer when the “Maintenance Needed” light comes on. 

I’m smiling because there are more important lessons I learned from my dad’s advice. Dad helped me understand maintenance was important if I wanted to keep my car in good shape. In a lot of ways, my dad helped me write this blog post today. 

We understand our cars need maintenance. We spend the time and pay the cost because we don’t want to get stranded somewhere. We can apply that same principle to our souls as well. 

If your life is sluggish and not responding to God’s will, you might need a spiritual tune-up today. 

WHEN MAINTENANCE IS NEEDED 

It would be nice if something in our lives would flash with the words “Maintenance Needed” like our cars do today. We are a lot more like a ’67 Chevy. We have to notice the sluggishness, the slowness to start, and the “wrong noises” that indicate the need for a tune-up. My dad could just listen to engine noises and know there was a problem, and he usually knew how to fix it. 

It would be nice if there could be a “Maintenance Needed” light that would flash in our spiritual lives, but there are indicators:

• Has your witness grown sluggish? 

• Are you a little more difficult to “start” when the Spirit prompts you? 

• Is your prayer life making some strange noises . . . maybe a little too full of self-absorbed rattles and clunks instead of purring along? 

It’s better to fix the problems we notice than break down somewhere. 

God created our souls to run like a perfectly tuned engine: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We are God’s possession and he wants to keep us running well. But, he also waits for us to respond to the warnings and bring our cars to the shop! 

THE DEALER HAS THE BEST SERVICE DEPARTMENT 

A lot of places can do routine maintenance. It’s fairly easy to find someone who can change wiper blades, replace an air filter, or rotate the tires. But, if something inside the engine is not working, we know the dealership has the most specialized care. 

We take our souls for weekly maintenance to church or Bible study each week. Don’t you notice how much easier it is to treat people with kindness and put others first after spending time in worship? We are cleaned up and running more smoothly after a helpful sermon and time of worship.  

Routine maintenance is essential to almost everything in life. Our souls were meant to run on “daily bread,” our time with God each day. If you are reading this blog post, you are probably someone who understands that we need to keep our souls maintained by the daily disciplines of Bible study and prayers. The daily maintenance means we can keep our lives running more smoothly, and Sundays are a great boost to our daily routines. But, there are times when things in life require more help than our routines provide.  

My car has a need for significant maintenance at certain mileage markers. It’s expensive, time-consuming, and rarely “good news.” But, I pay the price because it almost guarantees I will avoid the breakdowns. When the dealer tells me I need to do significant maintenance, I do it. 

Our Dealer knows what is needed in our lives. He manufactured us and knows what is necessary to keep us running. It is good to know we need regular maintenance and care for our souls that way. But, when was the last time you submitted your soul for the more complete work, the work that only the dealer can accomplish? 

That kind of maintenance will come at a cost. It will cost you more time and effort and will be more of a sacrifice than just a Sunday morning service or daily devotions. When is the last time you left your regular routine to spend a significant time away with the Lord?  

If things aren’t running smoothly in your life, it could be time to take more time and submit your life to the One who created it.  

Jesus was preaching, healing, and creating a great stir in the synagogues. The Pharisees had begun to take notice of him and Luke wrote that “they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus” (Luke 6:11). Jesus, our example, knew he needed God’s divine wisdom and help. Luke writes, “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God” (v. 12).  

Even as I type those words I feel a sense of conviction. When last did I retreat from the world and my daily routines to spend an extended amount of time with God? 

Is it time for the “extended maintenance?” 

The dealer/manufacturer will need us for more time in order to do more work, and it will require a greater cost. But, have you ever noticed how much better your car runs after those times of maintenance? Our souls will experience greater benefits as well. 

ONE CAR WILL LAST A LIFETIME 

I’m not sure how many cars I will drive in my lifetime. I was in my forties when I bought my first new car. I kept it a decade, did all the suggested maintenance, and it never did break down. I’m now driving my second version of that car! My ’67 Chevy will always be dear to my heart because it was my first car and I worked hard to be able to buy it. But, I’m glad I can drive a better car these days, and I am careful to take good care of it.  

We only have one soul because that is all we will ever need. The first choice we ever made was to allow Jesus to buy our souls back for God, from the world. But, for the rest of our lives, we will choose to maintain what Jesus bought and has promised to continue to make new. 

We have been given one life, but it is all we need if it is eternal. I’m so glad I exchanged my old ’67 Chevy for something better. I’m glad I exchanged my old life for something better as well. My soul is eternal, and I want it to run as well as possible on earth and in heaven. I’m glad for the warning lights that remind me when maintenance is needed. It’s good to know life will run more smoothly with his care. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). One day these cars of ours will roll through the pearly gates and we will realize they are “maintenance free.” 

Until then, we need help from our mechanic. He is waiting to care for our souls. Do you need to do some routine maintenance or schedule an extended visit? He is always at work and always able to get you back on the road.  

But, we also have a lot to look forward to. One day when our journey is complete, it will feel great to pull into the garage, see my dad and my Dad, and know I am safely and forever, home!

By: Janet Denison

Source: Foundations With Janet