Click on the picture to see http://bible.cc/leviticus/19-13.htm
Confession: I’m not a very good atheist. I don’t believe in God, or heaven or hell or redemption or anything like that. But I also don’t believe that religion is a uniquely bad business that the world would be better rid of. I grew up, not within but alongside the low-church radicalism of the Salvation Army, where much of my extended family worship.
I know the hymns and I know the prayers and I know the good done by many Christians in the act of witness. Also, I can’t gamble. I bought a lottery ticket when I turned 16, and the guilt-spangled memory of that transgression against Sally Army morals has served me fine for a decade and a half. I don’t agree with Salvationist teaching on everything, but I admire the work that the Army and other Christian organisations have done particularly in combating poverty.
This means I have strong feelings about what comes next: the Salvation Army and fellow Christian charity the YMCA are supplying placements for Department for Work and Pensions-enforced mandatory work activity (otherwise known as “workfare”). For Symon Hill of the pressure group Christianity Uncut, this is a betrayal of their central mission: “Speaking personally, I wasn’t surprised by some of the charities involved in workfare, but I was genuinely shocked by Salvation Army,” he tells me.
Workfare requires jobseekers to undertake “work experience” for up to 30 hours a week over four weeks. The work is unpaid and the experience of uncertain value, but failure to complete a placement means forfeiting benefits. Workfare is coercive. It’s of dubious legality too, though the DWP has a fix for that: it’s attempting to retrospectively change the law so that those enrolled on the scheme can’t reclaim docked benefits.
This is a moral swamp, but it’s one the Salvation Army claims to be stepping into out of charity. “As a locally-based church and charity, devoted to serving God and showing unconditional Christian love to all, we offer support to help people become job-ready, to get a job and to stay in work,” says a statement on the Salvation Army’s website. “As such, we are involved in the work programme…” But the second part of that statement doesn’t follow from the first: the Salvation Army could help people become “job-ready” in any number of ways that don’t involve workfare.
It could offer interview coaching and support with applications. It could provide volunteer (rather than compulsory) work experience placements. It could do so many things that don’t make it complicit in a scheme that undermines both the autonomy of individuals in need and the underlying principles of the welfare state. The YMCA is similarly defensive: “We […] find it difficult to condemn any scheme which carries potential to help individuals gain new skills or prepare for future employment.”
But it’s not at all clear that workfare even works. After all, what skills is anyone really going to acquire from a placement in a charity shop? That’s where the Salvation Army placed 19-year-old Callum Kenny. He says he spent a week tagging clothes. Apparently, the role should have included advanced activities like “till operating” and “steam cleaning”, but they never materialised (the Boycott Workfare campaign has documented similar cases). Kenny looks after his disabled mother, and he was able to leave his placement when his carer’s allowance came through.
Those who rely on jobseeker’s allowance alone don’t have that freedom. The Salvation Army says: “We would be extremely concerned if a person turned down a mandatory work activity placement with The Salvation Army, because of any doubts they had about the support and welcome they will receive from us,” which is thoughtful, but misses the point that some people will have principled objections to working for a faith organisation. For example, the Army’s teaching on human sexuality is broadly tolerant, but then states: “marriage is a covenant between God and wife and husband.” It would be reasonable, I think, if a gay person objected to supporting an organisation that teaches the invalidity of their relationships. And though the Army states that they “don’t want any jobseekers to lose their benefits”, the Army doesn’t get to decide: it’s simply provided by the framework within which the DWP can impose penalties.
“Give to him that asketh thee” says Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. I don’t know my scripture so well, but I think that’s an assertion of the godliness of redistribution, rather than a call to comply with Iain Duncan Smith’s unpleasantness. This collaboration with the inhumanity of rulers seems like the opposite of “unconditional Christian love”. I wonder if the Salvation Army and YMCA can hear that voice of God over the clamour and cruelty of the DWP.
This article titled “Is workfare close to godliness? Some Christian charities seem to believe so” was written by Sarah Ditum, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 19th March 2013 11.00 Europe/London
