Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others…But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret – Matthew 6:1-4.
While the bushfire crisis in Australia has seen Australians respond with their characteristic generosity, it has also sparked an unseemly game of one-upmanship, especially among the media-elite and in the sewers of social media. Like the hypocrites in the Bible, too many people are jumping on their little social-media stumps to trumpet their own moral virtue and smear and belittle others – who, oddly enough, seem invariably to be the standard targets of the left-elite.
What should be a unifying moment has become yet another platform for the left-elite’s Two Minutes of Hate.
Philanthropists Andrew and Nicola Forrest have made a $70m pledge to fight and prevent bushfires — and to help victims — as social media bickered over who has donated and how much.
The Forrests announced on Thursday that the charitable organisation they created, Minderoo Foundation, would give $10m to mobilise specialist volunteers from Western Australia, $10m for immediate bushfire recovery and a $50m investment to developing “a holistic assessment and blueprint of what Australia needs to do to improve resilience”.
Despite being one of Australia’s most generous philanthropists, Forrest is a regular Goldstein for the left. He might be extraordinarily generous (especially to indigenous causes), but Forrest is a mining magnate who is sceptical of the climate change narrative. Cue the torches and pitchforks.
But, if the left-elite hate Forrest, they hate Gina Rinehart infinitely more.
The donation came after a spokesman for Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, was prompted to issue a statement saying the billionaire preferred to make her donations privately.
Mrs Rinehart had apparently done so at a function for fire relief at her home on Tuesday, the same day comedian Celeste Barber named her in a tweet and wrote, “If you’re in Hawaii on a family holiday, I’m going to flip a f..king table”.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/bushfire-recovery-billionaire-couple-andrew-and-nicola-forrest-donate-70m/
Barber has to be credited for starting an appeal that has raised nearly $50m – which makes it even more disgraceful that she then uses it as a platform for spewing idiotic leftist hate.
Many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites…“Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood” – Mark 12:41-44.
Unlike Rinehart, who has largely observed the injunction to make her giving private, too many wealthy business people, and celebrities especially, are using the bushfires to trumpet their own assumed moral goodness.
The moral rule about keeping philanthropy private is not just some musty Christian moralism, either. Many wealthy philanthropists have criticised their peers for being too cynically eager to make their charity all about them.
AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, a generous (if quiet) philanthropist, once reprimanded other celebrities for their self-aggrandising: “I’m sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done…Do a charity gig, fair enough, but not on worldwide television,” he said. “I do it myself, I don’t tell everybody I’m doing it.”
Johnson’s “worldwide television” comment seems to be a jab at the massive celebrity fundraisers such as Live Aid, which AC/DC turned down. The Smiths, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Rod Stewart also declined. Depeche Mode noted that many Live Aid participants not coincidentally enjoyed massively increased sales, post-Live Aid, and questioned the motive behind making such a public display of generosity.
Charity should be a matter of giving without thought of reward, not an excuse to publicly signal your own moral superiority.
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