Boxes for Jesus
Canadian students become unwitting Christian soldiers
BY Valerie Mutton
Every holiday season, children from approximately 1,100 public and Catholic schools across Canada assemble shoeboxes packed with toys, school supplies and other items that have been donated by the students as part of Operation Christmas Child (OCC). These shoeboxes are then sent to needy children. But what sounds like a worthwhile program is actually turning many unknowing Canadian children into good Christian soldiers.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical organization headed by Billy Graham’s son, Franklin. It sends the shoeboxes to foreign, often predominantly Muslim, countries that have been identifi ed for Christian proselytizing. The boxes are then distributed at a celebration of Jesus where children receive a storybook about him called The Greatest Gift of All and are encouraged to enrol in a Bible study course.
Amie Gosselin of OCC Canada says that while kids receive the shoeboxes unconditionally, the organization only gives the Christian storybooks out where it is culturally appropriate to do so, a decision that is made with help from community leaders. However, as a 2007 Samaritan’s Purse Special Report on OCC demonstrates, those unconditional shoeboxes are clearly designed to be an icebreaker for Christian conversion. The report examines what happens when the shoeboxes are distributed at an African school where lessons are based strictly on the Quran.
“Ordinary evangelism in such a school would have been virtually impossible,” it states. “However, the headmaster was so delighted by the gifts that he also gave permission for each child to take home a gospel storybook … Pastor Nuoh says it is crucial to reach this generation of children with the gospel, given the pervasive Islamic infl uence on the city.”
With statements such as that one it’s no surprise that OCC has its share of detractors. One critic, Darren Lund, a professor of education at the University of Calgary, says OCC should be more forthright about its intentions, and that clearly “the shoeboxes are a tool to convert children of other faiths.”
OCC claims it is open with schools about its purpose. “We are a Christian organization, and we want to share that joy with others,” says Benjamin Bowler, communication adviser for OCC Canada. But details about those intentions are reduced to just a one-sentence statement in the pamphlet that is sent home with students. While the organization’s website does go into more detail, parents who don’t do their research can easily believe this program is just about helping needy children.
Many educators, as well, haven’t read that one sentence. “For us, the shoeboxes are the main focus,” says Patrick Rocco, the principal at Orchard Park Secondary School in Stoney Creek, Ontario. “If there was an ulterior motive, it didn’t come across to us in our research.”
According to Ontario’s Ministry of Education, it is local school boards that are responsible for determining what charities a school associates itself with. But OCC’s religious background is news, too, to the Hamilton-Wentworth Board of Education, which administers Orchard Park School. “I would be inclined to take this issue to the policy committee of the board to see if there was a policy about it,” says Robert Barlow, a trustee for the Hamilton-Wentworth Board of Education, upon learning of the evangelical component to the shoebox program.
Good plan.
