Visions of Charity: Volunteer Workers and Moral Community

Visions of Charity: Volunteer Workers and Moral Community. By Rebecca Anne Allahyari. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xiv + 285 pp. $45.00 (cloth); $17.95 (paper).

Since spending many nights proctoring at a homeless shelter in the 1980s, I have been fascinated by the variety of theological assumptions underlying ministries with the poor. Rebecca Anne Allahyari compares two distinct approaches in her study of the Salvation Army and Loaves and Fishes, a Catholic Worker offshoot, in Sacramento. Moving fluidly from sociological analysis to simple narrative, she brings both academic insight and personal realism to her study of volunteerism and homelessness.

Allahyari begins with brief sketches of the organizations' historical roots. The anarchist and "feminine" Catholic Worker movement makes no distinctions between worthy and unworthy poor, treating guests as ambassadors of God (p. 211). It contrasts markedly with the hierarchical, masculine, and militaristic model of the Salvation Army that stresses "social control and behavior modification" to encourage self-respect and a work ethic (p. 31). In an intriguing aside, she shows how Salvation Army practices can conflict with Alcoholics Anonymous principles even as the two work together (pp. 84-91).

Next Allahyari moves from visions of charity to its practice. The almost uniformly white, middle-class volunteers find their charitable values stretched by the radical vision of Loaves and Fishes. Most Salvation Army volunteers are draftees doing court-ordered service or clients starting a long climb toward respectability.

In the final section, Allahyari examines the organizations' relationships with government. The Salvation Army eagerly uses public funds; Loaves and Fishes never even seeks them. More interested in the interrelationship of personal charity and local and national politics, the leaders of Loaves and Fishes raise their voices against police brutality and in favor of more humane policies toward the homeless.

Allahyari's study leads to ambiguous conclusions. Some find the rigidity of the Salvation Army more helpful than the unconditional love of Loaves and Fishes (just as the discipline of the Nation of Islam has often been more effective in prison ministry than more liberal approaches). Guests at Loaves and Fishes tend to be the ones in greatest need of unconditional love; workers at the Salvation Army believe that Loaves and Fishes is not for employable men. Wheat for one poor person may be chaff to another. In relationships between volunteers and guests, commonality in race and class create greater rapport than a particular vision of charity, no matter how noble.

Visions of Charity might be most intriguing to those concerned with the ethical ramifications of volunteerism, strategies to alleviate homelessness, and the political complexity of faith-based charity. In a broader sense, it might also be of interest to anyone concerned with the complexity of human nature, transforming communities, and the moral person's relationship with the State. It suggests that until one vision of charity proves itself empirically to be the most effective, a multiplicity of practice may be the most judicious course to offer hope to a diverse group of persons in need.

GARY COMMINS

Holy Faith Church

Inglewood, California

Coordinator of the Episcopal Urban Intern Program

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Winter 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved