DONOR FATIGUE, NOT TO SAY COLLAPSE, is fast becoming a major
problem for many nonprofit organizations. Due to the crisis on Wall
Street and the recession on Main Street, giving to good causes is
in precipitous decline. As the year end approaches, fear looms
large in many finance departments of nonprofits. I know this
because I am directly or indirectly associated with nine of them,
all doing admirable work in the field of Christian ministry and
charity. Of these, the two least affected are experiencing a 25
percent drop in their donor income; the two worst hit may have to
close down; and the rest are struggling. However, there are
occasional exceptions to this downward spiral. They tend to be
family foundations whose principals, for one reason or another,
have decided not merely to weather the storm but to chart new
courses of increased giving.
One such counter-cyclical nonprofit is the McDonald Agape
Foundation (MAF), which is expanding its support for Christian
scholars, professorial chairs, and education programs in leading
universities such as Harvard, Yale, Duke, and Emory. This fall MAF
opened its latest benefaction at Oxford—the McDonald Center for
Theology, Ethics and Public Life. I predict it will make a ground
breaking impact far beyond the dreaming spires of my alma
mater.
The founder and major benefactor of MAF is Alonzo L. McDonald.
At various stages of his 80-year life he has been CEO of McKinsey
worldwide, White House staff director in President Carter’s
administration, and United States ambassador heading the Tokyo
round of multilateral trade negotiations during the 1970s. But
these days his passion is what he calls “leaving a small footprint
for Christ in influential places of learning by supporting teachers
who attain both the highest levels of scholarship and represent
models of spiritual knowledge and faith.”
Such a purpose might sound like piling Ossa upon Pelion in the
University of Oxford whose cloisters have been crowded with
Christian scholars striving to leave their footprints on the sands
of theology and religion ever since the 14th century. But the
McDonald Center will be different because of three 21st-century
ingredients — timing, purpose, and method.
For at least half a century it has been a dominant assumption
throughout Western Europe and in large parts of America that the
influence of religion is on the wane. Matthew Arnold’s gloomy
assessment of “the melancholy long withdrawing roar” of the sea of
faith has looked all too prescient. As modern life became more
rational, more scientific, more permissive, more technological, and
more secular, the concomitant decline in religion seemed
inevitable. But this so-called secularization thesis has been
shaken by several recent developments. Post 9/11, the fear of
Islamist violence has caused many communities to re-examine their
own theological foundations and to learn about others. The growth
of Christianity in China, Africa, Asia, and other parts of the
developing world is a spiritual surprise. Churchgoing in the United
States remains high and exerts considerable influence. Even in
pagan Europe there is a grudging acknowledgment that religion can
no longer be marginalized and should perhaps be moving up the
intellectual agenda. The rising generation of high school students
has grasped this point, which is why in Britain over half of the
country’s teenagers are now taking religious studies in their
General Certificate examinations.
The fact that religious interest, if not religious observance,
is coming back into fashion presents opportunities. This is the
context in which Oxford University has entered into partnership
with Al McDonald to launch his new center. “Our aim is to bring the
ethical resources of Christian monotheism to bear on more issues of
public importance,” says its director, Dr. Nigel Biggar, the Regius
Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology.
SHIFTING THE DIALECTICAL TERRITORY of Christian ethics and
theology out of their academic ghetto and into the public square is
a formidable challenge, but Biggar is up to it. He is renowned for
his writing as a theologian, philosopher, and public affairs
commentator. His output is prolific. In the past academic year
alone he has authored two books, written ten articles or chapters
for academic journals, delivered eight major addresses, ten
cathedral sermons, and engaged in a steady flow of seminars,
colloquia, and teaching lectures. Biggar’s subjects range from the
ethics of Karl Barth to the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.
Recurrent themes in his work are an emphasis on the connection
between religion and public affairs; the interface between the
secular and the sacred; and the contemporary relevance of Christian
moral theology.
There is a refreshing lack of defensiveness in this approach. As
Biggar put it in his address at the launch of the McDonald Center:
“The future of religion doesn’t look secure because of the bare
sociological fact that its popularity is not declining.…our present
interest in religion offers not just social problems but social
solutions. To some of us religion is not only a threat; it is also
a resource.” He went on to draw an intriguing distinction between
liberal anti-religious secularity and the Augustinian secular
space. The latter is polyglot in its inclusiveness and Christian
theology contributes to it with resources that include “common
responsibility to transcendent truth, humility and charity, and
with repentance, forgiveness, and eschatological hope.”
These ideals are shared by Al McDonald, whose spiritual journey
has recently led him out of the confusions of the Episcopal Church
and into full communion with Catholicism. But the McDonald worldly
journey has been a struggle too. He knew poverty as a child of the
Depression in the old south. His first job was as a $1 an hour shoe
salesman, from whence he climbed the ladder of corporate America to
its highest rungs. Such a life of peaks and valleys suggest that
the McDonald Center will have a practical core to its theology.
This realism is reflected in the topics for its future program of
lectures and seminars. They include: “Heat or Light? The
Responsibility of the Media for the Quality of Public Discussion,”
“Reforming Prisons: The Ethical Dimension,” “The Public
Responsibility of Universities,” and “Can Christian Ethics Be Both
Faithful and Plausible in Secular Society?”
Speaking at the launch event when these titles were unveiled,
the head of the Oxford faculty of theology, Dr. Paul Joyce,
declared: “We academics need to be taken out of our ivory tower.”
By contrast, many non-academics on the guest list, which ranged
across army generals, No: 10 Downing Street aides; prison
governors; prominent head hunters; and BBC journalists, seemed well
pleased to be present at the creation of such an inclusive new
theological venture. Call it a big tent or even a Big Mac, but the
new McDonald Center has surely opened its doors to interesting
people at an interesting time. Thank heaven for an American
philanthropist whose generosity is expanding in these difficult
days for nonprofits.
Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator’s
High Spirits columnist, is most recently author of John
Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace(Crossway Books). His
biographies include Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed
(Doubleday) and Nixon: A Life, now available in a new
paperback edition (Regnery).
