Guest Post: Four Tensions for Christianity and EA

by Josh Richards.

In this post Josh Richards explores some of the tensions he sees between Christianity and effective altruism. We hope that his thoughts will help us to refine our ideas as we move forward as a community of Christians interested in effective altruism.

I come to this as someone sympathetic to effective altruism. It is clear that Christians too often allow good intentions to justify bad stewardship. The anointing at Bethany as detailed in Matthew 26:6-13 has surely been abused to justify the maintenance of privilege and profligate spending, never mind ineffective giving. That effective altruism might provide a corrective to that is to be welcomed. Nevertheless, however the passage is read, it should give pause to Christians wishing to adopt effective altruism without reflection. Not only does Jesus welcome the woman’s offering, but he says:

“Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” (Matt 26:13, NIV)

For Jesus, this act speaks to something central as to what it is to be a disciple of his. It is not straightforward exactly what that something is, but it would likely appear alien to many in the utilitarian academic community in which the modern EA movement began. There is, therefore, a need to translate the insights of the EA community so that they cohere with the Christian worldview. I want to very briefly highlight four difficulties that this translation might confront.

Maximising what?

One of the most cited criticisms of Christianity is its seemingly ambivalent attitude toward suffering:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. (Romans 5:1-4, NIV)

Suffering will not be present in the New Heaven and Earth. Ultimately, it does not have a place in the perfect end-state. However, passages such as Romans 5 highlight that suffering can produce desirable outcomes. We are also left to consider the significance of the presence of scars in the resurrection body of Christ. Even if suffering will not be present in the New Creation, its effects—hope or physical scars—will be. Effective altruism as originally conceived—in common with most secular worldviews—is fundamentally concerned with the mitigation of suffering and the postponement of death. Given that we will all eventually die, the good is measured by how long and how well we can hold out against death. In contrast, Christianity holds evil to be the privation of the good. What does Effective Altruism mean for us if Paul can write: ‘For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain’ (Phil 1:21) and for that to be true? Christians are not interested in mitigating death; we are interested in its defeat. We are not tasked with prolonging life; we are tasked with cultivating eternal life. A Christian effective altruism cannot simply import the methodologies of the wider movement but must conceptualise for itself a vision of eternal life and flourishing that it wishes to cultivate. Suffering alleviation will remain important in this vision, but must be part of a fuller vision that includes relationship with God and meaningful community, ideally in a church.

Just evangelism?

One problem such a conceptualisation encounters is whether eternal life simply means that we must prioritise evangelism above all else. If you are a Christian who is attracted to effective altruism, you have likely already been convinced by Scripture, Christian community, and the revelation of the Spirit that it does not. However, if our primary consideration is effectiveness, then balancing these different facets of the Christian call becomes difficult. This tension is in many ways equivalent to the discussion of existential risks in the wider EA community. Perhaps surprisingly, the Christian effective altruist finds herself asking if investing time and resources in mercy and justice can be justified, given that (for example) an act that very marginally increased the likelihood of one person’s salvation could be judged as more effective. We are able to fudge the issue somewhat by saying that mercy and justice are some of the best ways of articulating and demonstrating the Gospel, but that does not seem to justice to passages such as the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25. One possible answer might be that the insights of effective altruism are best put to work within particular facets of our discipleships, but should influence the way in which we prioritise those facets. I take it as given that I am called to pursue mercy, and because it is an act of worship I do it to the best of my ability.

How will I know?

I am a Charismatic. Thus I am all too familiar with people over-spiritualising their own desires as a way of avoiding accountability. However, I also believe that God does call people to do things that wouldn’t strike anyone- least of all themselves- as particularly effective. How do we, as aspiring Christian Effective Altruists, remain led by the Spirit? How we use the EA metrics we develop to hold the church accountable for its stewardship, while remaining accountable to both the church and the Spirit? How might that we develop an epistemology that is at once humble, responsible, and charismatic?

Where I am?

In ways that surprise a transient culture, the narrative of Scripture is preoccupied with place and particularity. Jesus came for all people, but the church has been grafted into the vine of Israel, to use the words of Romans 11.  How should we synthesise effective altruism with the fact that the Bible is the story of a particular people in a particular corner of the world, fulfilled in God being born as one of them? A Christian effective altruism can be cosmopolitan but must be so in such a way that grapples with the implications God desiring to work locally first. The call in Jeremiah 29:7 to seek the welfare of the city in which God has led us into exile seems to suggest a particular duty to our local surroundings and community because God in his providence has led us there. That is to say, God has something for us to do there.

As effective altruism observes, the connectedness of the modern world means we have the opportunity to help people on the other side of the world equivalent to the opportunities we might have to help those in our locality. Nevertheless, it is only with those geographically close to us that we are able to fully emulate the practices Jesus highlights to the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.

Physical presence is central to at least 2 of the 5: “I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” This focus on place in Christian scripture and tradition—and the challenge that effective altruism poses to it—is seen in how Christians and effective altruists might each approach the question of whether I should give to my local church. Most of my giving goes to my local church in trust that God has called me to this church and this community, as a way of being present to both. This is not to suggest that we—or I—do this to the exclusion of the wider world, but rather that, after marriage or equivalent commitments, this is the first context in which we are called to minister and be ministered to. I am confident that a Christian effective altruism can accommodate these questions; the challenge is whether it is able to without becoming banal and far removed from the data-driven efficiency of the wider EA community, and whether it would still have anything meaningful to say to the Church.  .