Inland Revenue staff banned from involvement with religious charity
-03/11/05
Staff at the Inland Revenue have been prevented from involvement with a controversial Christian charity.
A leaked memo tells staff the department cannot continue to be associated with the charity Samaritan’s Purse because its operations do not conform to diversity policies and could bring the Revenue into disrepute.
It tells them they can donate to the charity in their own time, but not at work.
The ban, imposed by HM Revenue & Customs chairman David Varney after complaints from trade union activists, was called ‘strange’ by the Church of England last night.
Others however, may suggest that the charity must accept some of the responsibility itself.
Franklin Graham, the son of the evangelist Billy Graham, who runs the charity Samaritan’s Purse, declared after the 11 September attacks that Islam was “a very evil and wicked religion”. His comments brought widespread condemnation from conservative evangelicals as well as other Christians.
Following Hurricane Katrina Graham also said that the disaster could lead to a spiritual rebirth of what he called a sinful New Orleans.
The Revenue’s 100,000 employees have supported Operation Christmas Child since the late 1990s.
The appeal sends more than a million shoe boxes from Britain to children in countries including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Romania, Serbia, Sudan and Mozambique.
Donors are asked to pack boxes with gifts. Although no Christian literature is included in the boxes, the charity does separately distribute Christmas stories from the Bible and encourages Bible study in areas where it gives toys out.
In 1991 the charity was reported to have infuriated Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War, by shipping tens of thousands of Arabic-language New Testaments to Saudi Arabia in defiance of Saudi law and the US-Saudi military alliance.
The leaked memo, from Michael Scott, assistant director of the National Insurance Contributions Office in Newcastle upon Tyne, tells staff: “We are not dictating who you can or cannot support, but you will appreciate that as a department we cannot be seen to promote activities that do not broadly fit with our philosophy or which could bring us into disrepute by association.”
A spokesman for the Inland Revenue added: “We have very clear workplace policies regarding the importance of valuing difference.
“When an organisation demonstrates evidence of being at odds with those core values we cannot make special provision for that organisation to be supported on our premises. To do so would be hypocritical and at odds with our diversity commitments.’
The Church of England condemned the ban. Spokesman Lou Henderson said: “It seems unfortunate for any organisation to make it difficult for their employees to make a Christian expression of generosity.
“It does seem a strange way of promoting diversity.
“If this charity was aiming to do a heavy conversion job on vulnerable children, that could be criticised. But the shoe box operation is another thing entirely.”
Steve Whaley, of Samaritan’s Purse, said donors to the shoe box scheme were warned that boxes must not include “anything of a political, racial or religious nature”.
He added: “If found, such items are removed. However, because it is Christmas – and in distribution areas where it is culturally appropriate – we do offer, separately, a small booklet of Bible stories in the native language.
“The booklet is available in approximately half the locations we deliver shoe boxes to.”
Inland Revenue staff banned from involvement with religious charity
-03/11/05
Staff at the Inland Revenue have been prevented from involvement with a controversial Christian charity.
A leaked memo tells staff the department cannot continue to be associated with the charity Samaritan’s Purse because its operations do not conform to diversity policies and could bring the Revenue into disrepute.
It tells them they can donate to the charity in their own time, but not at work.
The ban, imposed by HM Revenue & Customs chairman David Varney after complaints from trade union activists, was called ‘strange’ by the Church of England last night.
Others however, may suggest that the charity must accept some of the responsibility itself.
Franklin Graham, the son of the evangelist Billy Graham, who runs the charity Samaritan’s Purse, declared after the 11 September attacks that Islam was “a very evil and wicked religion”. His comments brought widespread condemnation from conservative evangelicals as well as other Christians.
Following Hurricane Katrina Graham also said that the disaster could lead to a spiritual rebirth of what he called a sinful New Orleans.
The Revenue’s 100,000 employees have supported Operation Christmas Child since the late 1990s.
The appeal sends more than a million shoe boxes from Britain to children in countries including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Romania, Serbia, Sudan and Mozambique.
Donors are asked to pack boxes with gifts. Although no Christian literature is included in the boxes, the charity does separately distribute Christmas stories from the Bible and encourages Bible study in areas where it gives toys out.
In 1991 the charity was reported to have infuriated Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War, by shipping tens of thousands of Arabic-language New Testaments to Saudi Arabia in defiance of Saudi law and the US-Saudi military alliance.
The leaked memo, from Michael Scott, assistant director of the National Insurance Contributions Office in Newcastle upon Tyne, tells staff: “We are not dictating who you can or cannot support, but you will appreciate that as a department we cannot be seen to promote activities that do not broadly fit with our philosophy or which could bring us into disrepute by association.”
A spokesman for the Inland Revenue added: “We have very clear workplace policies regarding the importance of valuing difference.
“When an organisation demonstrates evidence of being at odds with those core values we cannot make special provision for that organisation to be supported on our premises. To do so would be hypocritical and at odds with our diversity commitments.’
The Church of England condemned the ban. Spokesman Lou Henderson said: “It seems unfortunate for any organisation to make it difficult for their employees to make a Christian expression of generosity.
“It does seem a strange way of promoting diversity.
“If this charity was aiming to do a heavy conversion job on vulnerable children, that could be criticised. But the shoe box operation is another thing entirely.”
Steve Whaley, of Samaritan’s Purse, said donors to the shoe box scheme were warned that boxes must not include “anything of a political, racial or religious nature”.
He added: “If found, such items are removed. However, because it is Christmas – and in distribution areas where it is culturally appropriate – we do offer, separately, a small booklet of Bible stories in the native language.
“The booklet is available in approximately half the locations we deliver shoe boxes to.”