A Christian charity has hit back at claims from British humanists that they are using a Christmas appeal to 'manipulate' and secretly evangelise vulnerable children.
Operation Christmas Child is a nationwide campaign where shoeboxes full of gifts are sent from schools across the UK to deprived children in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
But Humanists UK are repeating claims made in previous years that the project, run by the evangelical disaster relief charity Samaritans Purse, is covertly using the appeal to proselytise recipients.
Education campaigns manager Jay Harman described the practise as 'appalling', saying Samaritans Purse was using 'the donations of well-meaning parents and children as a tool for promoting an evangelical Christian agenda'.
She said: 'This is especially true given that donors are often left unaware of these ulterior motives, not to mention the fact that the recipients of these shoeboxes are sometimes extremely vulnerable.'
Humanists UK claimed 'many of these donors do not realise that they are unknowingly contributing to an evangelising Christian mission.
'The reason for this is that after every shoebox leaves a home or school, it is sent first to Samaritan's Purse, where evangelical Christian literature is added alongside it. This Christian literature tends to come in the form of a booklet called The Greatest Gift, aimed at converting its often vulnerable recipients to Christianity.'
But Nick Cole, UK director of Operation Christmas Child, rubbished the claims as an outright lie, saying the boxes are checked before they are distributed 'to make sure no items or symbols of a Christian or religious nature have been placed in the boxes'.
He told Christian Today: 'Should a check discover such items, they are removed from the boxes before they are sealed and exported.
'This approach ensures the integrity of the donor is respected (especially if they don't share our Christian values) and that the responsibility for culturally-sensitive and appropriate evangelism rests with the local churches overseas.'
He said the charity mainly used local churches in more than 100 countries around the world to distribute the boxes and the decision about evangelism lay with the local pastor.
'These local churches also love to tell the children the Christmas story of new life and hope in Jesus, but they only do so when it is appropriate in their local contexts,' said Cole.
'They may outline the Christmas story in a loving way that respects local culture using a colourful poster booklet. Again if they decide it's appropriate, they may offer the children The Greatest Gift booklet, a Bible-story booklet written in their own language. Receiving this is completely voluntary and it is only ever offered with, not inside the box.'
He added: 'This approach of offering Bible resources with the shoebox rather than in it, may seem like a fine distinction but in our experience it is a vital one.
Cole also said Operation Christmas Child was upfront about its aim to spread the true message of Christmas but said: 'In contexts where the local church assesses it's not appropriate to talk about Jesus, they don't do so and a shoebox distribution is a way the church expresses care and compassion and builds goodwill and connection into their communities.
'We can reassure you that Humanist UK's depiction of shoebox distributions as a monolithic Samaritan's Purse group of Westerners doing their brand of evangelism could not be further from the truth.'
