"Charity begins at home".
If your flatmate donates money to the poor instead of helping you paying the gas
bill you might say that charity begins at home. But helping the poor has better
results than paying the gas bill. Religion ignores that. It says the gas bill
should be paid. If poverty was eliminated all over the world there would be
problem getting gas bills paid.
If everybody thought that charity begins at home then what if there is a poor
country that needs help from a bigger neighbour? The bigger neighbour was a poor
country at one time. If the bigger neighbour puts its funds into bettering its
own citizens and gives none abroad then the poverty of the smaller country will
never end. The bigger country will always have something to do with the money it
has. It may be funding drug rehabilitation programmes or whatever.
The people that say, "Charity begins at home", are glad that those who disagreed
with it to help them did so. Their hypocrisy is interesting but not surprising.
The person from the wealthy west who goes to work among the poor in Nigeria or
wherever is accused of doing wrong. People will say he should be working among
the poorest in his own country. The attitude that charity begins at home
contradicts Jesus Christ who said that the man who leaves father mother and
family and children to do a thing like that will get amazing rewards. Jesus
himself focused more on helping outsiders than people from his town and the
gospels never mention him even lifting a finger for his family. It is outrageous
that the life of a man who was not a family man should be held up as the ideal
role model for any age never mind our modern age.
Charity begins at home has led to Churches keeping funds for their own members
and refusing to help Muslims and pagans who are in the throes of poverty.