It was many years ago that I first met someone from Burma’s Rohingya ethnic group. His haunting eyes stayed with me long after our interview was over. Rahimol* told me about the terrible violence his people were suffering – described by the UN as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’. Hounded out of their villages, slaughtered by the army, hundreds of thousands forced to live in temporary camps. He begged me and my organisation to help in whatever way we could.

How could I possibly have said no? The Rohingya people are mainly Muslim. How could I say that my God does not allow me to help people who are not Christian?

I have met Christians who say that they feel compassionate towards those of other faiths who are suffering, but that they won’t actively help those people – indeed, that they won’t donate to Christian charities that are helping people of other faiths.

I cannot find it in my heart to endorse this view. How can we look at a crowd of starving children who have just seen their parents drown, and ask them whether they believe in Jesus or Mohammed before we give them food? There are many, many verses in the Bible about God’s love of justice. Not a single one of them says ‘Only do justice to those who follow Christ.’ 

Galatians 6:10 reads ‘Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.’ Whatever you think he meant the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote ‘especially’, I am convinced that he did not mean ‘and only’. To give another person aid in their time of need is not to endorse their beliefs. It is simply to treat them as our Lord and Saviour did.

How shall we show the world what Christ is like?

Hundreds of foodbanks have been set up all over the UK in recent years, providing food, toiletries and other essentials to people who are struggling. Many of these are based in churches. Do these churches ask the needy people who arrive, “Are you a Christian?” before they give out the pasta, the baked beans, the sanitary products? They do not. Because that is not what Jesus taught, and it is not what Jesus did.

I have been a Christian all my life, and have taken part in many debates with theologians and thinkers on various subjects. I know very well that the world does not read the Bible to get its idea of Christianity – it looks at Christians. The word Christian means Christ-like. What better way to show the world what Christ is like, than to help people who are suffering, just as Christ would help them?

*Name has been changed for security reasons.