Introduction: faith and food charity in the 21st century

On a cold afternoon in November 2015, I sat with David in a small office adjacent to the church hall from which food parcels were distributed and asked him why he chose to set up a food bank. David said that his reason for doing so was religious; charity work through food was integral to his life as a Christian, to serving the poor and God. Thus, his work in the food bank today continued a long tradition of Christian charitable works for the hungry and destitute. He recognised that rapid increases in need in the local area were partly related to harsh austerity and, in this way, the hunger of the people who visited the food bank was the responsibility of government, not the Church, but his faith told him to help people in need, regardless of the cause. The result was a busy and regular food bank, overseen by David and supported by equally committed Christian volunteers.

While David's reasons for giving food were acknowledged to be part of a religious framework, he did not necessarily consider his food bank to be part of a broader movement of food banks run by Christian groups across the UK. His food bank was perceived by him as merely the formalisation of a historic distribution of food from the Church, which became necessary as demand increased. But David's food bank is part of a wider movement; of the thousands of food banks that have opened in the past decade, the majority of them are run by or affiliated to Christian groups. Some of this is attributable to the – increasingly and intentionally – hidden Christian ethos of the Trussell Trust, the largest coordinator of food banks in the UK, an ethos which is maintained by its Head of Church Engagement, who holds responsibility for ‘strengthening and shaping the relationship between the Trussell Trust and the Christian community’ (Trussell Trust, 2019).