"We are the World"- Theology, Charity and Michael Jackson

I knew that the star-filled 1985 classic "We are the World" was being remade this year to help raise funds for Haiti, but I didn't have much interest in watching it. But then I began to see many of my friends express disappointment in this new version. I decided to check it out. I must say, I definitely agree with my friends, this was a poor remake at best.
But more than the quality of the singers, more than the overwhelming self-servingness of it all, I found myself pondering the theological aspects of this song. Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wrote "We are the World" over the course of a few hours and were able to put the group of celebrities together within days. The purpose of the song was to raise money for Africa. One line stuck out to me. "As God has shown us by turing stone to bread so we all must lend a helping hand."
There is a fundamental problem with this, God didn't turn the stone into bread! The reference comes from Matthew 4, just after Jesus was baptized. Not only did Jesus not give in to this temptation from Satan, He rebuked humanity's reliance on bread for our sustenance. We are to depend on God's word more than we depend on food.
This all made me start thinking about Haiti. Recently, a Haitian witch doctor complained that American missionaries were sharing Jesus with the people instead of just giving food and shelter. This man showed the same misunderstanding of scripture as Michael Jackson did while writing "We are the World". God is not only about taking care of His creation's physical needs. We see an example of this in John 5:1-15.
Jesus had just healed a lame man and then left. Jesus later found the man in the Temple and said, "Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you." What did he mean by that? What could be worse than being lame for 38 years? Was it possible that this man could lose the healing that Jesus had given him? I believe Jesus is talking about the man's spiritual condition, not his physical ailment. Hell is worse than being lame for 38 years.
So how does this apply to Christian charity? Are we to give to the poor? Are we to go to places like Haiti and serve the suffering? YES!!! But we cannot ignore the spiritual needs of the people we serve. I believe that being charitable without being evangelistic is worse than not being charitable in the first place. If we tend to someone's physical needs, but ignore the spiritual, we make Christianity nothing more than another secular aid organization. Yes we must meet physical needs, James tells us that in James 1:27, but we must also seek to meet spiritual needs. Instead of just giving people bread to keep them alive, let's also give them the Bread of Life.