Religious Giving — A Comparison
From time to time, a secularist or a liberal will make a snide remark to me about religious charity and Christian giving. It sometimes goes like this, “If you conservative Christians or the Religious Right really cared about people, you’d worry less about abortion and more about feeding the hungry.” If at some point, I can get beyond their cynical pettiness and convuluted thinking, I reply that “if Christians were to stop giving suddenly, every major charitable agency in the country from the Salvation Army to the Red Cross would hear a giant sucking sound (with apologies to Ross Perot) as they hit the bottom of their cash reserves in short order.
While eating lunch today, I found some interesting research that validates my retort.
Families who attend religious services weekly give 112% more than those who do not. Evangelicals contribute an average of $3,250 to their church, while Catholics give $547. Overall the average per year is $895 per donor. Religious groups received 36% of 2004 donations, while education received 14%. (As cited by ACSI)
So the next time a liberal secularist makes a crude implication or a phony inference about how you should be spending YOUR money, ask if they’d like to compare their end-of-the-year charitable giving total with that of religious folk.
Gordon Cloud said,
January 31, 2006 @ 5:44 pm
Excellent post, Brother. I recently had the opportunity to go to Pascagoula, MS, with a group of several churches to help in the recovery effort. I was amazed at the overwhelming response of Christians from all over the country. All one need do is ask the local people have they seen the compassion of God’s people.