Christian Politics

[WinePusher]

Here's an interesting post I came across from another forum. The following post is the work of another user, but since I am not a member there I decided to bring the discussion over here.

---This is something that confuses me often. The Christian Right, and indeed many Christians in general, seem to have political positions that dont exactly jive with their beliefs.

The biggest one I can think of at the moment is undocumented immigration. From reading the bible, it doesn't seem that Jesus would have actually cared that much if someone had proper paperwork or not; it was "Love thy neighbor" not "Love thy properly documented neighbor". Except a lot of the people who are really anti-immigration seem to be the Protestant Christians who talk about how important it is to be Christ-like.

I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just confused how many of these political positions came to be adopted when many violate the basic precepts of Christianity.---

Question: Do you agree that the political right wing is often in constrast with Christian social and ethical teaching?

[Wyvern]

Lol, well if you are going to start mentioning how much politicians give versus the governments you are always going to show the individual giving less regardless of political affiliation. Care to post how much Cheney gave when he was in office?

Glad you asked, Cheney gave 5.5% of his income to charity vs. .3% for Biden. If only Biden were that frugal with our money.

Bush gave 17.6% vs. 5.6% for Obama.

Good now compare the amounts given versus the individuals assets along with taking other outside influences into account. If you have more wealth you can afford to give more, in 2006 Cheney gave over 70% of his income to charities but it's probably easier to do when even giving such an enormous amount means you still have over two million left over which is over ten times Bidens entire income. That's the great thing about numbers without context you can make them say whatever you want.

[Wyvern]

Your mixing apples and oranges, your chart shows foreign aid, not individual charitable giving. In real dollar terms the US is still the largest giver in that category, despite shouldering Europe's defense costs.

Yes in actual dollars the US is the greatest giver but as this chart shows not in terms of per capita giving. The important thing though is that you need to show the evidence of your claims not just continue to make claims.

[Ooberman]

Most Generous Countries in 2008 as donation per citizen in 2008 (report July 2010)

The GHA July 2010 report also lists countries ranked by generosity as donation per citizen from data collected in 2008.[6]

* 1. Luxembourg - $114.4/citizen
* 2. Norway - $95.7/citizen
* 3. Sweden - $65.9/citizen
* 4. Ireland - $55.9/citizen
* 5. Denmark - $54.1/citizen
* 6 The Netherlands - $38.6/citizen
* 7. Kuwait - $32.8/citizen
* 8. Saudi Arabia - $28.7/citizen
* 9. Finland - $27/citizen
* 10. Switzerland - $25.4/citizen


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mo ... _countries


BTW, I stand corrected on Muslims as far as Kuwait and SA.

Both religious and secular Americans have Europeans beat, religious Americans give $2,210 a year to charity, secular Americans give $642.

If those figures are true, I wonder how much of that is 'tithe to the church' , which goes to directly benefiting the people giving in the form of maintaining the church and paying for the pastors, and also providing for religious education?

That's a good point. It might be a large percentage simply goes to the church, which means it goes to a pastor to make them feel better about giving money to the church - which means they are really just giving money to themselves to hire a guy to tell them how great they are and how they'll make it to Heaven and all will be rosey.

That is, isn't tithing really just pooling money together with some friends to have a place to go every weekend? Sure, they might give a little to charity, but the caost of maintaining the church, hiring the staff, paying heat and electric and supplies, rent/mortage, etc. would probably take the bulk of the money, as opposed to giving straight to a worthy charity.... Something to consider...

Nobody forces you to tithe to attend church, I don't think they pastors know who gives what. Anyway, it only makes up 30% of charitable giving by religious Americans, they still give more to secular causes than secular Americans, as well as give much more to friends and family, donate blood more, and are even more likely to return change when overpaid.

Note Biden, who gave only $5K out of a $300K+ income to charity. He certainly is generous with other people's money, not so much with his own.

1. If all those people became non-Christian, do you think they would stop giving?
2. Are all those people true Christians? For example, 50% of American Christians don't believe in key Christian doctrines.
3. Isn't it more likely that it is the American ethos that causes people to give more and not the Christian religion?

[East of Eden]

We are the wealthiest nation in the world. It would only be surprising if we did not give more to charity than the rest.

It's just that religious Americans give more to charity than secular ones.

BTW, you are apparently still conflating tithes to churches with charity. They are not the same thing.

The IRS says you're wrong. As I've pointed out before, religious Americans give more to secular charities than to secular Americans.

Not to beat a dead horse, but if you don't like Arthur Brooks' research on this, here's another source:


Charity's Religious Edge
The most religious Americans actually give more money to secular causes than do secular Americans..

By DAVID E. CAMPBELL AND ROBERT D. PUTNAM

Along with jobs and 401(k)s, a major casualty of the Great Recession has been charitable giving. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, America's charities report an 11% drop in contributions in the past year alone. There's one big exception: Charitable contributions to religious groups dropped by only 0.1% from 2007 to 2009.

Americans are generous people. In 2006, as detailed in our recent book, "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us," 80% of all Americans reported having made a charitable contribution in the previous year. But some—the religious—contributed more than others.

Of the most secular fifth of Americans, two-thirds said they gave money to charity in the previous year. That's an impressive number, but it pales next to the 94% of the most religious fifth who reported making a charitable donation.

We find the same pattern when we examine how much people give. On average, those in the most religious fifth donate $3,000 to charity annually. Those in the most secular fifth give approximately $1,000. The story is the same when we consider charitable giving as a fraction of household income: By this measure, religious Americans are four times as generous as their secular neighbors, even as they are a little less affluent than secular Americans.

The "religious edge" in giving isn't attributable to some other demographic characteristic common to religious Americans. These results hold up even after accounting for a wide array of other factors known to influence charitable donations, such as income, age, education, marital status, gender and race.

So which religion is the most charitable? As it turns out, the operative matter is not what religion someone practices but how religious they are.

The fact that religiosity often channels giving helps explain why donations to religious charities barely dipped during the recession.
Differences in charitable giving across religious groups are an illusion, since some groups are, on average, more religious than others. But once we account for individuals' level of religious commitment, we find some interesting differences among groups.

Compared to the population as a whole, Catholics are a little less charitable while mainline Protestants contribute a little more both to religious and secular causes. Compared to everyone else, evangelical Protestants are a little less likely to contribute to secular causes and a little more likely to give to religious ones. Relative to the rest of the population, Mormons are the one group that gives more to both religious and secular causes.

Some charge that religious people contribute mainly to their own congregations, so in a sense they are giving charity to themselves. As it turns out, though, religious Americans do not limit their philanthropy to their own congregations or even to religious causes more generally.

And even if they did, local congregations are often on the front lines of providing charitable services to the poor and needy through food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. Many congregations also sponsor missionaries overseas. Therefore, not all money given to a local congregation stays within that congregation, or even within that congregation's community.

To understand the connection between religiosity and charitable giving, it is useful to distinguish between the "boosting" effect and the "channeling" effect. The former refers to the increase in giving of all sorts that goes with being religious; the latter refers to whether that giving is directed toward religious or secular causes. Roughly three-quarters of charity given by highly religious Americans is indeed channeled toward religion. But religiosity provides such a boost to financial giving overall that the most religious Americans actually give more money to secular causes than do secular Americans.

The fact that religiosity often channels giving to religious causes helps explain why donations to religious charities barely dipped during the recession, even as secular giving fell. When times are tight, it seems that Americans are more likely to consider secular giving discretionary. Our research suggests that may be because the primary driver of religious Americans' giving is the social networks formed at their churches, synagogues and mosques.

In other words, religious Americans' high rate of giving isn't attributable to the specific religious or political beliefs that they hold, but to the friends with whom they worship.

Mr. Campbell is an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. Mr. Putnam is professor of public policy at Harvard. They are co-authors of "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us" (Simon & Schuster, 2010).

[East of Eden]

Lol, well if you are going to start mentioning how much politicians give versus the governments you are always going to show the individual giving less regardless of political affiliation. Care to post how much Cheney gave when he was in office?

Glad you asked, Cheney gave 5.5% of his income to charity vs. .3% for Biden. If only Biden were that frugal with our money.

Bush gave 17.6% vs. 5.6% for Obama.

Good now compare the amounts given versus the individuals assets along with taking other outside influences into account. If you have more wealth you can afford to give more, in 2006 Cheney gave over 70% of his income to charities but it's probably easier to do when even giving such an enormous amount means you still have over two million left over which is over ten times Bidens entire income. That's the great thing about numbers without context you can make them say whatever you want.

You would think Biden with his government provided mansion, health care, and myriad other benefits as VP could afford to give more than .3% of his income to charity. It just shows the hypocrisy of the left who act like Mother Teresa when it comes to spending our money but are more like Scrooge when it comes to their own.

[East of Eden]

1. If all those people became non-Christian, do you think they would stop giving?

I assume some in the non-Christian group that was surveyed are former Christians, and some Christians are former non-believers.

2. Are all those people true Christians? For example, 50% of American Christians don't believe in key Christian doctrines.

They certainly believe in the doctrine of the Golden Rule, and that it is better to give than receive, store up yuur treasure in heaven, and 'what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul'.

BTW, I really doubt 50% of American Christians don't believe in key Christian doctrines as expressed in the Apostles' Creed, for example.

3. Isn't it more likely that it is the American ethos that causes people to give more and not the Christian religion?

So why would secular Americans not have as much of that American ethos? I would also argue our Judeo-Christian tradition is part of that American ethos. Even non-believers are to some degree informed by a Christian conscience, whether or not they ever think of it that way.

[ChaosBorders]

To break it down further, the religious gave an average of $2,210 while the nonreligious gave an average of $642. But if 90% of the religious donations are going to churches,

The actual figure is about a third, not 90%.

About a third of [url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... n19322258/]total charitable donations[/quote], which is closer to half of donations given by individuals. Typically the more religious the individual, the greater the percentage of their giving that goes to a religious organization. When you consider that religious givers were only about a third of the population, and that many of the nonreligious give little to no money to religious organizations, it should not be surprising that the percentage of money being given by the religious to religious institutions is exceedingly high.

Again, I didn't claim Christians specfically give more than secular Americans, although I'm confident if a study were done that would be the case. As I keep saying, the whole objection about giving money ignores the increased giving of the religous in the way of volunteering time, and this:

"Religious people were also far more likely than secularists to give in informal, nonreligious ways. For example, in 2000, people belonging to religious congregations gave 46 percent more money to family and friends than people who did not belong. In 2002, religious people were far more likely to donate blood than secularists, to give food or money to a homeless person, and even to return change mistakenly given them by a cashier."

The volunteering time issue runs into the same questions as the money. If what you're volunteering for is just proselytizing or church activities or what not, are they really spending any more time actually helping the needy than the non-religious.

What is more, even though you may not be making the claim, there is a question of 'if all the religious of each religion are doing it (which seems to be what the study indicates is the case), what does that say about Christianity as an individual religion?'

The family giving I have to say is pretty interesting from an evolutionary psychology perspective.

[East of Eden]

Typically the more religious the individual, the greater the percentage of their giving that goes to a religious organization.

That's like saying the more someone watches public TV, the more likely they are to donate to the local PBS station. Is that not a charitable donation?

The volunteering time issue runs into the same questions as the money. If what you're volunteering for is just proselytizing or church activities or what not, are they really spending any more time actually helping the needy than the non-religious.

Again, if someone mans the phone banks at the local PBS station, is that not really volunteering time? I know of many Christians whose donation of time is much more serious than that, such as spending weeks in poor latin American nations building homes for the poor, etc.

What is more, even though you may not be making the claim, there is a question of 'if all the religious of each religion are doing it (which seems to be what the study indicates is the case), what does that say about Christianity as an individual religion?'

It isn't my position that there isn't any truth in other religions, but that where they and Christianity differ, they are wrong and Christianity is right. From a Christian perspective it makes sense that other religions would also give more charitably as they are made in God's image and so have the charitable impulse, believe in afterlife rewards and punishment, etc.

The family giving I have to say is pretty interesting from an evolutionary psychology perspective.

It may be if you're interested in evolutionary psychology, but that soft science is very speculative.

[flitzerbiest]

Typically the more religious the individual, the greater the percentage of their giving that goes to a religious organization.

That's like saying the more someone watches public TV, the more likely they are to donate to the local PBS station. Is that not a charitable donation?

Not really, no. PBS has obtained tax-deductible status, but is no more a charity than your church is.

It isn't my position that there isn't any truth in other religions, but that where they and Christianity differ, they are wrong and Christianity is right.

Other than the fact that you were indoctrinated into Christianity, how could you possibly know this? The members of many competing religions make identical claims in terms of subjective experience, inspired texts and exclusivity of salvation.

[East of Eden]

Not really, no. PBS has obtained tax-deductible status, but is no more a charity than your church is.

A charity is what the IRS says it is. Not that it matters, but what is your definition of a charity?

Other than the fact that you were indoctrinated into Christianity

And you were indoctrinated into anti-thiesm, right? Of does that only work with Christians?