Loading...As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I have had three debates with Dinesh D’Souza, an extremely smart, articulate, and conservative fellow, on the Problem of Suffering. The debates were not about whether there is a problem (yes there is!), but about whether the problem is, or should be, insurmountable for faith. For many people (like me) it is insurmountable. But I don’t think it necessarily is for everyone. Dinesh does not think it should be for anyone (including me).
In one of the debates Dinesh argued – I don’t know why, as I don’t recall the context – that contrary to what you might think, it is precisely conservative Christian believers who are more prone to give to charity than liberal non-religious people. To back up his point, he referenced a study Who Really Cares, by Arthur C. Brooks, who also seems to be an extremely smart, articulate, and conservative fellow. Brooks claims, apparently, that it is not the bleeding heart liberals but the anti-welfare conservatives who give more money to social causes. Really? UGH!!
I haven’t brought my self to read the book yet. It sounds like a recipe for depression, and how can we read everything we want? I’m so inundated (apart from my reading for work, which I do all day long most days) with fiction that I’m desperate to read (just been reading Virginia Wolf for, I’m ashamed to say, the first time; amazing. I have piles of Anthony Trollope I want to read [to my shame, once more, never done it]; and some Victor Hugo [Les Miserables – now *that’s* a big book!– was one of my favorites in grad school, but I’ve never read Hunchback. And on and on and on) that I simply can’t seem to find time to read non-fiction, even though I should.
Anyway, I have no reason to doubt that Dinesh misconstrued what Brooks has to say, and I do need to look into it. Because I find it disturbing. Why is it that Christians give more money to charity (not just to their churches, apparently) than non-believers? It should be just the *opposite*! Those of us who are liberal humanists who are committed to living life to the fullest and to helping others do the same should be giving MORE than the believers who think it’s all going to be worked out one way or another in the cosmic end (OK, for the theologically astute: I realize I’m over-simplifying). We (I) think this life is all there is. We (I) should be putting our believing brothers and sisters to shame when it comes to charity and to helping out our fellow man and woman. But apparently we are not.
I would love to know more ways to raise money for good causes. (As if I’m looking for something to do with all my spare time… Still, I would love to). For now I’m doing this blog. As I’ve tried to make clear, I’m not committing myself to this (and it *is* a real commitment of time and resources) simply because I think the world needs more of me and I’m desperate to share my pearls of wisdom with all takers. I do want to share my thoughts, but what is driving me is the charity. I want to raise money for the hungry and homeless. That simple.
We are doing pretty well on the blog. Over the course of a couple of months we have raised over $8000. But it’s not enough, and I’d like to do more. I’m not sure how much more I can do in terms of quantity, but if I can do more by way of quality, I’m open to suggestions!
This is where you come in. If you feel moved to donate more money independently of your subscription – feel free! Every penny goes to the charities I’ve discussed. But also: if you have suggestions about how to attract more members to the blog, let me know. We are currently getting about two new members a day. That may not sound like much, but at $24.95 a pop, over the course of a year – well, you do the math. But I’d like more. A lot more. But how? Feel free to email me to let me know what we can do to improve things and draw more people in. You will earn my special once-in-a-lifetime blessing if your suggestion does not require a huge expenditure of TIME! 🙂
Apart from all that, I want to thank all of you who have joined the blog. The interactions have been terrific, and even though I sometimes begrudge the time (I’m always begrudging time; I’ll blog about that sometime; my wife [rightly] thinks that my obsession with time is a bit of an imbalance 🙂 ), I have enjoyed writing these posts and hearing and responding to your interactions. But mainly I’ve enjoyed seeing the money come in to fight, in a very tangible way, causes that I – and you – believe in.
Bart, I’ve read these same studies, and it DOES appear that religious folk are more charitable than non-religious people. In my humble opinion this has nothing to do with the quality of the people in each camp, but it speaks volumes about the importance of membership in groups that value charitable giving. I give because I care, but I give MORE because my Rabbi cares, and my congregation cares. Also, my Rabbi has introduced me to people who run charities, and I know that THEY care about how much I give.
I admit it freely. I’m no saint. But in Jewish circles, my arm gets twisted. It may hurt to give, but it hurts worse not to.
So … the idea behind your blog site is great! I like reading your stuff, and I had to fork over a few bucks to charity if I wanted to keep reading. In a similar vein, I notice that the biggest single lending team at Kiva.org is the “Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious”. See? All you non-believers need to do is to get organized, and don’t forget the part about the arm-twisting.
Yes, non-believers should DEFINITELY get organized!! Thanks
Brooks (2006) found that indeed, people who attend religious services tend to give more money and do more volunteer work than people who don’t attend religious services (though, I am not sure if tithing and working at the church counts or not for donating and volunteering. If so, then I am not surprised).
However, Batson, Schoenrade and Ventis (1993) found that religious people are more likely to help in situations which make them look good. They are not more likely to help in situations in which no one will know they helped.
Though, what I suspect is ultimately going on is that people who belong to a community they feel they have a close connection with are more likely and eager to help donate, volunteer, etc. A great example of this is the website, Reddit.com. The users of Reddit are overwhelmingly atheistic and liberal. However, the reddit community is ENORMOUSLY charitable with time and money. A number of religious people on the site have stated that the charity of reddit is unlike anything they have ever seen, in churches or otherwise (and of course, everything is anonymous). Here is a small list of the bigger, more recent things that reddit has done: http://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-charity-alexis-ohanian-list/
Besides donating money, reddit has send thousands of cards to sick kids, lonely elderly folks, helped restore old family photos, bought thousands of pizzas for people who have lost everything, even worked to get homeless people off the street by donating business clothes, helping create resumes, etc.
I suspect the “religion=charity” thing is just a correlation. The third (and I suspect causal) variable is a strong, close-nit community. Whenever you get that, be it in church or on a popular website, charity thrives.
With all that said, Dr. Ehrman, if you ever get a chance, the atheist section of reddit (reddit.com/r/atheism) has nearly 900,000 readers. If you were to devote a couple hours to an “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) on the atheist section, I suspect you might be able to get a lot more subscribers to you blog!
A number of other iconic nonbelievers such as Sam Harris, Neil Tyson deGrasse and Richard Dawkins have done them, with great success!
Enjoyed your comments. You are right in suggesting that correlation does not prove causation and that “community” is the determining factor. It doesn’t matter which religion or denomination we belong to, either. “Religiously observant Americans are more generous with time and treasure than demographically similar Americans” (the quote is taken from AMERICAN GRACE). This is even more true when it comes to volunteering than donating money, and that goes for secular causes as well. But the real question is “Why?” and the answer seems to be that community-based synagogues and churches are available almost everywhere. They offer a place to gather and to give.
I would be curious to know how much it donated to help the church as opposed to simply helping people in need. Does helping pay for a persons mission to South America or to repaint the church office count as donations? Agreeing to pour coffee prior to the service or helping out during sunday school count as volunteering? How much less would they donate (money or time) if the charity was secular?
First, I don’t find it hard to believe that conservative believers give more than non or liberal believers. Perhaps you’ve been removed from the conservative, believing mindset too long to remember the high pressure sermons on tithing, the pressure to obey and please God to insure one’s eternal life, and the (mostly unconscious) fear of NOT doing so. Spiritual asceticism comes in many flavors and few acts feel so right as giving “sacrificially”.
Many charities and parachurch organizations include the conservative message of “salvation” along with the tangible help they offer to the needy, thus the giver is not JUST giving to relieve earthly suffering—their dollars are doing double duty. Surely God is pleased with this kind of stewardship!
Don’t forget about the charismatics and pentecostals who have bought into the “prosperity message” (Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, Full Gospel Businessmen, etc.) and who believe they are sowing seeds that will produce a hundredfold return. Why not give $1000 if you’ll get $100,000 in return?
In short, this is not entirely about rational behavior, as the centuries of impassioned religious zealotry can testify.
Yes, I understand about the guilt and pressure from within the organization (no, I haven’t been removed too long!); that accounts, though, mainly for giving to churches and evangelists, and so on. What I am dismayed about is the giving to charities such as soup kitchens, projects for the homeless, and the like. Non-believers should do more, and really stick it to the believers….
My own view is that people who move away from religion, for whatever reasons, especially liberal-minded Jews and well-to-do celebrities, oftentimes substitute government for god. I commend you for keeping your generosity close to home and nonpolitical. It’s refreshing to see and worthy of praise. But the real challenge is how to prime the pump without being consumed by the effort and without making it “mandatory.”
Good luck!
Why should non-believers do more? Where does the “should” come from. (I notice you use the word quite a lot.) Does it really matter who does the work so long as it’s “good work”?
The “should” comes from my sense of what it means to be fully human. And no, I don’t care if believers give a lot more. I just think that humanists are the ones who ought to be putting *them* to shame with their humanity, not the other way around.
The whole topic raises the question I am most interested in, namely: Now that I’ve rejected the Judaeo/Christian worldview and the concept of an afterlife, what should I do with my life? What basis do I use to build a new worldview? Why any particular philosophy if there is no ultimate authority? (One gets used to the pat answers provided by a systematic theology.) Why humanism?
How about a book on THAT topic, Bart? I’d be all over it…
…a suggested title: Now that God is REALLY Dead…
…or how about a follow-up to “Did Jesus Exist?”: “Jesus Existed, But His Dad Never Did”…or “Jesus Existed, But His Father is MIA…
Yup, I’ve thought about it. Maybe down the line!
Frankly as for raising money I think you should consider thinking more like a businessman than a theologian. To wit, make your blog totally free. Charge your publisher and others to advertise on your blog. State up front what you are supporting and give people the chance to give to something they can see. Also. Check out my daughters orphanage in Uganda www. The African soup. Com.
You are smart and have something to say. You will do better by pitching your ideas to the largest audience possible . Have a little faith and stop trying to hold readers hostage to your charity. You get more flues with honey than vinager or however that saying goes.
Ps I still think and pray you will return to faith in Jesus
Trust me, I do not think as a theologian! (Since I’m not one.) And my model is indeed a business model. It’s not hard to see what would happen to this blog if it were free and people could give willingly. As a piece of evidence — any guesses on how much we have raised here from *voluntary* donations? 🙂
Bart, I have been running a donation-based web-site for over a decade. I think you are doing it the right way. It’s like PBS. If there is a large free offering (like there is on the internet and on TV), there needs to be a tangible, immediate benefit for the donation. As well, as donations to the site, I also for donation for my foster child in Indonesia. I get far more donations for that, because (in my opinion) people can at least see the benefit. In the case of your site, I would have been less willing to donate/subscribe if you simply said you were donating to “charity”.
Bart,
I think part of the problem is that D’Souza put you on the defense. Christians like him will do this every time. It’s not that secular people, liberals, and other people are just wrong in his opinion. His goal seems to be to cast everyone who doesn’t have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” in the worst light possible. The fact of the matter is that it really doesn’t matter how much you donate to charity, how much more charity you bring in, how much you improve your social justice cause on this blog. It wouldn’t matter if you, I, and every one of us non-Christians could wipe out poverty off the face of the earth. Nothing will convince folks like D’Souza that we truly believe in helping our fellow human beings. No, Christians like him are convinced that we cannot help people out of the goodness of our hearts. It can only be because we are eager to score brownie points with society and erase the negative publicity that secularists have gotten. People without the Holy Spirit can only be self-centered instead of Christ-centered and we are moral reprobates because of it. Everything we do will be viewed, self-righteously, with suspicion. As much as I don’t like saying this, Bart, we have to get used to it.
What you need to do is put D’Souza on the defense. Start with the problem of suffering. Does D’Souza believe that God is all-just? One our greatest principles of justice is the General Principle of Command Responsibility. D’Souza belives that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good (which includes being perfectly loving and perfectly just). Well, if God is all-just, then he is morally culpable for evils that he had both the requiste power and knowledge to prevent. Why didn’t God do it? Why isn’t God guilty of negligence? And this just applies to moral evil. What about natural evil? The so-called “free will” defense, to my best knowledge, doesn’t even apply to natural evil unless theologians get superstitious and attribute natural evils to demons (“Satan causes cancer!” “Satan caused a lightening bolt to start a forest fire and kill poor Bambi!”). If D’Souza argues that believers give more to charity than nonbelievers, reply that if God prevented this kind of suffering in this first place, believers wouldn’t have to cover God’s butt like this. Believers shouldn’t have to donate to charity; they should be embarrassed of the need to.
Another way to put D’Souza on the defense is to bring up the crimes committed against humanity in the name of faith. The Crusades, Inquisition, Holy Wars. Why didn’t God prevent this? If D’Souza appeals to human ignorance of the Bible-they just don’t understand the context- you can argue that this is God’s fault, not humanity’s fault. If people honestly misunderstand the Bible and think God commands killing when he really doesn’t, then that is God’s fault for not inspiring the Bible to be written more clearly as to make his will and commands unmistakable. For instance, the Flat Earth Society should not exist; saying that they’re ignorant of modern astronomy doesn’t cut it. If God inspired the writing of the Bible to be more clear, then everyone should understand that the Bible teaches that the earth goes around the sun. The only way to “misunderstand” the Bible would be deliberate dishonesty.
A third way to put D’Souza on the defense is to point out the hypocrisy of many modern Christians. Has D’Souza ever spoken out against or written against parents, even Christian parents, telling their kids that Santa Claus is real? I doubt it. Shame him on that! I would! Do any Christians own TVS, DVDs, luxury appliances, etc? D’Souza needs to remind them of what Jesus told the rich young ruler: sell everything they have, give the money to the poor, and then come follow him and they will have “treasure in heaven”. When was the last time D’Souza ordered a “grande” size cup of coffee from Starbucks? Why did he do such a thing? That money could have gone to the poor and needy. Does D’Souza celebrate Christmas? Does he buy Christmas trees? Does he buy gifts? If he does, shame him on that! The money used to buy gifts, trees, etc, could be going to the poor and needy. If he doesn’t do it, fine, but what does he do about the Christians who do, shamelessly, buy these luxuries when they could be donating this badly needed money to charity?
The point is that folks like D’Souza are not in a position to put us on the defense. He should be embarrassed and put on the defense every time! It’s only his pious arrogance that allows him to self-righteously judge nonbelievers like he does.
Have you actually seen the debates? I certainly didn’t *feel* like I was on the defensive. Just the contrary!!
Bart,
No, I haven’t seen the debates. I was going by your post. I got the strong impression that you were feeling defensive as a result of the debates and that somehow D’Souza’s comments were bothering you. My comment about D’Souza putting you on the defense had to do with the tone of your post here and you felt like there was more to do. Maybe I simply misunderstood you. It’s possible I misjudged your post as a result. I am happy to apologize if I did. It’s good that you didn’t feel defensive in the debates; D’Souza deserves to feel defensive because he has the most to defend. Anyways, the call for greater charity, more people, and more means of involvement came across to me like you were bothered by what D’Souza had said about greater charity from Christians and that you were seeking to rectify it by trying to match the charity that supposedly comes from Christians.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it “defensive”, but you do come across somewhat intense, even “agressive”. (I cannot come up with a better word) People have accused me of the exact same thing, so I can understand your position. You are very passionate about the subject and want to get your message across. This passion and the emphatic way you make your points can be interpreted as “agressive” or “defensive” depending on whether you are making a point or rebutting one. It also seem to me that when you are at a podium (a pulpit ersatz?) your passion is intensified. However, during the Q&A I don’t see in the same way. Then add someone like Craig Evans as your opponent who is someone “sheepish”, the two dramatically different personalities emphasizes your passion.
(Sorry for the bad English!)
A good read about Atheism and charity by Paul Bloom (atheist Yale psychologist) :
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2008/11/does_religion_make_you_nice.html
I will strongly consider the community aspect of charity, live in a community that every Sunday stresses about the importance of charity surely helps to give more money (even in private).
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/guest-post-are-the-faithful-really-more-charitable/
Also, there are a lot of studies that demonstrate that the “impression of being watched” (like, for example, display the image of a staring person in the room) in a charity event doubles the raising and makes people behave more morally. Believers are watched all the time 🙂
Atheists/agnostics instead are alone with their conscience.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-illusion-of-being-observed-can-make-you-better-person (can’t find the link about the charity event, I think was cited in an interview by Noble prize kahneman).
Btw consider also that Sweden (one of the most atheistic population in the world) has also the best social welfare system in Europe. Charity is a good thing, but we should aim to create a strong social welfare system in which charity is no longer required 🙂
I think that non-believers in the end will always be less prone to give money to charity (you are an ex-evangelical, maybe that’s why you’re obsessed with it), but our position give us a stronger sense of justice and the conviction that everyone needs equal opportunities because there will be no consolation/retribution AFTER death (also the data shows that non-believers are more liberals than conservatives and, I think, they would agree to pay more taxes for social welfare).
http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Agnostic-Belief-Survey/a/Liberal-Atheists-Vs-Conservative-Christians.htm
Thanks. You may be right. But I prefer to think that I’m obsessed with it because I’m a humanist!! 🙂
I think it would be great if you could get scholars from related disciplines to create blogs like this. Then when a person joins one blog they could have access to the other linked blogs.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. The various religions have had several hundreds, if not thousands of years, to set up mechanisms for donating – much of which went to huge edifices for the greater glory of God. We non-believers (otherwise known as heretics through most of unkind history) are barely out of the safety go our closets. This is not to excuse our stepping up to the plate and I thank you for calling attention to our humankind obligations. I wouldn’t mind a breakdown on those church donations however. An evangelical coworker proudly described how he and his wife tithed a significant portion of their income to charity, i.e., the Gidion Bible distributers and a local Christian radio station.
Professor Ehrman
As an avid reader of your books, I was delighted to find this blog, and when I saw that the price of entry was a modest donation to charity–something I should be doing more of anyway–the donation piece gave me no pause. Having contributed on occassion to a blog about my own professional field, I know that small blog posts take up big chunks of time if you care about writing meaningful pieces, which, apparently, you do. I know there must be tremendous demand for your time from your readers. It seems like I have a new question on every other page when I read your books. Your insight to harness your readers’ desire for more access and information to do real good for hungry and homeless people is one that your audience will be very excited to learn of. I hope you can keep it up.
I’ll do my best!!
Hi Dr Ehrman
My suggestion is a youtube clip with you that explains your blog. I think I would show it on my blog.
I also would like to say that your blog is very interesting and that I am happy to be a member.
/Jonas
Bart, giving this more thought …
… when I read about your teaching the Apocrypha Seminar at the National Humanities Center, I wondered how I could participate in something like that. (I live in California, and I probably would not meet seminar prerequisites.) I wonder how many of your other fans wondered the same thing.
I wonder if you could teach something like this online.
You are probably aware of various “low residency” educational opportunities out there. In theory, it would be possible for you to imitate the low residency model and teach your Apocrypha Seminar online, using a combination of email, Skype, chat room and taped material. You could provide limited access for blog members, and full access for those willing to pay a suitable tuition.
I anticipate a number of problems. The biggest one is UNC. I don’t know what your employer would think of your teaching a course to those of us not enrolled at Chapel Hill. Perhaps this course could be offered by your blog in conjunction with the University’s Center for Continuing Education … but then not all of the tuition could be devoted to charity.
There is the problem of your limited time. I am married to a university professor, so I understand the demands on your time. But at least you’ve taught this seminar before, and won’t have to prepare all new material. I think we’d all have to understand going in, that you could spend just so much time teaching us online and no more. My thought is that you’d do something to get the conversation started, and it would be up to the seminar participants to move the discussion forward from there. Another possibility is to pass on some of the teaching responsibility to graduate students. It might look good on the curriculum vitae — it has to be a good thing to advertise a connection with you, plus I think universities are looking for scholars who know how to teach in an environment “without walls”.
There’s the problem of your blog members, who may have figured that their blog membership purchased access to all of your online efforts for charity, and may be upset to learn that “full access” will cost them something more. I’m not sure what to do about that. You could put this idea up for discussion here, to see if your blog members object to your offering a different sort of content for an additional fee.
Finally … I think your intent here was to see what might be done to better leverage the fundraising power of your existing effort, rather than figure out what more we fans could squeeze out of you! In response, I think the idea would be to set some kind of fundraising goal for the seminar: if the seminar raised $x (fill in the blank), only then would you think it was worth your while to go ahead. Naturally, I can’t tell you how to fill in the blank. One place to start is to think about what it would cost to study this material at a good quality university extension program. Another place to start would be with your customary honorarium.
If you’re not crazy for this idea, say so! I have other ideas.
It’s a great idea, and I wish I had the time. But alas, I don’t. No where near!! Wish I did. There are also bigger problems, both with UNC (probably not legal) and with my courses from the TEaching Company, that cover that material (certainly not legal). So anyone who wants a comparable course, I’d suggest my course Lost Christianities with the Teaching Company (and possibly another course I did with them: From Jesus to Constantine)
The Teaching Company courses as great! Right now, I’m listening to “After the New Testament” on my commute to work. Perhaps TTC would let you include a few lectures from each course on your blog. It would be free advertising for them, plus it would be a quick way to increase the content and motivation to become a subscriber. Maybe this could be part of a “premium” subscription. Perhaps TTC might be willing to help out by donating a percentage of each course ordered to one of your charities.
I like zakiechan’s suggestion of posting answers to Reddit. While it doesn’t have to be that site specifically, I think you need to get your name into people’s faces. Let people know you are accessible and don’t live in an ivory tower. Obviously this cuts into your copious free time.
How about a YouTube channel? Include some of the lectures from the TTC courses, your debates, maybe video tape your lectures at UNC (assuming they will allow you) . There is a lot of material already available, it just needs to be put online.
Will Harper allow you to include chapters from your books? What about additional material that is not in the book. For example, when you publish a book, there is an extra chapter (or two) on the blog only for blog members.
How about doing to others what Ben Witherington did to you? For example, what reasons does Daniel Wallace have for believing 2 Peter is really from Peter. (I know he wrote an article on this subject for bible.org, it’s just an example) What evidence does Craig Evans have to support the claim people in the 1st century would “investigate” any errors in the gospels (contrary to what people like Bruce Malina says) so we can believe they are accurate?
I also like the idea of getting other scholars involved. I would love to see a blog like yours from Jodi Magness. (her TTC course “Holy Land Revealed” is riviting!) If she doesn’t want to set up her own blog, how about a guest article (or ten)? What about someone like Victor Stenger doing a rebuttal of Craig’s Crazy Cosomology (aka The Kalam Cosmological Argument). An article from Barbara Aland on manuscript classificatuion. Something from Catherine Hezser on 1st century literacy.
RonaldTaska’s idea of including a list of debates is good. I would add a list of resources (online and harcopy) by topic. Historiography, archaeology, palaeography, early christian writings, biblical greek. This might be something you could get a student or even an enthusiastic member to do. At most, all you would need to do is provide the format.
One thing I would love to see is more answers to basic questions. Perhaps as a forum, where other members can answer the simple questions. Perhaps with sections specifically for each book or TTC course. That increases added value of the blog site. You really need to keep in mind that most people want a handout and won’t give out money unless there is something in it for them.
Good ideas. thanks!
Your blog is terrific. I am not sure that you can do much better. Just don’t burn out. I also appreciate viewing the debates listed on your other website. Maybe transferring a list of them to this blog would not take much time and would be helpful to others. I am trying to get some of my friends onboard. Some similar blogs get guests to contribute some columns and you might try that so you don’t have to do it all.
William Lane Craig did a lecture about you, addressing the problem of pain. The lecture is entitled: “Problem of Pain (William Lane Craig)” available on YouTube. Maybe both of you could have a public debate on this topic.
Doesn’t he have better things to do than to talk about *me*???
Bart says:
“Doesn’t he have better things to do than to talk about *me*???”
Not if you are getting under his skin. If he has to lecture people about your book, maybe your book struck a chord. If you can accomplish that, you have a feather in your cap considering that William Lane Craig is one of the leading Christian apologists alive today!
If you cannot refute the message, shoot the messenger.
I would suggest inviting other like-minded scholars to contribute posts to this blog once in a while for a 1-month block. This allows you to focus on your other reading and writing during the month, and adds a variety of perspectives.
I haven’t read Arthur Brook’s book, however my nose smells a rat. Two questions I would have are (1) Did the author use gross income or disposable after-tax income as his basis, and (2) Did the author include 100% of church donations as “charity”.
The first point is obvious. With regard to the second point, considering that only about 5-10% of church donations actually go to charity, it would be inaccurate to count all church donations as “charity” since most of that money goes into keeping the church running (i.e., paying staff/admin costs, property taxes, lawsuits, etc).
I also wonder how he obtained his data in the first place. Guess I need to read the book to find out. But I certainly wasn’t surveyed! I’m actually a fiscal conservative who votes republican, but am also anti-religion. So where do people like me fit in to his classifications? Did he survey people over the phone? If so people could lie about their income or their charitable habits. Did he obtain the data from IRS tax returns? If so, I can’t recall seeing anything about religious affiliation on tax returns.