Who Really Cares, by Arthur C. Brooks

We’re all familiar with the stereotypes: “Republicans look out for the interests of big business while the Democratic Party is more concerned with the interests of the poor and needy.” Arthur C. Brooks would like to challenge those assumptions.

In Who Really Cares, Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University, attempts to look at the data on charitable giving to determine which people actually contribute the most to charitable causes.

Brooks, who describes himself as a political independent (he has been registered as both a Republican and a Democrat over the past decade), discovered that the primary factor in predicting charitable generosity is religion. People of faith (defined as those who attend “a house of worship” nearly every week) are more likely to give than “secularists” - those who attend a house of worship once or twice a year, if at all. Brooks finds that religious people are 25% more likely to give money than their secular counterparts and 23% more likely to volunteer.

Brooks then asserts that political conservatives are more likely to be charitable than political liberals. Brooks sees two reasons behind this trend. First, political conservatism has been more appealing than liberalism to people of faith, at least in recent years. Secondly, personal giving is probably affected by one’s philosophy on the role of the government. Brooks says someone who believes that the federal government is responsible to redistribute personal wealth will be less likely to make personal donations to charity.

He concludes by offering several prescriptions which he believes will increase charitable giving. He advocates tax reform which would make it easier to deduct gifts. The government should also take tentative steps to directly fund non-profits or programs designed to increase economic equity - without crowding out private charity. The government must also be more supportive of non-profits who have well-developed fundraising arms. Brooks challenges liberals to be more supportive of religious interests since religious people are more likely to give. He urges Democrats to ignore factions in their party who would try to minimize the importance of personal charity.

Brooks is making a case for “compassionate conservatism” but he does it without slipping into the shrillness which has come to characterize our political discourse. Hopefully, Brooks’s calm tenor will inform the civility of future conversations, because Who Really Cares will be discussed and contested by political pundits for some time.

If Brooks’s data is right, this is the first study to suggest that Evangelicals, or at least religious people, behave differently than their secular counterparts. George Barna has famously demonstrated that belief in God has limited influence over the behavior of Christians. Statistically speaking, the sexual morality and personal ethics of the evangelical community doesn’t look much different from their non-Christian neighbors. This has rightly been the cause of much hand-wringing within the church. However, Brooks seems to have found a distinguishing characteristic of evangelical orthopraxy - we reflect the generous nature of God. This “bright spot” matters. It’s a strength the church needs to build upon.

We might be reaping the fruit of American Evangelicalism’s near-monolithic alignment with the Republican Party. Brooks suggests that the giving gap between liberals and conservatives is caused, in large part, by a distrust of religion in some circles of liberalism. Meanwhile, some of the larger Christian denominations in America have an open bias toward political conservatism (See my review of American Theocracy). Perhaps these two forces have combined to create a push/pull effect that has driven the majority of religious persons into the Republican camp. The danger of this, of course, is that every political party needs to be informed by the influence of Christian thought. My own political leanings tend right, but I’m grateful for the resurgence of the Christian Left. Our political system will become more sane as the implications of the gospel infiltrate every corner of public discourse.

Regardless of our individual political stripe, we each need to remember that Jesus did not endorse any political system during his earthly career. Instead, he called each of his followers to a generous, self-sacrificial lifestyle. Jesus was audacious enough to challenge his disciples to be generous even though they endured the Roman occupation, high taxes, and corrupt tax collectors. This isn’t to say that governmental policy doesn’t matter; Christians need to engage the political system and vote their conscience. God’s people must be concerned with matters of systemic injustice and care for the poor. However, the Christian cannot allow his or her political bent, whether to the left or the right, to be a substitute for personally engaging in charitable giving.

Who Really Cares is available from Powells Books.