TAX THOSE CHURCHES? While 68 percent of the total population gives (and 51 percent volunteers) to nonreligious causes each year, religious people are 10 points more likely to give to these causes than secularists (71 percent to 61 percent) and 21 points more likely to volunteer (60 percent to 39 percent). For example, religious people are 7 points more likely than secularists to volunteer for neighborhood and civic groups, 20 points more likely to volunteer to help the poor or elderly, and 26 points more likely to volunteer for school or youth programs. It seems fair to say that religion engenders charity in general — including nonreligious charity. Catholic Charities alone account for between 17% and 35% of all hospital, shelters and soup kitchens. Approximately 30 million people received help from The Salvation Army in 2012, but the magnitude of the mission facing The Salvation Army in communities throughout the United States remains great. Indeed, the importance of charity to a religious lifestyle might be one “missing link” in explaining why fewer and fewer religious people have tended to classify themselves as Democrats over the past 30 years — from 37 percent in 1972, to 31 percent in 1983, to 25 percent in 1998. As scholar Peter Frumkin notes in On Being Nonprofit (Harvard University Press, 2002), much charitable activity is harmonious with social advocacy and functions in partnership with government. Thus, it is not axiomatic that the increasing role of secularists in American progressive politics should necessarily drive charity — and hence charitable people — out of the Democratic Party.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 03:05:36 +0000
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