The December 9, 2006, issue of World magazine contained an interview with Arthur C. Brooks, author of the book Who Really Cares: the Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism. The book discusses, on the basis of statistical data, the difference between political liberals and conservatives in charitable giving.

Over the past couple decades, the media has been awash in propaganda suggesting that liberals are socially conscious, charitable individuals, while conservatives are greedy, uncaring intellectuals with unhealthy capitalist drives. But the data seems to suggest the truth is dramatically different than that.

The following points are all lifted directly from the article:

“Households headed by a conservative donate, on average, 30 percent more dollars than households headed by a liberal.”

But it’s not because conservatives have so much more money.

“Liberal families earn an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families, and conservative families give more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich.”

It’s not just about money.

“In 2002, conservative Americans were more likely to donate blood each year, and did so more often, than liberals.”

However, the key factor is not politics, but religion.

“Religious conservatives are 28 percentage points more likely to give than secular conservatives, give nearly four times more dollars per year, and volunteer more than twice as frequently.”

“Religious liberals give at extremely high rates—very similar to religious conservatives, actually—while secular liberals give very little.”

But consider this striking difference between the conservative and liberal political groups:

“There are nearly twice as many secular liberals as there are religious ones. In contrast, there are nearly three times as many religious conservatives as secular ones.”

Considering that religion is a more accurate key to giving than political affiliation, that has strong implications for the future of liberal giving, since the pool of religious liberals is shrinking.

However, religion alone is not the only factor. Consider how ideology plays into it:

“A person who goes to church every week and strongly rejects the idea that it is the government’s responsibility to redistribute income will give, on average, 100 times more money to charity each year than a person who never attends a house of worship, and strongly believes that the government should reduce income differences between people. The religious person who is a government skeptic will also give about 50 times more to explicitly nonreligious causes.”

It’s not all about giving to churches.

“The fact is that religious people are 10 percentage points more likely to give money to explicitly secular charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer.”

Religious people are even more ethical than secularists (big surprise, huh?):

“If a cashier accidentally gives a churchgoer too much change, the odds are better than half that he or she will return it, while the odds are more than six in 10 that a secularist will choose not to give it back.”

Europeans like to pick on Americans for their individualism, self-centeredness, etc. How do we compare with them when it comes to giving?

“In per capita private charity, Americans give three and a half times as much as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times more than the Italians. To give an idea how much Americans give, consider the fact that American annual charitable giving exceeds the entire GDP of many European countries, such as Norway and Denmark.”

Taking children to church seems to play an important role:

“People who were taken to church every week as kids are 22 percentage points more likely to give charitably as adults than people who were never taken to a house of worship when they were young. The effect of childhood church attendance is clear even among those who fall away from their faith as adults: Secularist adults who were taken to church every week as children are 21 percentage points more likely to give than those who were brought up in secular households.”

Considering that charity is such an important Christian virtue, it’s very significant what we allow ourselves to believe, or be led to believe, about charitable giving in America.