Charity Myths
I was going to respond in the thread about the Southall Black Sisters yesterday, but thought this issue worthy of its own post. In the comments, Andy Newman of Socialist Unity said:
It is for this reason that banging their own drum about the funding of religious charities is self-defeating. Especially as religious charities do a lot of the heavy lifting now – for example church going Anglicans are much more likely to help with charity work than the general population.
I’ve put the salient bit in bold.
Now, this is a complete myth. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations conducted a detailed survey of secular- and faith-based work within the charity sector and addressed this very issue last year.
One paper in particular tackled this question head on, and found that the evidence inconclusive (see pp 29-33). The complications that often lead to an intuitive sense that religious people are more likely to be charitable arise, I think, from these observations:
The weight of the volunteering activity we found was on the everyday, routine activities within the faith community, many of which were more a spontaneous ‘way of life’ than an organised service. Also, we could not clarify the blurring of sacred and secular aspects of service: is the person who cleans the premises more a ‘volunteer’ than a person who takes a role in the ceremony of worship? Future research will need to plan for the problems of recording and analysing informal and spontaneous activities – what people ‘just do’.
And furthermore…
Faith does not appear to be a motivating factor in the same way that – simplistically – wages might be regarded as a motivating factor for paid workers. The research evidence suggests complex interconnections between faith as an element in someone’s predisposition to volunteer, and their situation in a faith-based community, where their volunteering is triggered. It also suggests that a major aspect of faith-based volunteering is the social connection between volunteer and recipient. It may be useful to regard faith-based volunteers largely as people in committed networks with close – but little understood – connections between the helper, the helped and the act of helping.
This would suggest that in terms of providing wider dispersed social services, faith-based groups are not up to the task for the simple reason that an obvious intra-communal generosity has been misdiagnosed by the secular eye as a faith-based propensity for charity. This point makes sense when one considers the fact that much faith-based charitable ‘outreach’ comes with strings attached and is motivated not by a sense of charitable mission, but as a vehicle for proselytising. Some Christian groups running homeless shelters for example reportedly expect participation in acts of worship in return. The Salvation Army, for example, threatened to close down its soup kitchens rather than comply with equality legislation and has famously turned away homeless people who are gay. Some Christian charities delivering HIV/AIDS services in Africa may actually be counter-productive in placing religious doctrine over scientific evidence in disease prevention.
But here’s the key finding (p 12): Religious affiliation makes little difference in terms of volunteering
This is backed up by data from the 2001 Census.
The 2001 Citizenship Survey finds that the proportion of people who volunteered and had a religious affiliation is similar to the proportion of people who had no religious affiliation, and this is true of both informal and formal volunteering. The Table below shows “Participating in informal and formal volunteering at least once a year (%)”
Source: Religion in England and Wales: Findings from the Home Office 2001 Citizenship Survey, Home Office Research Study 274
So there we have it. This is not to dispute that in many cases, a person’s faith might lead them to doing voluntary community work. Of course that is the case. But is not an indicative trend. Indeed, the case of the wino-vicar posted by David T earlier is a graphic demonstration that “church going Anglicans are much more likely to help with charity work than the general population” is just an urban myth.
Comments
| 10 July 2008, 11:11 am |
Jews with the highest percentages?
“me” will have to explain to us how the Elders rigged the survey. I look forward to it.
-incidentally, wino-vicar (nice term btw!) doesn’t prove your point either. All it proves is that in that particular incident, the particular Anglicans involved didn’t help wino-vicar.
(The other argument is sillier though)
| 10 July 2008, 1:28 pm |
Indeed, the case of the wino-vicar posted by David T earlier is a graphic demonstration that “church going Anglicans are much more likely to help with charity work than the general population” is just an urban myth.
Well, to be fair, that was just one social experiment in one church, and not directly related to charity work per se. So I am not sure if that demonstrated anything of the sort, certainly not conclusively.
| 10 July 2008, 1:44 pm |
“Well, to be fair, that was just one social experiment in one church, and not directly related to charity work per se.”
Let’s not get hung up over one illustration of the point which just happened to be to hand because it is in today’s papers. The fact of the matter is, that a careful academic study and the government’s own census figures belie the claim that religious people are more likely to be involved in charities. It is simply not the case.
| 10 July 2008, 1:50 pm |
In my experience, as opposed to my mind, loads of Church of England members volunteer for work which benefits the community at large AND for those who the comunity at large treats as dirt. They would do even more if this Governement were not so obstructive. And Homeless Action in Barnet would disappear if it were not for Jewish funding and Jewish volunteers.
| 10 July 2008, 2:06 pm |
Excluding charitable work *within* a particular religious community seems unreasonable in seeking to determine whether or not religious people are more charitable than the average (I don’t know whether they are or not). Providing, say, hospice care for terminally ill members of a religious community is as much charitable activity as providing hospice care for the general population – and saves the State the cost of having to do so.
WRT the census figures, given that 72% of the population claimed to be Christian (we know that many of them aren’t) it’s hardly surprising that they should be no more likely than average to volunteer. The census tells us nothing about those who are actively involved in their religion, as opposed to those nominally attached to it.
| 10 July 2008, 2:25 pm |
I am constantly cornered in the street (or on my own doorstep) by secular charity workers. Oxfam, Amnesty International, Save the Child, various chaities for the disabled or collecting for some disease research, educating about the environment. I know many humanists and atheists who run around from one committment to another. From this anecdotal evidence, I cannot surmise that secular people are more committed to voluntary work.
Similarly, I expect people involved in organised religious efforts have a similar experience to mine in that they’re around a lot of busy people getting involved in various things. They too should not be able to surmise that the religious are more active.
The figures show that, when all is said and done, it is about even, so there is little profit in attempting to claim charitable superiority.
| 10 July 2008, 2:34 pm |
I would surmise that people who are committed to causes, whether secular, religious, or political are more likely than the average to get involved in charitable work, simply because it’s in their nature to take more interest in wider society than the public in general do.
| 10 July 2008, 3:04 pm |
Brett, I’ve a hunch your poll is flawed.
In North America poll after poll after poll have clearly and irrefutably demonstrated that church-goers are far more likely to engage in charitable work.
Attending church regularly tends to make one think about others a little more.
That’s not to say atheists are uncharitable….they aren’t … it’s just that attending services TENDS to loosen up the purse strings a bit, depending on the cause, of course.
When looking at your chart, it’s interesting, though hardly unexpected, that Muslims are the religious group the least likely to to works of charity.
Isn’t Islam ‘merciful’?
At least in a gasbag kind of way.
| 10 July 2008, 3:08 pm |
Don’t know I religious people is more charitable than others, I doubt that. If now these lefties praise the religious people why is it that the least religious countries in the world (where fewer and fewer people believe there is omniscient supernatural being) is the top notch in UN HDI, the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, income equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality. Are also the most charitable both in terms of the percentage of their wealth they devote to social welfare programs and the percentage they give in aid to the developing world.
The exception might be US of A, but US is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious adherence; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and infant mortality. The pattern is likewise within US: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious literalism, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. violent crime, burglary, theft murder, abortion teenage pregnancies is higher in the red religious states.
The catholic church is often praised for it’s history of charity, but that after they have sucked the lower classes with hefty taxes (tithes is hefty on a small biz when you cant deduct expenses) and was also known as the most harsh in master in the serf system and a ardent defender of this system when it broke up.
| 10 July 2008, 3:17 pm |
Thank you Brett. I’m fed up of the religous claiming that their supposed excess of charity makes them superior. Now I have more ammo to metaphorically shoot them down.
| 10 July 2008, 5:34 pm |
The catholic church is often praised for it’s history of charity, but that after they have sucked the lower classes with hefty taxes (tithes is hefty on a small biz when you cant deduct expenses)
Excuse me, but tithes are entirely voluntary.
sometimes I,ll throw a fiver into the collection plate, and at other times, depending on the quality and intelligence of the sermon, I,ll put sweet fuck all.
The Catholic Church is involved in charitable works in a very big way. For instance, they pay for and staff the only functioning hopsital in all of Somalia…..a nation of over 20 million people.
They also do great work in Africa for AIDS patients.
| 10 July 2008, 5:35 pm |
I’m fed up of the religous claiming that their supposed excess of charity makes them superior. Now I have more ammo to metaphorically shoot them down.
Shoot me down Morgoth! I’m the Red Baron!
| 10 July 2008, 7:33 pm |
The data is irrelevant to your case because no-one is claiming people with an Anglican or any other religious “affiliation” are more likely to do volunteer work. The claim is that churchgoers are and if you want to disprove this I suggest finding another stat.
| 10 July 2008, 7:40 pm |
Furthermore, I wouldn’t count many of the activities that get one listed on the Citizenship survey as remotely beneficial and many are actually harmful.
I’m confident this because I know doezens of people who got “millenium volunteer” awards for hanging around Fair Trade/Environment/Amnesty Int societies, The Youth Parliament or some other piece of horsecrap. One even got an all expenses paid trip to Brussels to learn about how the EU works, for which he was creidted for 30 hours of volunteering.
Anyway, all genuine charity is anonymous.
| 10 July 2008, 11:05 pm |
Surely the survey was done the wrong way round.
They should have contacted a cross section of voluntary societies, and asked them to pass on questionaires to their local supporters. The charities know who we are. Then all the questionaires need to ask about is religious observance.
| 11 July 2008, 2:06 am |
“They also do great work in Africa for AIDS patients.”
-JP shouldn’t they be doing this great work in light of the fact that their ban on condom use has contributed to the problem?
I would suggest thats not charity but rather compensation.
| 11 July 2008, 6:34 am |
How do you know the tin shakers are secular? The charities in question were founded and built by religious people. Oxfam by quakers, Amnesty by a Catholic and save the child(ren?) By a bone fide anglican saint. Sensibly they all act in a non sectarian way
| 11 July 2008, 6:46 am |
But if don’t like anglicans you could always donate to NSPCC (congregationalist), Barnado’s (evangelical), NCH (methodist). You could buy some traid craft coffee (evangelical) or give your auntie a world-vision goat for xmas (more evangelicals)
In my mind, church-going Anglicans are probably more likely to do voluntary work for others in their sect, whereas those of no religious affiliation are more likely to carry out voluntary work for the entire community, regardless of beliefs.