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But how can this be? After all, presumably those who support income redistribution care more about the plight of the poor. The answer seems to be that many advocates of redistribution use this position as a substitute for making personal sacrifices—that is, they think they are already being charitable by taking a particular political position. Those who oppose income redistribution may feel more obliged to make personal sacrifices on behalf of the poor.
Two other factors influence giving—personal entrepreneurship and being married with children. The latter influence is especially interesting. After all, in hard economic terms one would expect just the opposite, since children are a significant drain on both time and money. But apparently either more charitable Americans have more children, or having children makes them more charitable. Or perhaps both are true. In any case, conservatives are more likely to be situated in traditional families.
Brooks ultimately concludes that the contrasts between conservatives and liberals are large enough such that they tend to be part of different cultures or "nations"—one charitable and one uncharitable. In the uncharitable nation reside some 75 million Americans who never donate their money and 130 million who never volunteer their time. Meanwhile, Americans who give their time and money tend to give a lot of both. Thus, Brooks concludes there is a "very bright line" between "Charitable America" and "Selfish America."
But if this is right, how can we square Brooks' thesis with Sider's claim that evangelicals live just as secular Americans do? A partial answer might be that Sider rests his case on more than just data on charity. He also examines divorce, racism, and sexual disobedience. In addition, he only examines giving to churches both over time and between mainline and evangelicals denominations, and never makes broader comparisons between the charitable giving of secular and religious Americans. And as John G. Stackhouse recently emphasized in these pages, Sider is not careful to distinguish nominal from committed evangelicals.
On the other hand, it is not clear that Sider would be very impressed by Brooks' data. First, Brooks finds that there is nothing distinctive about evangelicals. Thus, religious evangelicals are no more charitable than religious Catholics or Jews. What seems to matter is religiosity rather than the content of one's faith. Second, it is not clear that contributions in the order of three to six percent of one's annual income each year can sustain the larger cultural claims that Brooks makes. Thus religious citizens may give a good deal more than secular Americans do, everything else being equal, but they nonetheless make relatively small contributions from their incomes.
However one interprets these findings, one conclusion is indisputable: religious conservatives not only bear little resemblance to the stereotypes liberal élites ascribe to them, they also compare favorably to other Americans. Brooks own work confirms an excellent ethnographic study by James Ault, Spirit and Flesh: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church (reviewed by Julie Byrne in the November/December 2004 issue of Books & Culture). Ault, a child of the New Left and liberal culture, was amazed by the charity he encountered, especially when compared to the more individualistic and atomized culture he knew so well. Other studies, such as Brad Wilcox's, have shown that evangelical men are more engaged with and attentive to their wives and children than mainline and especially secular men. Many other scholars, including Christian Smith, Clyde Wilcox, and Mark Rozell, have found that evangelicals are far more open to pluralistic values than most élites ever imagine. In fact, my own work has led me to conclude that Christian activists often behave in much more civil ways than secular activists. Perhaps the pervasive charity that Brooks discovered is not completely walled out of the public square.
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