Snippet: Christianity is Not as Bad as You Might Think (Part 3)

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Don’t miss the important caveat from the first post in this series.

But here’s one from an article called “No, Christianity Is Not as Bad as You Think.”

“In some circles, Christians are cast as being anti-poor. Their ‘truth claims’ are just power plays, a voting bloc protecting its power and privilege at the expense of the powerless and underprivileged. The reality, though, is people who pray daily and regularly attend church significantly outpace their irreligious neighbors in generosity to the poor, both with their time and money.”

The source is the Pew Research Center as reported on by Philanthropy Roundtable in an article called “Less God, Less Giving? Religion and generosity feed each other in fascinating ways.”

65% of Americans who attend church weekly and pray daily gave away money, goods, or services over the last 7 days compared to only 47% of those who don’t.

45% of Americans who attend church weekly and pray daily volunteered in the last 7 days compared to only 27% of those who don’t.

When Lois was teaching and working on her master’s degree at Hamline, one assignment was to create a resume of volunteer experience. At the time she was tutoring immigrant kids at the Union Gospel Mission or she may have been meeting weekly to help a Somali lady with her English. She has done both, but I can’t remember which she was doing at the time. She also was volunteering at church and had many other experiences throughout the years.

When members of the class shared some of the experiences on their resumes as part of the class, the students were almost incredulous that she volunteered as much as she did, especially for someone working outside the home full-time. Most others had little to nothing on their volunteer resumes.

Suffice it to say that it was obvious, based on information gathered by being part of the same cohort over a two-year period, that she was the most “conservative” (i.e., religiously, politically, culturally) person in the class.

When I look at most of our congregation members over against the non-religious friends and acquaintances I’ve known throughout the years, those stats bear out clearly. In my personal experience, the gap is actually much wider.

A friend recently told me that one of his adult kids has stopped attending their church because they’re upset at all the stuff that has come out about Christians/evangelicals through Covid. I get it. But it’s simply not the whole story and, in my opinion, an overreaction in too many cases.

Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash