TruthBook Religious News Blog

By ARTHUR BROOKS
December 28, 2007

As we approach year's end, your mailbox is filling up with fundraising appeals from various charities and causes, hoping to capitalize on your holiday cheer — or at least, your effort to avoid a bit of 2007 income taxes through deductible contributions.

It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who gave money to charity in 2000 were 43% more likely than non-givers to say they were "very happy" about their lives.

Similarly, volunteers were 42% more likely to be very happy than non-volunteers. It didn't matter whether gifts of money and time went to churches or symphony orchestras — givers to all types of religious and secular causes were far happier than non-givers.

People who give also are less sad and depressed than non-givers. The University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics reveals that people who gave money away in 2001 were 34% less likely than non-givers to say that they had felt "so sad that nothing could cheer them up" in the past month. They were also 68% less likely to have felt "hopeless," and 24% less likely to have said that "everything was an effort."

The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith — as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances — but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, 11 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-giver.

Giving goes beyond formal gifts of money and time, of course. Much of the way we serve others is less formal, or with other resources of value in our lives. One particularly visceral kind of giving involves our blood, which a bit over 15% of Americans donate at least once each year. If anything, this kind of charity is even more strongly associated with happiness than traditional gifts.

Labels: Americans, Arthur Brooks, charities, happiness, Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

America free from religion? We all need its foundation

Saturday, June 30, 2007

The Supreme Court this week dismissed a lawsuit from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation charging that President Bush's "faith-based initiative" program is an unconstitutional promotion of religion.

Good.

There are dangers in excessive government entanglement with religion, but there also are benefits in supporting proven, grass-roots programs that deliver needed services in an efficient manner. Reason, common sense and goodwill can help us build a consensus on how to protect religious freedom while providing public services such as drug counseling, soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

In an era when anti- religion polemicists gather attention with books, such as Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," Chris topher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Re ligion Poisons Every thing" and Sam Harris' "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason," it would be wise to pause to consider what an America -- and a Northeast Ohio -- would be like free from religion.

Take away groups such as Catholic Charities, the Interfaith Hospitality Network and the City Mission, which meet the basic needs of thousands of the region's neediest, and Cleveland would be a tinderbox of frustration and injustice. As important as the services religious charities provide is their witness that those suffering are not alone, that many of their neighbors in the region believe poverty and homelessness are crimes against humanity that cry out for a response.

The ability to give hope amid even the most overwhelming crises was evident at the recent conference, "Leveraging Change: The Politics and Economics of Global Poverty and Health Care" at Hiram College.

In one session, leaders of Northeast Ohio organizations discussed how their groups are changing lives throughout the world despite crushing poverty, disease and economic injustice.

Joseph Cistone, executive director of the Cleveland Heights-based International Partners in Mission, spoke of his group's work in a Nairobi slum where women are sexually exploited and children suffer from malnutrition and malaria.

Catherine Monnin, director of Worldview International, a Christian group based in Olmsted Falls, spoke of her group's efforts to promote literacy programs and health clinics in Africa.
How to build on such efforts to create support for health care as a basic human right is a more formidable task.

In a separate session, Nicholas King, assistant professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, discussed why people who are well-off should care about the health of the poor. Can or should a case be made on the basis of self-interest?

The idea I came away with was that utilitarian arguments -- caring for the poor can prevent epidemics and reduce public health expenditures -- may be one way to build support for efforts to provide universal health care. We should, however, be grateful for all the people whose ethics mandate a humanitarian response irrespective of personal gain.

In America, faith contributes to the ethical foundation of a majority of its citizens.

More than ever, in a nation where politicians from both parties have abandoned the poor to the baser instincts of Americans, we need the positive values of religion. Lower taxes and a balanced budget -- not self-sacrifice for the greater good -- are the mantra of today's politicians.
We should welcome to the public policy table individuals and groups who uphold self-sacrificial love of neighbor as the ideal of living in community.

There is reason for hope when broad-based religious coalitions join with citizens groups to work for social justice. Last November, religious groups helped overcome powerful political and business interests in successful campaigns to raise the state's minimum wage and defeat slot machines and casino gambling.

An America free from religion?

No thanks.

To reach David Briggs:
dbriggs@plaind.com, 216-999-4812

Labels: America, charities, David Briggs, faith-based initiative, public service, religion, the poor