Friends of God
I had two experiences yesterday that forced me to recognize my own prejudice.
First, I watched the HBO special about evangelical Christians. It is called Friends of God, and it was filmed, produced, and directed by Alexandra Pelosi. If her name rings a bell, it should. Her mother is the speaker of the house of representatives. Pelosi, who grew up in San Francisco and lives in Manhattan, takes her camera on a road trip through Appalachia and Dixie, and introduces her viewers to evangelicals on their home turf. The weakest part of the documentary is the National Geographic feel, as though we were travelling to the remotest part of the Amazon basin in order to observe a strange and exotic tribe. There are parts of the film that would sustain an accusation that the director was seeking out the weirdest and most outlandish aspects of the culture and presenting them as typical. Overall, however, Pelosi accomplishes her stated objective, to present to her viewers the idea that conservative Christians are just average folks who are neighborly and kind. She gives them the courtesy of allowing them to speak for themselves. The creepiest part for me was when Ted Haggard (pre-fall) was shown wisecracking with two male parishoners about how much sex they had with their wives. It was disgusting, and in light of subsequent events, excruciating to watch. My favorite part of the documentary was about the pro rassler from deep in the heart of the lone star state who brings people to Jayzus through the ministry of his Christian Wrestling Federation. He makes our own baseball baptisms look very lame by comparison. And the Christian stand-up comic who feels discriminated against needs to wake up and smell the coffee. He is unpopular not because he is a Christian, but because he isn’t funny.
Ms. Pelosi has accomplished something good with this project. She crossed a barrier and humanized the people she filmed, and occasionally you get a sense of something bordering on charitable affection. Pelosi herself started going back to church after making the documentary. HBO will air it again on January 27th and 30th, if you are interested.
After the documentary, I read a review of a book entitled Who Really Cares, by Arthur Brooks. He is a professor of economics and public policy at Syracuse, and he undertook a study which attempted to understand the demographic breakdown behind charitable giving. Brooks concludes that in every measurable way, people who identify themselves as conservative Christians are significantly more charitable than people who identify themselves as liberals or secularists. They donate not only more money but also a higher percentage of their income, which is especially significant because liberal households report 6% higher income. This pattern of giving applies not only to money, but to time as well, and even blood donation. Brooks reports that if liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservative Christians, the nation’s blood supply would increase by 45%.
If the conclusions Brooks reaches are sustained by the data, then I, and plenty of other people too, owe evangelicals an apology. It is humbling to be confronted with evidence of your own ignorance and prejudice.
Mark,
I imagine that much of their charitable contribution is tied up with church donations. Despite the tax benefits in the US, I never felt like paying tithing was really “charity” on my part.
Comment by Ronan — January 26, 2007 @ 8:49 am
Though, R, that sense of obligations greater than yourself that would make you not consider tithing charity may be part of why committed Christians give more.
This humanization project places these Evangelicals in a camp with a common perception of Mormons: wonderfully kind people who recommend horrible social policies despite being filled with charitable feelings.
Comment by Sam MB — January 26, 2007 @ 9:39 am
Ronan and Sam MB’s comments remind me of soemthing that I was thinking about recently. I have always found it interesting that the most frequent rhetorical appeal regarding tithing centers on what the payer gets (blessings from heaven, “just in time” checks in the mail, etc.) No doubt that blessings flow from the honest payment of tithes, but I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say that they are grateful for tithing because of the good it does for other people.
Comment by Costanza — January 26, 2007 @ 9:44 am
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Mark. I just set my DVR to record it tomorrow. Should be an interesting companion piece to “Jesus Camp” which is now out on DVD and a must-see for all Bloggernaclites. That film did not have a sense of charitable affection toward its subjects, and kinda freaked me out.
My sense is that the range of Evangelical thought and politics is much broader than among the LDS, although this may be due to the fact that “real” Mormons generally refuse to acknowledge that other groups (ranging from the FLDS to the CoC) are in fact part of their faith-tradition.
Comment by MikeInWeHo — January 26, 2007 @ 10:05 am
2 for 2 on the posts this week! Keep ‘em coming. I haven’t seen Friends of God yet, but I have seen Pelosi’s documentary about W’s presidential campain and victory, Journeys With George. It seems she has a knack for finding volatile subjects. Surely, tithes and offerings boost the charity numbers for conservatives, but one area I’m interested in is service. Perhaps all the compulsory service I completed going through Scouts and growing up Mormon is what makes me feel guilty if I’m not anxiously engaged in helping someone out. However, I also gleaned from my service hours the lesson that service is beneficial to all involved. Outside of the church (I can’t really speak for other churches) I don’t see a lot of people volunteering their time to help someone on a personal basis. I myself am guilty. If not for the Elder’s Quorum, I doubt I would be moving people or calling just to see how someone’s family is doing. I’m interested in: What role does the church play in your charitable service? Do other churches encourage, and organize, personal service in the same way?
Comment by Wes Brown — January 26, 2007 @ 10:07 am
This is interesting as Thursday’s USA Today ran a preview blurb about the show that led me to believe it presented a less than flattering view of Evangelicals:
Comment by Tim J. — January 26, 2007 @ 10:45 am
Costanza, that’s a really good point. Thanks.
Comment by Taryn Nelson-Seawright — January 26, 2007 @ 10:47 am
Tim, it always amusing to see how American media portrays fundamentalist Christians.
Comment by Todd Wood — January 26, 2007 @ 10:55 am
Costanza, being raised Lutheran, I used to see a plate being passed around during church services that everyone donated money into. I knew even as a kid that money was going to pay for the pastor’s livelihood and the cost and upkeep of the church building. I think Mormons are mostly very distanced from where their tithing money goes, so whenever the topic comes up I try to point out that it pays for the building we meet in, the kitchen we use for ward events, the phone my kids use to call me to come get them from mutual, etc.
Comment by Susan M — January 26, 2007 @ 11:26 am
My entire company that I work for/own is evangelical Christians except for myself. There is a great environment here at the office. I find the media’s typical depictions of evangelicals to be mean-spirited and dishonest and to be honest remind me of the Anti-Mormon types out there
They are mostly middle class suburbanites here in the Dallas suburbs nothing to be afraid of.
Comment by bbell — January 26, 2007 @ 11:29 am
Interesting. I am going to arrange to see this documentary. By now, BCC readers should know that the wonderful documentary maker, Helen Whitney, has completed her special on the LDS, which will air on PBS and as a Frontline special. It’s four hours long. I was interviewed during the preparatory stages and learned from the person who interviewed me about some of the angles the filmmakers were covering and how touched they had been by much of what they had encountered in Mormonism. (And of course I’m not going to spoil it for anyone.)
Meanwhile, I’m still working (with others) on _Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons_, shaping the interviews and other material so that it becomes a bridge-builder–not any kind of Mormon bashing, and not anything like a Mormon devotional film. The task feels daunting, but such wonderful people are working on this. I certainly hope it doesn’t get the kind of reviews Pelosi’s documentary got–and I don’t anticipate it will. Progress report: I expect we will release in the summer.
Comment by Margaret Young — January 26, 2007 @ 11:38 am
I grew up in Texas, and I love the evangelicals there. I think fear and distaste that I read about in the paper and hear from urban, liberal friends results from proud ignorance. It’s too bad. The religious people I know are far from perfect themselves, but there’s something…so sweet and unselfish about honestly trying to follow God.
My aunt is evangelical, and she is often telling me how she prays to be God’s instrument to help other people. You could look at it one way - why should I know that? Shouldn’t that be private? But I see my almost-retired, thrice-divorced, tele-evengalist-following aunt who is determined to not focus on what she doesn’t have and instead prays to God to help her be a net-positive for this world.
Those who say who she is and what she follows is negative are painting something white as something black. It’s just not right.
Comment by Katie P. — January 26, 2007 @ 11:41 am
The other point I wanted to make is that Urban white liberals would be in shock at how many of the minority residents in large northern cities are evangelicals with identical religious beliefs to the disdained white rural and suburban evangelicals. Due to PC tendencies they would never point the finger at the large concentrations of disdained bible thumpers in their own backyards in the bad part of town that they have little contact with.
I spent some time in College in a urban public school in Chicago and asked the class how many of them believed the bible was the word of God and went to church regularly and about 70% of the largely black class raised their hands
Comment by bbell — January 26, 2007 @ 11:57 am
I grew up in the South and it has taken me a long, long time to get over my prejudices against white, middle-class Evangelicals. I don’t pretend that I have entirely done this.
Costanza,
We don’t consider what tithing funds do for other people because tithing isn’t fast offering. Tithing is totally an act of personal devotion and faith. We care for other people directly through fast offering, ward mission funds, the perpetual education fund, and so forth.
Comment by HP/JDC — January 26, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
Hi bbell–
In shock? Not at all. But the inner-city Christians you mention view the world very, very differently from their suburban brethren. They may share a common theology, but that’s about it. Your dreaded Urban white liberals don’t “point the finger” at their Christian neighbors in the ‘hood because they share similar political orientation and social agendas (a couple of hot-button moral issues notwithstanding). The Republicans had a shot at making inroads with the inner-city Christian community, but I think that’s a lost cause for now. (Hey, wow, I just found a reason to be thankful for GWB today!! Wow!)
Comment by MikeInWeHo — January 26, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
MikeInWeHo
How is CoC [I assume you mean Church of Christ] part of our faith tradition?
Comment by Natasha — January 26, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
Mike,
I largely agree with your comment on why they do not “point the finger at them” They share similar political worldviews even though they are worlds apart in almost all other areas of life. Although the white urban liberal may employ as a maid a urban evangelical or practicing Catholic. I actually think Katrina set back republican attempts to poach black voters back a generation or 2. Rightly or wrongly I think its the reality.
Mike do you really think that Nancy Pelosi’s daughter would drive to Harlem and start going to Pentecostal churches in a national Geographic sort of way?
Comment by bbell — January 26, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
Costanza, that’s because we have no idea what tithing does for other people.
Comment by Ann — January 26, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
So, according to HP/JDC, tithing does no (direct) good for people. Only fast offerings do. So, therefore, we should never be grateful to pay tithing because it provides things to people such as, oh, I don’t know, temples and meetinghouses. And according to Ann we have no idea what it does for other people. Uh, ok.
Comment by Costanza — January 26, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
Costanza, is there an official LDS source that says, “In 2006, x% of tithing went to temples, y% to meetinghouses, z% to BYU, etc.”? If not, it would seem that we don’t actually know what tithing does.
Comment by Beijing — January 26, 2007 @ 2:24 pm
Costanza, I’ve got to agree with HP/JDC, Ann, and Beijing: tithing probably does a lot of good for people, but we don’t really know for sure. Out of every dollar we give, do we really have any idea what percentage goes to fund church security, what percentage to PR efforts, what percentage to General Authority salaries, and what percentage to meeting houses? My guess — based on fragmentary public information for some foreign countries and other bits of available data — is that the large majority of our tithing goes to keeping weekly meetinghouses in business. A substantially smaller part probably goes to building temples, and a lot of the organizational overhead of the church seems to be funded by church-owned for-profit businesses. But this is all inferential, and it’s actually consistent with the available data to believe that a reasonable portion of our tithing is, say, going to the construction of a giant underground temple to Moloch in Antarctia…
Comment by J. Nelson-Seawright — January 26, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
CoC= Community of Christ.
Comment by Gilgamesh — January 26, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
re: 15 No, I meant The Community of Christ, formerly the RLDS Church. They’re your cool, liberal cousins. The FLDS are your embarassing cousins.
As for Alexandra Pelosi….well, who knows. One could imagine the child of a personality like Nancy Pelosi might have a need to break away and individuate by going in a completely different direction. Maybe she’ll wind up an Evangelical. You have to admit, that would be a case of ironic justice.
Speaking of, has anybody been watching One Punk Under God on the Sundance Channel? They’ve been following around Jay Baker, son of Jim & Tammy Faye. I’m hooked on it. It’s a remarkable story of redemption and reconciliation.
Comment by MikeInWeHo — January 26, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
Costanza,
I agree that temples and meetinghouses do a lot of good for people. I was just pointing out that fast offering and other church donations do more perceptible good for people and therefore they seem to be where we assign these sorts of charitable donations.
Comment by HP/JDC — January 26, 2007 @ 3:34 pm
The disconnect between tithing and what happens to it might be because it isn’t good to pay tithing based on what happens to it. It’s to the Lord, and it’s a commandment. It almost doesn’t matter what happens to the money in the end.
Comment by Katie P. — January 26, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
Does anybody want to address the 2nd part of the original post? That Contrary to the conventional wisdom….. if the data is in fact reliable
1. Conservatives are in fact not as wealthy as liberals
2. Conservatives give far more to charity then liberals do?
Comment by bbell — January 26, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
Crap, bbell, we were trying to ignore that.
Actually, I don’t know what to do with that data. I have questions regarding how it was obtained, etc. On face value alone, I would guess that it is possible that it is true. In general, people tend to get more liberal as they get more educated (isn’t that the stereotype, at least). If more education equates to a bigger paycheck, then I understand the connection. Furthermore, since he wasn’t talking about conservatives vs. liberals, but rather conservative Christians vs. Liberal (Christians?) vs. Secularists, I don’t believe that political labels translate over to his categories (again, not being familiar with the data I don’t know how accurate my response is). One could be a religious secularist and a fiscal conservative, for instance (as I imagine most big business types are). So, once again, I don’t really know what to do with the data as it has been reported to me.
Comment by HP/JDC — January 26, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
I wonder which category of belief Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett fit, as I suspect that whatever the category may be (Reformist Wiccans?), that category is going to win the “we gave more than others” contest.
Comment by greenfrog — January 26, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
#25, it explains why liberals are liberal. They vote for government to force them to give via taxes to fund benefit programs, because otherwise they won’t give as much as they should. (winky face)
Comment by Beijing — January 26, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
re: 25 I think both points are true, IF we agree that contributions to churches = charitable giving. But that is surely a point of contention. If you controlled for contributions to churches and political organizations, I wonder what results you would see. What if “charity” is narrowly defined as fast-offering, Goodwill, Red Cross-type giving?
Of course liberals are wealthier, bbell. They’re smarter, and smart people figure out how to capture more scarce resources. : ) Bill and Melinda Gates are consummate social liberals.
Comment by MikeInWeHo — January 26, 2007 @ 6:46 pm
Great comments and questions, everybody. Thank you!
The point of the post was mostly to relay the sense of surprise and embarassment I felt when I saw evidence that people I had considered beneath me may actually by morally superior to me in the only way God cares about. Living within a bubble, as most of us do, can cause us to overlook important data that run counter to our assumptions.
I’ve been googling around trying to find answers to some of the questions some of you have raised. For what it’s worth, here are the answers:
Mr. Brooks addresses the question about tithing and donations to churches -
on politically conservative vs. politically liberal -
It appears that religion is what motivates giving. Mr. Brooks again -
To sum up, my very amateur analysis suggests that the differences that appear to be political can likely be accounted for by the fact that there is a very strong correlation between religious participation and political conservatism.
Comment by Mark IV — January 26, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
JNS, HP/JDC, Ann, Beijing,
While I also wish we had more information about where tithing goes, I’m not sure what that has to do with the value we assign to tithing as charity. Do we know how the NAACP spends the money it receives? Are we willing to devalue the sacrifices its donors make? We can assume it needs to pay for buildings, office salaries, and so on.
Comment by Mark IV — January 26, 2007 @ 8:00 pm
It’s also true that the civil rights movement in the south in the 50s and 60s was largely a Christian religious movement. The political centers were the African American evangelical Christian churches, and the central ideas of nonviolence, and the worth and dignity of each human, were ideas strongly supported by the religious worldview. Also, the personal courage of many of the activists (and how much courage it must take to face death threats, jail, and bombings, and keep steady on?) definitely was lifted and sustained by their faith. What I find a terrible shame is that the white people’s Christian churches didn’t join in wholesale with great rejoicing early on. And I find it very sad that the LDS church wasn’t way out in front on this issue.
Comment by Tatiana — January 26, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
#31. You can download the NAACP’s financials for 2005 and 2006 on their website.
Please note that I do not wish we had more information on how tithing is spent. In fact, I care not whither it goes. I only piped up because my friend Ann was getting undeservedly snarked on in the comments for making an accurate observation. I appreciate your use of the phrasing “we can assume…” what tithing is used for. That is accurate. We can only assume.
Comment by Beijing — January 26, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
AMEN BROTHER!! I think we (as a people) need to appreciate others and realize that there may be many of other faiths who are morally superior to us. We need to love our neighbors as ourselves. That is a higher commandment than all of the things that define a “Mormon” (see Matthew 22:37-40). So let’s work on that and stop worrying about where our tithing goes.
Comment by jothegrill — January 26, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Evangelicals take service at least as seriously as Mormons do, and often, I find, have a profound sense of humility, a deep sense of connection to God, and a much more expressive faith than Mormons do. Randall Balmer’s book, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, is a touching and very human look at modern, grassroots, evangelical Christians; I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested.
At the same time, however, I think getting into politics was the worst thing that could have happened to them; it has served in many ways to wreck much of what is beautiful about their theology and reduce a living faith to a sterile political platform. Further there’s a great deal about evangelicalism’s theological makeup - its frequently Manichean worldview, its philosophical distrust of theological inquiry, its dispensational pessimism - that disturbs me.
As to tithing, I’m not sure why wanting to know how it is spent is incompatible with believing it’s a sacrifice offered in devotion to God.
Comment by Matt Bowman — January 27, 2007 @ 12:36 am
re: 33
“…the LDS church wasn’t way out in front on this issue.”
That’s a bit of an understatement.
Comment by MikeInWeHo — January 27, 2007 @ 1:11 am
Beijing, thanks for the link. I followed it and tried to find financial data to examine but was still unsuccessful.
At any rate, I think we can all agree that all charitable organizations have overhead, some are more efficient than others, and that some have agendas we do not choose to support. The Heart Fund, Boy Scouts, The Opera Guild, NARAL, The Lung Foundation - They all qualify as charities in my book, and regardless of the organizations stated goals, I admire people who are willing to sacrifice time and money for them.
Jothegrill:
AMEN SISTER!!!
Comment by Mark IV — January 27, 2007 @ 1:30 pm
Re: 25
I realize that tithing is to the Lord, but I would want to make sure that the Lord’s work is actually being done rather than being squandered on some individual’s worldly desires, such as the case of Jim Baker or Ted Haggard.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no gripes against feeding and housing the preacher like Protestants do. Remember that Protestants view preaching as a full time job, almost like our elders but for their lifetime rather than just 2 years. I could imagine the kind of effort it takes to prepare 3 sermons every week by yourself (Sun. morning and evening, and Wed. night) as well as handling all of the church’s business. This is not a position I envy one bit. So in a sense, feeding the preacher still doing the Lord’s work.
Of course, I was impressed by how the LDS Church is organized to distribute the workload of managing and teaching the congregation. You naturally get more done with each member handling pieces of the workload rather than one man handling the entirety of the burden.
Comment by D. Allen — January 27, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
Althought CoC in this thread refers to the Community of Christ, the Wikipedia article on Restorationism mentions an important relationship between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Churches of Christ. Each of these churches was founded with the goal of restoring “Christianity in its original form” after the Great Apostacy.
Comment by Steve S — January 28, 2007 @ 1:07 am
Mark IV, when you follow the link, look at the second heading: “Financial Reports.” Under that heading, you can click to download the following files (text cut and pasted from the NAACP site): “2006 Annual Financial Report | 2006 Annual Financial Report (PDF) | 2005 Annual Financial Report | 2005 Annual Financial Report (PDF) | Bookkeeping Guide.”
I dislike your implication that I was expressing a lack of admiration for donors to any charity or devaluing their sacrifices. I was not. It is not disresepectful to anyone to point out that the LDS church does not currently make its financial reports available. It is simply a fact. That’s all I have to say on the subject.
Comment by Beijing — January 28, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
Beijing, you’re correct. Please accept my apologies for implying something you didn’t say, and my thanks for helping me get it right.
Comment by Mark IV — January 29, 2007 @ 7:54 pm