Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids without Religion by Dale McGowan

Author:Dale McGowan [McGowan, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AMACOM
Published: 2011-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Generosity

Hear enough “deconversion” stories and you’ll begin to see a pattern. Many feel sadness and confusion as their faith begins to flag—only to describe a feeling of peaceful relief once it is finally gone, followed by a sense of personal freedom. But then—despite the dire warnings of the evangelists—instead of picking up a machine gun, we are hit with what I’ll call the Humanist Epiphany: In the absence of a god, we are all we’ve got. Freedom is joined by an awesome sense of responsibility.

Christians could be forgiven if they took an entirely hands-off approach to charity. God is all-just, after all. He will provide for the needy, if not in this world, then in the next. Yet plenty of Christians are out there doing good works for others as a direct and visible expression of their values.

Atheists, however, have no excuse to sit passively. We know there’s no divine safety net, no universal justice, no Great Caretaker, no afterlife reward. We have the full responsibility to create a just world and care for the less fortunate because there’s no one else to do so. So why are Christians doing most of the charity?

They’re not.

I was shocked to learn that myself. That churchgoers do the lion’s share of the charitable work in our communities is simply untrue. They get credit for it because they do a better job of tying the good works they do to their creed. But according to a 1998 study,2 82 percent of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of “church maintenance” activities—volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and immediate church community. As a result of this siphoning of volunteer energy into the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the larger community—from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly—comes from the category of “unchurched” volunteers. The same pattern is apparent on the international stage. The Center for Global Development (CGD) reports that the developed countries that rank highest in terms of generosity to poor countries are those in which church attendance is lowest. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands consistently top the list, all of which have regular church attendance below 15 percent. The idea of a religious monopoly on charity and community service is clearly a myth.3

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