The myth of a faith-based social safety net
Whenever Congress and the White House cut support for poverty programs, ideologues on the right assert that churches can and should fill the void--that faith-based, private charity is morally superior to government assistance, not to mention more effective. Expect to hear that argument advanced by proponents of the mean-spirited, budget deal that Republicans and Democrats struck this weekend to avert a government shutdown.
There is one simple problem with this argument: there is no evidence that it is true. In a recent post on the faith-based initiatives of the Bush and Obama administrations, Mark Silk demonstrates that congregations "have proven to have only limited capacity to offer the kinds of spiritual outreach and social services" that would transform poor communities. Silk points for a recent study by Mark Chaves, a sociologist at Duke University and Bob Wineburg at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. They concluded:
National and local studies make clear that congregations occupy an important but limited place in community social welfare systems. These studies also make clear that, far from constituting an alternative to that system, congregations’ social service activity depends on it. The faith-based initiative, which attempted to bypass already existing organizational networks and systems of support in favor of resourcing one small part of those systems, failed to increase congregations’ role in those networks and systems in part because the initiative was built on false assumptions about congregations’ place in them.
Few religious communities have the resources to patch the holes that our timid, hard-hearted political leaders keep cutting in the social safety net.
Perhaps Congress and the Administration should also tell the corporate rich that they should come to churches for help too instead of huge tax breaks and bail outs. That way this policy would be completely fair.
Posted by Peter Pearson![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 11, 2011 8:49 AM
I met a man who refuses to tithe because he says the tithe was created in an era where there was no social security and that was its purpose. His aging mother wanted to tithe and he threatened to have her declared unfit to manage her finances. So for him, and perhaps other like him, the church has no role in providing anything like social security. And since the church is dependent on voluntary contributions and not taxes, its ability to help would always be at the mercy of people like this man. Or of people who, with even the best will in the world, cannot give much.
I think the church in the US cannot fill the budget gap. But the church does have some part to play where social security doesn't exist--which is the case in most of the rest of the world.
Posted by Rita Wallace![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 11, 2011 9:05 PM
If a majority of religious people tithed, we wouldn't need a social safety net. Many of the hated "richest 1%" give away a majority of their wealth. Rockefeller, Gates, Buffet, Huntsman are all billionaires and are all giving/ have given away the vast majority of their wealth.
Peter - I agree. I'd like to add that welfare for anyone is immoral.
Rita - you hit on a great point. Europe is so fully immersed in the Welfare State that private charity is all but gone.
A quick back of the envelope calculation, the per capita annual income of the U.S. is $44K / year. If you take 10% of that, that's $4.4k a year. You times that amount times 311 million and you get $1.37 TRILLION dollars. If everyone, Jews, Christians, everyone pushed tithing we wouldn't need this nanny state.
Posted by Sean McDermott![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 13, 2011 2:33 PM