At PJmedia, Roger Simon wrote a thoughtful critique of a David Brooks’ column that criticized the Republican national convention for celebrating individual striving at the expense of the virtues, values, and necessity of community and neighborliness. As part of his critique, Simon points out that “conservatives have long been known to be much more generous in their charitable giving than liberals.” Then Simon added this: “Yes, as has been pointed out, that equals out some when you exempt religious charities, but only some.”

Maybe so: maybe the surplus of giving by conservatives over liberals becomes smaller if giving to religious charities is removed from the equation. But why should giving to religious charities be discounted when considering whether conservatives or liberals donate more to worthy causes, to community-serving nonprofits? “JustWondering,” a commenter on Simon’s blog post, rightly asked this:

“[W]hy does it matter that a considerable portion of giving goes to religious charities? Religious charities serve the common good (i.e., not some private religious good) but do so on the basis of their faith principles. Here’s a tiny example of serving the common good: my small northern church sent volunteer work teams to LA and MS over the course of many months and repaired, I think, close to 50 homes-all funded out of our church budget. Bigger examples of serving the common good include all the faith-based international relief and development organizations. They serve regardless of the religion of the people in need-and they always have! Bottom line, the very notion that the dollar given to a faith-based charity should be discounted because it somehow represents self interest rather than public service is based on a very inaccurate understanding of how the faith sector actually works.

“But, even in those cases where a faith charity serves co-religionists, what would be the grounds for discounting that help? Does the charitable dollar that pays the bills for the unemployed co-religionist not count as an act of public service? Does the charitable dollar spent to support the elderly co-religionist in a safe home represent narrow self-interest? Is it only a public good if the person helped is not of your faith?”