Paid “friendship missionaries” on the University of Arizona campus scan for lonely foreign students, who get invitations to dinner with a side dish of salvation. Are the missionaries and their sponsors generous, predatory, or both?

Several studies (e.g. here and here) show that religious people give more dollars and volunteer hours to charity than do nonbelievers. Evangelical Christians have been trumpeting these findings: No matter what you may think about our exclusive offer of salvation, our religion is a social good.

As a former Evangelical I tend toward skepticism, especially when it comes to data that have been assembled and promoted by ideologues. And yet I’m inclined to suspect that these results tap something real. Sociologists have found that tribal identity increases altruism toward other members of the tribe (though at the expense of outsiders). In many ways, a religion functions as a tribe. Besides ordinary in-group/out-group effects, religions explicitly teach that we are made to serve something larger than ourselves. They encourage members to give of themselves to gods, co-religionists and others — in part by promising deferred compensation. But perhaps even more importantly, they provide a community and structure for doing so.

Let’s assume that religious people are more generous or altruistic. An interesting follow-up question is this:

Where is this generosity directed? Does it serve the cause of goodness? By a scientific definition of altruism, suicide bombing is an altruistic act supported by religious attendance. It is the individual sacrificing his life (and reproductive potential) in the service of another individual or the greater collective — in this case Allah, Islam, the Muslim brotherhood. But is it as a social good?

Within conservative Christianity, a tremendous amount of donated time and money is solicited for conversion activities: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Is religious recruiting a social good? On this, most evangelists and I would have opposite opinions, at least about Christian recruiting. (We might be more in agreement about the proselytizing done by Hare Krishnas or Scientologists.)  It is only fair to give evangelical missionaries credit for their intentions. If you truly believe the unsaved are going to be tortured eternally, then there is no greater good than to spend your life saving their souls. By comparison, nothing else matters. A missionary, operating on this premise, may experience herself as highly generous, because she is.

She also might protest that independent of afterlife benefits, accepting Jesus makes people happy in this life, here and now. This is true.  Sometimes. Jesus worship can fill people with deep joy. It can get alcoholics to stop drinking and abusers to stop abusing. It can save marriages.  But sometimes the opposite happens. (See thousands of testimonials at exChristian.net). Pentecostals point to happy African church-going children singing and dancing. A former Pentecostal might point to the African children who have been kicked out of their communities or killed because new converts to Pentecostalism saw them as witches and took their took their Bibles literally. The net here and now benefits of proselytizing are arguable.

A darker way to look at Christian “outreach” is as an example of how viral beliefs, sometimes called meme complexes, can exploit the human tendency toward altruism. What I mean is that a belief set can redirect altruistic do-gooder impulses away from activities that actually serve human well-being and onto activities that serve to replicate the belief set itself. When the Asian tsunami hit, a highly successful Seattle mega-church directed members to do three things: pray for people who were affected, give to Mars Hill Church, and give to the Mars Hill church-building work in India. Why not reverse this — pray for Mars Hill church, pray for our missionary work, and give money to the people who were affected? Churches that make suggestions like these are, on average shrinking. Churches that follow the Mars Hill model are growing.

Daniel Dennett in the first three pages of his book, Breaking the Spell, beautifully narrates how a similar redirection occurs in nature. An ant climbs to the top of a stem of grass and lingers there. Why? Not because it is adaptive for the ant. Rather, another organism has take charge of the ant’s brain and to reproduce it needs the ant to be eaten by a cow. When a person’s altruistic impulses are directed toward winning converts, it is valid to ask whether they are actually serving human well-being or simply serving a mind virus.

If we don’t count their recruiting activities, do Evangelical Christians actually give more than non-religious? Do they give more to things that we humans pretty much agree are social goods? Sorry, all you fellow secularists, thought the gap narrows the answer still appears to be yes. Think first about money given to churches. Besides outreach, church moneys fund what economists call “club goods“. Churches often do a wonderful job of providing and organizing members services: warm meals for kids with a sick parent, adventures for teenagers, housing for young adults, support during bereavement, even free counseling or legal services. And with regard to outsiders, even if food, medical care, or friendship is offered primarily as bait to set a fish hook, the food and medical care are real.

But even beyond the money given to churches, religious people appear to give more to ordinary charities than secular folks do. At least based on self report data, religious participation and religious giving are positively correlated with giving to nonreligious charities like educational institutions, social services, even blood banks. Although the gap gets smaller the harder you look at it, this appears to hold true for the 40ish percent of Americans who self-describe as Evangelical or born again as well as their more theologically open counterparts.

If this makes those of us who are freethinkers squirm a bit, perhaps it should.

You might protest that that charity should be only a way station on the road to justice, and that your energies are better spent working for structural change. Many secular folks and liberal people of faith believe this is true. I know I do. As a non-theist, I once sat on the nonprofit board of an organization called the Washington Association of Churches because their mission was my mission: Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. Like me, they sought solutions that went beyond charity.

But even if justice is the destination, those way stations are still needed. Most of us agree that both generosity and justice are virtues. We prefer to live in a world where both are in rich supply. Maybe, now that freethinkers are coming out of the closet it is time for us to begin thinking about how to create our own communities and structures that empower personal generosity. Since we don’t have to be a sales force with a promise of treasure laid up in Heaven, we are free to give without expecting something back except maybe a bit of good will.

Recently Seattle Atheists organized a blood drive for members. Now, that’s what I’m talking about.

[Ed. note: Not only do both Seattle Atheists and Tacoma Atheists have an ongoing food-drive in place, but Seattle Atheists has a bi-monthly blood drive, Christmas wrapping (of which 100% of the proceeds go directly to the Seattle Childrens Hospital), and a Day of Reason blood drive.]

Comment at: http://www.streetprophets.com/storyonly/2009/3/19/232611/291

Recent reports tell us that for the first time in America, the non-religious are being recognized as a significant political constituency. The theocratic excesses of Bush and company drove alarmed nonbelievers out into the open and prompted authors like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens to pen bestselling diatribes against religion. Through the Secular Coalition, the non-religious have a lobbyist in D.C.  But it’s not just a matter of the huddled mass of freethinkers finding their voice. Polls show that more of us are questioning our received traditions, seeking to base both our personal lives and our public policies on reason and evidence. For parents, this brings some extra challenges. Changes that may feel rewarding to us personally can be confusing and scary to kids who love us.

Sometimes I get letters from former Evangelical/fundamentalist Christians who are also parents. “What do I say to my kids?” they ask. “I raised them to believe that without the blood of Jesus they are evil sinners. What a horrible thing for them to think! I feel guilty.” “All of their friends are members of our old church, so we keep going. I don’t want to tear them apart, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to pretend.” “When I try to talk to them they just cry. They think I’m going to hell.”

No matter what age the kids are or what the situation, telling them that your beliefs have changed or even that you no longer believe can be tricky. Here are three suggestions.

1. Help them to understand your changes as a matter of spiritual growth rather than spiritual abandonment.

The bottom line is that your personal evolution is very much in keeping with the history of human religion, including Christianity. Every past generation answered our deepest questions as best they could. What is real? What is good? How can we live in moral community with each other? But every generation was like the blind men and the elephant. They were limited by their cultural and technological context – their point in history—as well as the fact that they, like us, were imperfect. By outgrowing the answers that were handed down to us, we honor their quest and continue their journey.

Here is how I explained my own loss of faith to my extended family.

Even if you emphasize growth, both your own and that of our ancestors, your kids will ask about your current beliefs. After all, you’ve probably taught them to think that it’s the answers that matter, not the process. Do you believe in God? Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus? Are you going to Hell? Try to anticipate their questions and think ahead about some simple responses that are both honest and reassuring. But let them know that you are still learning and that you expect to keep learning for the rest of your life. The nice thing about this framework is that it allows your conversations to continue evolving.

2. If your children are still at home, don’t forget that they may need a new community.

As you continue to grow and change, you may find community online or with your spouse or you might simply prefer solitude and good books in this next phase of the quest. But if you have raised your children with religion in the center of their lives, they will have their own need for explicit conversations about religion, spirituality and morality. What should replace Sunday school or Pioneer Girls or Bible study?

On top of this are their social needs. Did your church reach out to kids with fun and music? Your kids may have their friends, their weekend activities, and their summer camps all integrated with religion. It’s not fair to cut them off abruptly just because you’ve hit your own tipping point.

Think about seeking out a moral and spiritual community that allows room for doubt or even atheism. A Unitarian Universalist church might be a fit, or a Quaker meeting or Ethical Culture Society. Within Christianity there are traditions that would allow your children access to familiar rituals and stories without feeding the belief that the Bible is perfect and their parents are doomed. Traditions I might look at include United Church of Christ, United Methodist, and Episcopal. All of these recognize the human handprints on the Bible and traditional dogmas — and they allow a humble, inquiring approach to the meaning of Christian faith. However, this very much depends on the individual minister. Openness to interfaith or “interSpiritual” work can be one indicator that a group doesn’t make exclusive claims about truth and salvation. Pay particular attention to whether your children would be offered explanations of the world that seem real and right to you, and whether they would have a group of peers.

3. Trust yourself, even when you are feeling your way in the dark, to be a spiritual guide for your children.

You may feel less wise or less confident than before, but that is because you have moved forward. Don’t be afraid to talk with them about spiritual matters, just because you no longer have a clear set of pat answers. What you do have still is deeply held values and principles that guide your life. What are they? Have you ever put them into words? At the Wisdom Commons or the Virtues Project International or similar sites you can find quotes, stories, and curriculum materials to help you talk with your kids about your moral core.

As complicated and awkward as it may feel to find the right words for all of this, it’s worth it. You have the chance to model for your kids what it means to be a lifetime learner — someone who cultivates the curiosity and humility that can make it actually feel good to realize you were ignorant. Along the way, if you keep asking questions, you will be making some wonderful discoveries, and part of the delight can be sharing them. You once gave your kids a fish. Now you can invite them on a fishing expedition. Who knows what you might catch together!