Tag Archives: Samaritan’s Purse

What Are Christians Obsessed With?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Is it abortion, or gay marriage, or euthanasia, or any of the other culture war battlefronts? Does the culture war consume our time and money?

David French took a look at Christian charities a couple years back to see who Christians give their money (thanks to Greg West for the link). French reviewed the donations given to well-known Christian culture war organizations, such as Alliance Defense Fund, the Family Research Council, National Right to Life, and Americans United for Life. According to tax records, “these organizations raise quite a bit of money—almost $60 million combined.”

French also noted, ironically, that the biggest culture warrior on the left, the ACLU, took in about $130 million by itself. It seems the left is quite concerned with winning the culture wars.

What French did next was look at the top three Christian anti-poverty charities: World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse. According to the left, Christians are concerned more with babies in the womb than helping babies after they are born. We are against gay marriage, against abortion, against everything! We aren’t for anything positive.

Get ready for this. Guess how much money was donated to only the top three Christian anti-poverty charities? Here is French:

Their total annual gross receipts (again, according to most recently available Form 990s) exceed $2.1 billion. The smallest of the three organizations (Samaritan’s Purse) has larger gross receipts than every major “pro-family” culture war organization in the United States combined. World Vision, the largest, not only takes in more than $1 billion per year, it also has more than 1,400 employees and 43,000 volunteers.

What are we to make of this? It seems that Christians are something like twenty times more concerned with helping the poor of the world than fighting the culture wars. Anyone who says the opposite is simply ignorant. As French summarizes, “Historically, monetarily, and with our time and lives today, [we are] serving our fellow man.”