London, England - EVANGELICAL Christians give nine times as much to charity as the average householder, donating more than 12 per cent of their net income each year, according to a new survey.
Evangelicals in Britain are more generous even than American evangelical Christians, who give 10 per cent of their income away, the report found.
The survey also found that evangelical Christians in Britain had three times the average level of household savings and a tiny fraction of the debt. Many evangelicals had no debts at all.
The survey of 1,200 evangelicals was carried out by Christian Research for the Kingdom Bank, set up by Assemblies of God, an international Pentecostal church, to offer banking with a “Christian ethos”.
It shows that evangelicals take literally the words of Billy Graham, the American preacher: “A chequebook is a theological document — it shows who, and what, you worship.” Evangelical churches are the fastest-growing segment, indeed the only growing segment, of all the Christian denominations in Britain.
Other church leaders have often wondered how these churches generate such large cashflows. It appears that the evangelical clergy and ministers instruct their flocks in the Biblical injunction to tithe. Because evangelical worshippers tend to believe that the Bible is the word of God on which their salvation depends, they do as they are told and tithe. In addition, the Protestant work ethic embraced by evangelicals means that they are often high earners, earning 17.5 per cent more than the national average.
Bill Lattimer, of Christian Research, writes in the report: “This survey shows that the more people are taught about giving, the more they give.”
The survey found that evangelical Christians give 7.5 per cent of their income to the church, 3 per cent to Christian charities and 1.5 per cent to secular charities, averaging £3,000 a year per household. The Rev Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford, where hundreds of students attend Sunday services and give a total of £600,000 a year, said: “It is not surprising that those who have understood God’s gift of grace to them should be generous in return.”
The Prebendary Richard Bewes, the former Rector of All Souls Church Langham Place, Central London, said: “At All Souls we were giving 30 per cent of our income to outside mission work. I think this is because of evangelicals’ general passion for mission, outreach and service including humanitarian service.”
GIVING IN BRITAIN
# 71 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men give to charity. Women give an average of £13.55 a month, men £10.81
# Nearly three quarters of 55 to 64-year-olds give an average of £16.60 a month. About half of 16 to 24-year-olds give £6.66
# The British give about £7 billion a year to charity — about £148 per adult or 0.62 per cent of Britain’s gross domestic product