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Charitable giving is institutionalized in many religions, such as the Christian tithe—that is, giving ten percent of one's income—and Islam's zakat, one of the ...
Typology: Study notes
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Ryan Lincoln, Christopher A. Morrissey, Peter Mundey
Department of Sociology, University of Notre Dame May 2008
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Religious monetary giving—that is, financial donations given to religiously affiliated congregations, denominations, and parachurch organizations—is addressed in research across many academic fields. From sociology to marketing, and myriad disciplines in between—such as psychology, economics, political science, and philanthropic studies—the body of scholarly literature on religious financial generosity spans the social sciences. In addition to its cross- disciplinary appeal, the topic of religious giving has drawn global interest, engaging scholars not only in the United States but also Australia ( Giving Australia: Research on Philanthropy in Australia 2005), Canada (Reed and Selbee 2001; Berger 2006), the Netherlands (Bekkers 2003), Taiwan (Chang 2006), and Western Europe (Reitsma, Scheepers, and Grotenhuis 2006). Beginning in the 1990s, research on individual religious giving burgeoned (Finke, Bahr, and Scheitle 2006), resulting in myriad empirical studies (e.g., Hoge 1994; Donahue 1994; Hoge, Zech, McNamara, and Donahue 1996; Wuthnow 1997; Chaves and Miller 1999) and an entire issue of Review of Religious Research (1994 vol. 36) devoted to the topic. 1 In 1990, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle released a report on denominational giving entitled “The State of Church Giving,” which is now in its seventeenth installment. Research on religious giving continued into the Twenty-First century—exemplified by the aforementioned international studies—as well as McNamara (2003), Independent Sector (2002), Durall (2003), and most recently, Smith and Emerson (2008).^2 There is good reason for the importance of understanding religious giving by scholars. Voluntary donations to religious organizations consistently represent the largest piece of America’s philanthropic pie. In 2006, for example, Giving USA reported that congregations and religious charities received 32.8 percent of the record $295 billion donated to charity, which amounts to $96.8 billion. This beneficence represents a 1.2 percent increase since 1997; however it is substantially less than the 45.7 percent market share religion garnered in 1966, which is indicative of how religious giving is growing slower than secular giving (Hall and Schwinn 2007). In an important caveat, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle (2007: 89) note that the Giving USA 1 Much of this research was funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc. (^2) See Smith and Emerson (2008) for a more complete list of recent publications on religious giving.
4 political context in which faith-based generosity occurs. Of course, these levels of analysis are interconnected and mutually dependent on each other. After all, congregations and religiously affiliated parachurch organizations must find ways to solicit dollars from individuals, and government policy affects individual and group donations through policies pertaining to charitable choice and social welfare. While most studies addressing these topics treat religious giving as a dependent variable, it is also possible to conceptualize it as an independent variable, which is a newly emerging and understudied perspective in the field. Similarly, although rational choice theory is the dominant paradigm used to frame religious charity, new perspectives based on altruism and group solidarity are emerging (e.g., Peifer 2007). Here we explore these themes, unpacking insights from the dynamic and impressive body of existing research on religious giving, and propose new directions for future study.
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Individuals are the most often studied unit of analysis in the literature on religious giving (Finke et al. 2006) because they provide the vast majority of religious income (Chaves 2004). Citing data from the 1998 National Congregations Study (NCS), Chaves (2004: 36) observes that 75 percent of American congregations receive 90 percent or more of their revenue from parishioner contributions, and 80 percent of all congregational dollars are given by individuals. Nevertheless, when viewed in terms of amounts, individual giving to congregations is less impressive. In 2005, for example, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle (2007: 19) found that the average (mean) member donated a mere 2.58 percent of their income to their congregation, which is $697.28 in inflation-adjusted 2000 dollars. This represents a 17 percent decrease since 1968. In spite of this trend, total giving to congregations by individuals is actually on the rise. Chaves (2004: 37) notes that inflation-adjusted financial records from 29 denominations revealed that individual giving increased by 63 percent between 1968 and 1998. Similarly, Ronsvalle and Ronsvalle (2007: 13) concluded that after adjusting for inflation, congregational giving increased by 79 percent from 1968 to 2005; however, per capita income increased by 116 percent. So, while American churchgoers have more money than ever to give to their congregations, there is a lack of convergence between their capacity to give and the size of their donations as a proportion of their income. Indeed, believers are increasingly “passing the plate” (Davidson and Pyle 1994), a finding verified by Smith and Emerson’s (2008: 43) conclusion that “at least one out of five American Christians—20 percent of all U.S. Christians—gives literally nothing to church, para- church, or non-religious charities,” and that most of those who choose to give something give relatively little. In 1998, for example, only 9.4 percent of religious GSS respondents tithed, and 71.7 percent donated less than two percent of their income (Smith and Emerson 2008). In light of such data, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle (2007: 10, 12) conclude that “the church is losing market share in the spending patterns of its members,” which is significant because “if the same portion of income had been donated in 2005 as in 1968, aggregate Total Contributions would have been $27.0 billion rather than $22.6 billion, a difference of $4.4 billion or an increase of 19%.” Even more striking is their contention that if Christians had given 10 percent of their income to religious organizations in 2005 rather than the average 2.58 percent they actually gave, this would have netted an extra $168-billon (Ronsvalle and Ronsvalle 2007: 57). Given this reality, a
7 individual religious giving are outlined hereafter in terms of behaviors, beliefs, and demographic considerations. Behaviors: Attendance. Perhaps the most important behavioral determinant of religious giving is participation—most commonly operationalized in terms of religious service attendance. Researchers identify participation as a strong predictor of religious giving in America (Chaves and Miller 1999), Western Europe (Reitsma et al. 2006; Bekkers 2003), and Taiwan (Chang 2006).^3 In Australia, researchers discovered that “for those who have a religion, the less often they attend a religious service, the more often they give to non-religious nonprofit organizations” ( Giving Australia: Research on Philanthropy in Australia 2005: 32). In other words, religious attendance predicts religious giving, and mere religiosity predicts non-religious giving. Explaining the relationship between participation and giving, Hoge (1995; 1994) observes that high attendance levels are representative of strong religious commitment, which typically leads to increased religious giving. In the Presbyterian Church (USA), for example, Lunn, Klay, and Douglas (2001: 771) find that among their sample of elders and members, “the frequency with which the respondent attends church is positively related to all types of giving except giving to nonreligious charities.” Chaves and Miller (1999: 171) are even more direct, noting that “the relationship between religious giving and involvement in religious organizations is unambiguously positive.” Iannaccone (1997: 153) helps unpack why this relationship is so robust, averring that “attendance is a very strong predictor of contributions and tends to ‘knock out’ the other religion variables. Attendance does more than merely take the place of the observable beliefs and background; it substantially improves over them because it also captures unobservable components of underlying religiosity.” In light of such evidence, Chaves and Miller (1999: 172) contend that the so-called “financial crisis” among American denominations is perhaps more accurately couched as an “involvement crisis.” This is not to say that attendance is necessarily a “cause” of giving. Rather, as Hart (1990: 7) points out, “attendance and giving go together as part of a package of congregational involvement.” Using 1998 GSS data, Smith and Emerson (2008: 44) underscore the importance of congregational involvement, noting that the mean Christian contributor gave 2.9 percent of their income, but those who attended services regularly—that is, at least 2-3 times a month— (^3) See Bekkers and Weipking (2007: 5) for additional citations on the link between religious participation and religious giving.
8 reported giving 6.2 percent of their income. This difference is even more pronounced when considering the “percent of mean dollars” donated by the median Christian giver—13. percent—compared with 27.7 percent given by the median regularly attending Christian. It is therefore clear that regular attendees give more than infrequent attendees. This relationship also transcends the American context. Chang (2006) found a robust link in East Asia between attendance and religious giving among Taiwanese Christians, as well as adherents to Eastern religions such as, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. In Europe, Reitsma et al. (2006: 357, 359) discovered a similarly strong relationship between church attendance and “willingness to donate to the poorest countries” in all seven of the nations in their sample, including Belgium, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal. While the positive relationship between participation and religious giving is clear, the mechanisms that facilitate this relationship are less well established. Bekkers and Weipking (2007) suggest that attendance can lead to increased exposure to charitable solicitation, which means that high donations among churchgoers are merely a function of being asked to give more often. Also, on a cognitive level, Bekkers (2006: 360) found that “effects of empathetic concern and social value orientations,” both requisite for religious generosity, are “mediated by church attendance.” Stated differently, because congregations function as schools for learning formative skills and values that are conducive to philanthropic behavior, regular attendance increases religious giving. Attendance in and of itself may therefore be less important than the byproducts of attendance, namely habitual exposure to empathetic and helping value orientations, as well as weekly requests for donations. More work is needed to understand the interplay of these dynamics, especially regarding which charitable teachings elicit the most giving behavior. Additional theories are also necessary to tease out issues of causal direction, especially the possibility that giving and attendance are “likely to be simultaneously determined” in nonrecursive models (Lunn et al. 2001: 771; Sullivan 1985). The implications of this possibility are more fully explored later in this paper in the section on “Teasing Out Causal Direction.” Behaviors: Pledging. Besides attendance, another behavioral predictor of religious giving is planning one’s donations in advance. Pledging and weekly tithing precipitate greater religious financial generosity than spur-of-the-moment giving and one-time donations. Hoge (1994) finds that intentional financial planning, especially pledging, significantly increases religious donations among both Protestants and Catholics. Similarly, Chaves and Miller (1999:
10 Automated giving is ostensibly here to stay, evidenced by the fact that each month Vanco Services administers some $27 million in religious donations to 8,500 congregations from over 30 denominations (Hodges 2007). Moreover, the advent of online tithing systems and “giving kiosks”— that is, “ATM-like” machines (Hodges 2007) located in church lobbies that accept credit and debit cards—have made it easier than ever to give to religion. As these findings demonstrate, electronic giving appears to be a fruitful topic for scholarly research. More systematic scholarly studies are needed to fully unpack the impact of “e-giving” on religious giving. We also need more scholarly studies addressing another form of pledging: bequests to religious organizations. Using data from the Center on Philanthropy’s Panel Study (COPS), Krauser (2007: 7) found that: The three most likely motivations for charitable giving, selected by people with a charity named in their will, were “helping others;” “religious beliefs;” and “giving back to society.” Individuals who would consider naming a charity in their will were significantly more likely to be motivated by “helping others” and less likely to be motivated by “religious beliefs” than those who already have a charity in their will. Religious beliefs therefore appear to somewhat motivate estate giving; however, it remains unclear what percentage of bequest money goes to religious organizations. This could be a potentially significant finding because as Routley, Sargeant, and Scaife (2007: 194) note, “there is no doubt that the next 50 years will witness an unprecedented wealth transfer, and consequently an enormous opportunity for the generation of bequests.” Indeed, trends point towards greater percentages of estates being bequeathed to charities than heirs (Schervish 2007). Future research is needed to assess how much of this money will go to religious charities and congregations. Beliefs: Theological Conservatism. Attendance and pledging behaviors are often engendered by an individual’s beliefs about theology and reciprocity. Indeed, scholars have determined that certain mindsets can either encourage or discourage religious giving. For example, there is considerable evidence linking theological conservatism with philanthropy generally (Brooks 2006) and religious giving specifically (Iannaccone 1994; Chaves 2004). Hoge (1994) cites numerous studies correlating religious orthodoxy with increased religious giving (e.g., Greeley, McCourt, and McCready 1976; Hoge and Polk, 1980; Sullivan, 1985) and generally finds that holding conservative perspectives on social issues intensifies philanthropic
11 behavior. Wilmer (1995: 107-109) enumerates specific conservative beliefs germane to evangelical generosity, including “earnest concern for the lost souls of the world,” “desire to preserve the nation” from irretrievably falling into sin, literal “response to biblical stewardship teaching,” and “taking the Bible’s instructions about possessions seriously.” To be fair, not all conservative beliefs are conducive to charity—such as the evangelical tendency to subordinate structural concerns to more personal problems and relationships. However, as Noll (2007: 23) points out, “whatever weakness comes from such a strong concentration on personal faith is balanced by energy, action, and at least the potential of wise generosity arising from the same source.” As such, it is not surprising that Regnerus, Smith, and Sikkink (1998: 486) found that among respondents of the 1996 Religious Identity and Influence Survey, theological conservatives donated more than liberals to organizations that helped “the poor and needy.” Using this same survey, Smith (1998: 39) also concluded that “evangelicals were the most likely to give money to help spread the Gospel,” and “along with fundamentalists, the most likely to give a lot of money to Christian political organizations or candidates.” Wilmer (1995: 105) comes to a similar conclusion, noting that “Evangelicals give, as a percentage of their income, about two times more than mainline Protestants, almost three times more than Roman Catholics, and at least four times more than the general population.” Lunn et al. (2001: 765) qualify this assertion somewhat, observing that in their study, “conservative Presbyterians gave more in total, and give more to the local church and to non-Presbyterian religious organizations than did more liberal Presbyterians,” but they gave less to secular charities than their liberal counterparts. Alternately, Brooks (2006: 47) provides evidence that “religious conservatives are more likely to give to secular charities than the overall population.” Although this finding merits further consideration, our primary focus is on explicitly religious giving, and in this regard, conservatives seem to have an edge. Nevertheless, the majority of the evidence seems to support linking conservatism and secular giving as well, although there is less consensus for this conclusion. The link between conservatism and religious giving transcends the American context, encompassing Canada and Western Europe. In fact, Reitsma et al. (2006: 357) found that “dogmatic conviction”—operationalized in terms of high Christology—was salient in explaining giving to impoverished counties by believers throughout Western Europe, except in Portugal. Moreover, using data from Canada’s 2000 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and
13 approach prefer to frame religious giving as “rational behavior” in which there is a reciprocal relationship between the donor and the recipient. In Hoge’s (1995: 56) opinion, “this model remains the most promising theoretical starting point for understanding religious giving.” The basic premise of this approach is that purely altruistic motivations are subsumed by the possibility of reciprocal benefits in the minds of rational religious actors. Iannaccone (1997: 149) thus writes: “The general matter rests on the assumption that individuals allocate their time and money resources so as to maximize their utility from the production of abstract ‘household commodities.’ Religious satisfaction constitutes one such commodity.” In this context, we might assume that the quality of congregational programming—that is, the return on one’s investment—will predict the extent of one’s religious giving. As such, individual giving increases or decreases in proportion to the value of goods and services rendered by the congregation; to say otherwise, the theory suggests, is to deny that religious consumers are rational actors. Greeley and McManus (1987: 70) maintain that “Catholic contributions will continue [to decline] in the next decade to something like 0.6% or 0.7% of income” because the laity are “alienated.” Sources of alienation include “terrible sermons; inept counseling; [and] arbitrary rules and regulations” (Greeley and McManus 1987: 71). Using data from the 1989 GSS, Stark and Finke (2000: 52) found that among Catholics, liberal Protestants, conservative Protestants, and Mormons, “the correlation between level of giving” and the grade congregants assigned their congregation (0-4.0 GPA scale) was “very high.” Specifically, they report that the 48 percent of Mormons who gave at least $2,000 to their church within the last year assigned their congregation a GPA of 3.8, and 14 percent of conservative Protestants reported giving this amount and awarded their congregation a GPA of 3.1. On the liberal side of the spectrum, only 3 percent of mainline Protestants broke the $2,000 threshold, while giving their congregation a GPA of 2.3, and a mere 2 percent of Catholics did so with the same GPA as the mainliners. In this vein, theological conservatism, congregational satisfaction, and religious giving go hand in hand. In spite of these findings, other studies report evidence questioning the rational-choice approach. In his assessment of the literature on this topic—including Cieslak (1984), Hilke (1980), Welch (1993), and Zaleski and Zech (1992)—Dean Hoge (1994: 108) found that “no strong relationships appeared” between quality of religious services rendered and religious contributions. Moreover, Ed Mayer (1988) found that financial scandals perpetrated by religious
14 leaders did not necessarily dampen religious giving. In fact, Mayer reports that in the wake of criminal charges filed against prominent televangelists like Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, donors were more discriminating, but their total donations actually increased. This is consistent with Inskeep’s (1994) finding that, among ELCA parishioners and pastors, dissatisfaction with denominational policy did not negatively affect congregational giving to ELCA synods or to the denomination. Such evidence does not entirely count against the religious economies perspective. In fact, scholars suggest that other forms of reciprocal relationships may be occurring under the surface, including perceived exchanges with God (Hoge 1995). Hoge et al. (1996: 169) “conclude that church people who believe that God will reciprocate for monetary gifts tend to give more to their churches.” Congregants espousing some kind of a prosperity gospel mentality may therefore be inclined to give in spite of the foibles of their pastor. Economists suggest that additional reciprocal exchanges may be occurring in which individuals “buy” prestige from family, friends, social organizations, or the annals of history in exchange for their religious donations (Hoge 1995). Along these lines, some economists, most notably James Andreoni (1990), use models of “impure altruism” to explain charitable giving in terms of the “warm glow” emanating from the recognition and self-satisfaction accompanying charitable action. Hungerman (2007a: 1) notes that this model allows for the possibility that “individuals may contribute to a public good not because they care about the level of the public good but because they care about contributions per se ;” that is, they care about the increased status resulting from their donations. Although “warm glow” is generally well established among economists as a means to fill in gaps unexplained by “crowd out” theory (Andreoni 1990), very few scholars have looked at religious giving in particular through this lens. Future research is needed to determine the relevance of a “warm glow” perspective for religious giving. More work is also needed to explore alternative explanations for giving beyond an univocally rational choice perspective. As Davidson and Pyle (1994: 181) point out, “appeals and activities which combine the inherent value of faith with the benefits members derive from religious commitment are more likely to inspire giving than ones which stress faith and ignore benefits or ones which appeal to self-interests and ignore faith.” Rational choice models are therefore useful in explaining some religious giving, but they do not capture the totality of motivations for generosity. Causal mechanisms are likely at work in the minds of religious givers beyond mere reciprocity and exchange.
16 whereas those who earn $70,000 or more gave only 1.2 percent, nearly half the proportion of income contributed by the poorer group. Despite higher earners enjoying more income from which to give, in other words, earning higher salaries actually decreases Americans’ share of giving to religion. Chang (2006: 375) also casts doubt on the positive relationship between income and religious giving in Eastern cultures, finding only a “slight” effect in among Taiwanese Christians and followers of Eastern religions. Moreover, James and Jones (2007) conclude that although religious donations increase with rising income, the probability of tithing significantly decreases as income increases. To summarize, recent research reveals that as income increases, giving as a percentage of income decreases, which means that the wealthiest believers are some of the least generous contributors as a function of capacity. Future research—heeding Smith and Emerson’s call to calculate giving as a percentage of income using medians instead of means—is necessary to further explore this issue. Demographic Factors: Age. Age is another demographic factor typically presented in most studies as being positively related with religious giving. As a general rule, the older people are, the more they tend to give to religious causes, although this trend often levels off or decreases sometime after age 50 or 60 (Hoge 1994). Moreover, Bekkers and Weipking (2007) cite studies on non-religious giving suggesting that the cut-off age may be closer to 65 (Schlegelmilch, Diamantopoulos, and Love 1997; Belfield & Beney 2000), or perhaps even 75 (Andreoni 2001; Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1996).^4 On the other end of the age spectrum, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle (2007: 75-76) note that although Americans under 25 gave the least to charity of any age group in 2005, 87 percent of the 0.7 percent of their income that they gave went to “churches” and “religious organizations.” Such evidence, in their opinion, “provides support for the view that religion serves as the seedbed of philanthropic giving in America” (Ronsvalle and Ronsvalle 2007: 94). Smith (2005: 230) lends some credence to this hypothesis, noting that religiously “Devoted” teens in the 2003 National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) were “more than three times as likely as the [religiously] Disengaged to have given more than $20 of their own money” to a charity. So, religious devotion among teens ostensibly matters in building a philanthropic foundation for giving later in life. Nevertheless, teens don’t 4 These studies are a sampling from a more comprehensive list provided by Bekkers and Weipking (2007:10). See this paper for a more detailed explanation of how age is related to giving in general.
17 give much to religious charities, and neither do the elderly. Middle age individuals who are in their prime income-earning years tend to give the most to religious charities. Demographic Factors: Marriage. Marriage is an additional variable often found to be positively related with religious giving, especially when one’s spouse is religious and attends services. In Europe, for example, Reitsma et al. (2006) observe that individuals with partners who attend church are more likely to make donations than those whose partner is irreligious. Similarly, in his study of six Protestant denominations—Disciples of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian (USA), Southern Baptist, United Church of Christ, and Methodist—Donahue concluded that “religiousness of spouse,” along with family income, were the “strongest predictors of giving to one’s congregation” (1994: 155). Demographic Factors: Education. Education is a final possibly salient demographic variable. In Western Europe, for example, Reitsma et al. (2006: 359) found that education did not have a “significant main effect,” but it did have some “country-specific effects” that were both negative and positive. Regnerus et al. (1998) observed that among churchgoing Americans education did not significantly affect donations to the poor. Donahue (1994: 156) reports that although education’s “relationship to dollar amounts of church giving declines, apparently due to other variables, its relation to the percent of income given… strengthens once [other] variables are taken into account.” Hoge (1994: 107), however, concludes that the relationship between education and giving as a percentage of income is ambiguous, leading him to downplay the significance of education as a predictor of religious donations. Any perceived relationship, he maintains, is probably “traceable to other factors” (1994: 107). More research is needed to pinpoint these factors and to better understand the role education plays in religious generosity. Summary. The variables most widely regarded as being positively correlated with increased individual giving are religious participation and income (Finke et al. 2006), and conservative theology is generally considered a strong predictor in this regard. But even in cases where all three of these variables are present, religious giving as a percentage of income generally falls far short of what many believe to be the biblically mandated tithe. Individuals are more capable than ever in terms of their income capacity to give. Aggregate total dollars given to religion set new records each year (Ronsvalle and Ronsvalle 2007: 89), but most believers generally give at low levels. Understanding this dynamic requires that we assess group level explanations for religious giving. Religious organizations, for better or worse, employ myriad
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Scholarship on religious giving overwhelmingly focuses on the individual giver as the unit of analysis and treatment of group level giving is not given thorough attention. There is, however, a small body of work that has examined religious giving at the congregational and denominational level, shifting the unit of analysis from the individual to the group. The following section discusses the work on congregational and denominational giving and introduces the small amount of research that exists on race and giving and the role of foundations in religious giving. Congregational vs. Denominational Giving and Protestant vs. Catholic. In general, two findings are prevalent in the literature on group level giving. First, most money is given at the congregational level. Nemeth and Luidens (1994), for example, find in a comparison between congregations from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Reformed Church in America that while there has been a long term trend in increased giving in both denominations, giving for congregational needs always exceeds giving to the denomination and that congregational giving grows at a faster rate than external or denominational giving. Hoge reports similar findings with broader scope. He writes, Two distinct trends are found in mainline Protestant denominations. The first is that the percentage of total funds spent to support local programs is gradually rising. This trend has proceeded steadily from the 1950s to the present. The second is that a rising percentage of total mission dollars is allocated locally rather than being sent directly to denominational mission offices to allocate. This trend, often called ‘designated giving,’ has been visible since the 1970s (Hoge 1994: 105). The Ronsvalles’ report gives further evidence of this trend. They show that income directed to “benevolences”—that is, expenditures outside the bounds of the congregation—declined 41 percent from 1968 to 2005 (2007: 11). Chaves, too, notes this decline, writing that the percentage of congregation income spent on maintaining the local congregation rose from 79 percent in 1968 to 84 percent in 1998 (2004: 37). These findings corroborate Wuthnow’s (1988) description of the decline of denominationalism in the changing American religious landscape. Despite consistent reports that congregational giving is outpacing and exceeding denominational giving, little work focuses on why congregations “win out” over denominations. While some research
20 investigates this relationship, see the “mission vs. maintenance” discussion below, it does not yet fully examine the specific factors involved. The second consistent finding is that Protestants tend to give more money than Catholics, and conservative Protestants tend to give more than liberal Protestants (Cieslak 1994; Hoge 1994; Hoge, McNamara, and Zech 1998; Hoge and Yang 1994; Ronsvalle and Ronsvalle 2007; Zaleski and Zech 1994). As Hoge and Yang state: “The basic pattern is clear; mainline Protestants fall between Catholics and the other Protestants in their giving patterns” (1994: 129). The difference between Catholic and Protestant giving is observed time and again, and will be further elaborated below. Congregational Size. With regard to religious giving, perhaps the most commonly studied group level variable is congregational size, and there is broad consensus in the literature that congregation size is a prime determinant of giving (Finke et al. 2006). Small congregations of less than 100 members and large congregations of over 1,000 members tend to give more than medium sized congregations that fall between these numerical thresholds (Hoge 1994; Wuthnow 1997). More precisely, Wuthnow found within Protestant denominations that churches of less than 100 members gave 2.3 percent of their income, while churches of between 200 to 300 members gave 1.4 percent. Those between 500 to 1,000 members gave at 2.2 percent, and churches of 1,000 or more members gave 3.7 percent of their income (1997: 238). Using an empirical model of giving with socioeconomic and attitudinal factors as determinants of giving, Zaleski and Zech found that reducing parish size would have the greatest impact on raising the financial giving levels of Catholics to that of Protestants (1994: 165). A study by Hoge and Augustyn (1997) found similar results. Using a 1992 mail survey with 1,747 responses from Catholic parishes, they found that parish size was inversely proportional to levels of financial giving (1997: 50). Yet researchers agree that the role of congregation size and denomination remains unclear (Hoge 1994: 105; Finke et al. 2006: 622). For example, no extant study focuses on the relationship of congregational size and denominational affiliation with regard to financial giving. Examining these three variables together could yield new and important knowledge. Denominational Affiliation—Theology and Commitment. Of equal importance to congregational size as a determinant of religious giving is denominational affiliation. The literature is in agreement regarding the importance of denominational affiliation and consistently shows that theologically conservative Protestants tend to give the most money while Catholics
