{"id":1926503,"date":"2023-05-08T07:13:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T11:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scott-hogenson-bragging-about-charity-will-not-bring-absolution\/"},"modified":"2023-05-08T07:17:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T11:17:23","slug":"scott-hogenson-bragging-about-charity-will-not-bring-absolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scott-hogenson-bragging-about-charity-will-not-bring-absolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t boast about charity for forgiveness."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fscott-hogenson-bragging-about-charity-will-not-bring-absolution%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1926503&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Charity: To Brag or Not to Brag?<\/h2>\n<h3>The Story of Bob Dole<\/h3>\n<p>Bob Dole was unequivocal when it came to charity. During a meeting late in the 1996 presidential election cycle, a group of us working on his campaign were trying to figure out how to close the gap between him and Bill Clinton in the polls. A few staffers in the room suggested we start promoting Dole&#8217;s personal philanthropy to contrast his long and substantial history of charitable giving with Clinton\u2019s donation of used underwear for a tax deduction. \u201cNo,\u201d was Dole\u2019s response. He believed that charity is not about talking, but doing because it\u2019s the right thing to do. <\/p>\n<p>But Bob Dole\u2019s view on charity appears to differ from today\u2019s prevailing attitude. There\u2019s a growing sentiment that charitable acts are something to brag about. We call it virtue signaling and it\u2019s increasingly encouraged. <\/p>\n<h3>The Case for Bragging<\/h3>\n<p>Writing on LinkedIn, Kids Rise Fund President &#038; Inclusion Action Officer Whitney Stohr advises people to \u201cHumble-Brag Away: Why You Should Always Share Your Stories of Giving.\u201d Stohr makes the case that boasting about charitable giving can encourage others to follow suit and raise the profile of organizations that benefit from charity. This is not unreasonable. It\u2019s actually strategic. <\/p>\n<p>But there are caveats to this strategy. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania reported in 2015 that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/here-we-go-cdc-study-finds-two-masks-are-better-than-one-just-one-week-after-fauci-backtracks-on-wearing-multiple-face-masks\/\" title=\"Here We Go: CDC Study Finds Two Masks Are Better Than One \u2013 Just One Week After Fauci Backtracks on Wearing Multiple Face Masks\">researchers found<\/a> distinctly different reactions to boasting about charitable activities. Through a series of experiments involving \u201cperceived generosity,\u201d it was revealed that, \u201cbragging only pays in situations for which bragging provides new [information]. So if a person\u2019s reputation is not so generous, bragging can help.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>These experiments also showed, \u201cif a person\u2019s reputation is already generous, then bragging doesn\u2019t provide any new information. It only signals that the motive isn\u2019t pure, [and] that the motive is to improve one\u2019s reputation.\u201d A few years later, these same researchers wrote,\u201cIronically, this means that virtue signaling is a more successful strategy for those with less virtuous reputations\u2014individuals who are not expected to do good deeds in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>A Different Worldview of Charity<\/h3>\n<p>Others have a different worldview of charity. In Islam, bragging about charity abrogates one\u2019s generosity. The Qur\u2019an instructs believers, \u201cdo not nullify your acts of charity by boasting about (doing people a) favour and by causing (them) hurt, like the one who spends his wealth to show off before people.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Judaism drills down into the motivation behind charity. While some circumstances may support charity in pursuit of honor, Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir cautions, \u201cthe Talmud tells us that giving charity in order to boast about it is actually a sin,\u201d suggesting a dim view of strategic charity. \u201cThe donor is exploiting the recipient&#8217;s state more than he is trying to alleviate it,\u201d writes Rabbi Meir.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus Christ taught a less ambiguous lesson on charity. \u201cBeware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them,\u201d He preached in his Sermon on the Mount. \u201cWhen you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also the notion of charity being its own reward. In writing The Acts of the Apostles, Luke recalled, \u201cRemember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, \u2018It is more blessed to give than to receive.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Two thousand years later, the International Journal of Research in Marketing published data showing that Jesus was right. Researchers found that, \u201camong people with \u2018high <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/n-j-bishops-slam-distressing-passage-of-liberal-abortion-act\/\" title=\"N.J. Bishops Slam \u2018Distressing\u2019 Passage of Liberal Abortion Act\">moral identity<\/a>\u2019 &#8211; people who strongly base their self-definition on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scott-hogenson-bragging-about-charity-will-not-bring-absolution\/\" title=\"Don't boast about charity for forgiveness.\">moral values &#8211; unpublicized gifts brought roughly 16 percent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/study-finds-republicans-happier-in-their-marriages-than-democrats\/\" title=\"Study Finds Republicans Happier In Their Marriages Than Democrats\">greater happiness<\/a><\/a> than publicized gifts. For those on the other end of the moral-identity spectrum, there was no significant happiness difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>The Crux of the Matter<\/h3>\n<p>Giving time or money to a good cause is a good thing. But whether someone boasts about their charity or remains silent can be revealing. A person may choose to be a quiet giver like Bob Dole. Perhaps one privately recognizes a \u201cless virtuous\u201d inner defect or some flaw in their reputation, and are seeking absolution through bragging. It might be a combination of other things. It\u2019s hard to tell. <\/p>\n<p>The crux of the matter may reside in the giver\u2019s moral identity and on what it is based. Not having a secular worldview, I don\u2019t know whether reliance on temporal things can lead to greater happiness for boastful philanthropists. Maybe it can. But scripture and science tell us that faith in God can and does bring the quiet joy that comes with not sounding our charitable trumpet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bob Dole was unequivocal when it came to charity. During a meeting late in the 1996 presidential election cycle, when the former Kansas senator was trailing Bill Clinton in the polls, a group of us working on his campaign were trying to figure out how to close the gap. A few staffers in the room<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1926504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[22251,6543,4894,5490],"class_list":["post-1926503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-boast","tag-charity","tag-dont","tag-forgiveness"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1926503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1926504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1926503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1926503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1926503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}