According to a liberal college professor, no less.

Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America—and it’s making him nervous.

The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.

In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives—from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services—make conservatives more generous than liberals. . . .

When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: “For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice.”

Of course, this is “religious conservatives” vs. “secular liberals” so that might be skewing results a bit.  I mean, there are secular conservatives and religious liberals out there after all.  But regardless, this is probably enough to make your average liberal’s head explodes.  After all, most liberals are fond of accusing conservatives of being rich, callous, un-caring plutocrats who would just as soon watch someone starve to death in the street then part with a dollar out of their wallet.

What I think this really illustrates is how differently conservatives and liberals view the world.  The liberal idea of social compassion is passing laws forcing all tax payers to fund entitlements and hand outs for people who can’t (or more often won’t) provide for themselves.  The conservative idea of social compassion is to create an environment where people are as free as possible to provide for themselves, and then allow each citizen to make a personal decision about how much he/she wants to contribute to the needy.  Liberals want everyone else to pay for their compassion, conservatives pay for their compassion themselves.