I'm very religious and conservative in some ways and I think I also qualify as compassionate. I give about 5% per year to my church and probably another 0.5% to other charities (mostly local food banks). I'm probably exactly the kind of person this book (which I haven't read) attempts to praise.

I'd guess that about 1/10th of the church donation ends up being spent on what most people would call charity and the other 9/10ths gets spent on ministry.

So I'm therefore giving about 1% of my income to "charity" but probably getting credit for 5.5% because Brooks (and others) lump that ministry giving into the figure.

Obviously I believe that that ministry giving is super important because I'm very religious, but I think that using ministry giving to claim that religious people are more compassionate is silly.

Christianity isn't a contest about who's nicer, and as a Christian I do not want to be compared to some "other" who isn't as "compassionate" according to Brooks or anybody.

This book is very likely just conservative propaganda that drives motivated reasoning.