This provoked a predictable round of chest-beating and teeth-gnashing, amid claims that evangelicals have lost their moral compass and their compassion. Missing was any detailed reflection on why evangelicals might feel the way they do. The equation was: Evangelicals favor reductions in overseas aid—ergo they are uncompassionate. In the same way, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, launching his “What Would Jesus Cut?” campaign, condemned the House Republican budget proposals, which cut spending on international aid but increased spending on the military, as “immoral,” “hypocritical and cruel,” and “bad religion.” He read the morality of the budget straight off the document.

But the calculus is more complicated. Evangelicals are more conservative than the general populace (56 percent of evangelicals identified as conservative in 2010, compared to 46 percent of Americans), and conservatives have long found the legacy of overseas aid wanting, riddled with waste and corruption, fraud and dependency, and unintended consequences like propping up dictatorships or kleptocracies that long ago might have collapsed and been replaced. Besides, many feel, is it really the proper role of our government to take our money, money the government is authorized to collect in order to serve basic constitutional functions such as national security and preserving the peace, and distribute that money to people on the other side of the world? Isn’t that the role of the church and missionary and service organizations—thousands of which evangelicals have founded?

I happen to disagree. I believe the waste and graft of international aid has been overstated, and top-notch organizations like World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, and Bread for the World are worthy recipients of federal money. But it hardly makes evangelicals immoral or uncompassionate if they believe that the federal government is not a charity, and that money given the American government should be used to serve American citizens. The “uncompassionate” claim makes little sense anyway, since conservatives and especially religious conservatives give more of their time and treasure to charitable organizations, whether national or international, religious or secular.