Charity comes from a deeply human place: When we see others in trouble, most of us want to help out if we can. It’s not helping which needs to be learned: all those explanations we give our kids as to why the homeless guy on the corner can’t come stay in our house, or the perverse financial reasons why, if you’re hit by a car in China, the driver might well try to kill you. It’s shocking precisely because it’s unnatural.

Such groups can be found all over society, at various levels of size and formality. Churches, in particular, do quiet sterling work on a daily basis, checking in on their parishioners and extending a helping hand as needed. I was recently in Texas, looking at the post-Harvey disaster relief operations there, and evidence of charity was everywhere, from FEMA tents all the way to hand-drawn signs offering help with laundry.

Disaster relief when it’s done right always comes from deep human compassion and desire to help. It might be individuals cooking up fajitas or offering free laundry services; it might be organizations which spring up semi-organically like Occupy Sandy or the Centros de Apoyo Mutuos in Puerto Rico; it might be well-established local organizations like Baker-Ripley, in Houston, which proved much nimbler and more effective at creating shelters than the Red Cross was; it might well be faith-based organizations like Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and any number of other church-based operations.

Read the full article by Felix Salmon about charity from Cause and Effect