Getting transactional with charity is the whole point. That's why religious organizations often fight against public programs instead arguing that religiously affiliated charity should take its place (receiving public funding to do so in many cases).
Utah in particular loves to under-fund programs, and let the church pick up the slack. The benefit to them is that it is both transactional, and allows them to exclude as they desire.
The Mormons might be nice, but they shouldn't be getting public money to provide public assistance. They should be cut out entirely and taxes should fund these programs directly and fairly.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_The_Church_of_Jesu...
Mormons as a rule are very generous with the church, and often with church affiliated charities. If the deduction for charitable giving was removed, the Mormon church would do fine, and likely so would many of their charitable activities, and it would seem more like separation of church and state to me.
If the charitable giving deduction were removed, I guess I agree that at that point there wouldn't be a way to argue (from a constitutional perspective) against Mormons in Utah voting for low levels of government support.
As it happens, I'm not convinced the "all charity should be provided by religious institutions in Utah" narrative for Utah voters is actually accurate; Salt Lake City at least is fairly generous with the homeless, at a government level.
But does Utah give that money to the church programs instead? It’s not clear from your comment.
But spirituality is quite real, and there are those who really believe in selfless giving without expectation of anything in return. Lots of people. They exist in the "cooperate/cooperate" equilibrium, and honestly, it's better there. It's not that you don't see the cheating, the greed, especially in the name of charity, its just that you're choosing to do something different, something that feels more wholesome. (I say this as someone who's served a bunch of meditation courses, and really enjoyed it.)
Why are religious organizations fighting public assistance programs? Why are their members arguing that a church should provide these same services instead? Your "criticise the crique" strategy isn't actually a retort, just an argument that religious affiliated organizations should be above criticism wholesale.
If religions want to stay out of politics, I'm all for leaving them be. But as it stands they're a major power broker, particularly at a local level, and therefore cannot be ignored (particularly when they're arguing for religious discrimination of public services).
My other point was noting the cynicism behind your view, and why I think there are better options.
Not all religions do. Catholic Charities, for example, doesn't care what religion you practice and does not try to convert people who seek its help.
In fairness, many of them are very good. The Mormons, for example, have always impressed me. I had a friend who grew up in Menlo Park, fell on hard times, and ended up in Utah. The Mormon community there was very supportive in substantial ways, and although they did evangelize, I hear it was pretty mild.
But yeah, it's...evil when a religion gets transactional with it's charity.