factnotfiction

Since religions is just business, small, medium, and large, should the churches, temples, mosques, and temples, be included in the current government handout/bailout programs?

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Empty pews, empty collection baskets: coronavirus hits U.S. church finances
Michelle Conlin
6 MIN READ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - St. Anselm Roman Catholic Church in New York’s Brooklyn borough is used to limping along, month after month, at a budget deficit of several thousand dollars a week.

A man prays outside the closed Saint Anselm Church during the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., April 10, 2020. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
But the church that sits in the city that is the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus pandemic could always count on Easter. Last year, its Easter pew collection brought in $11,651. That was more than twice an average Sunday and, coupled with the church’s online Easter donations of $2,500, enough to cover its weekly operating expenses of $13,000, according to church records.

Like most churches around the United States, St. Anselm’s will be closed on Sunday, its members unable to gather and its priests unable to meet with them as the nation endures its worst public-health crisis in a century.

But just as American churches have been unable to meet their members’ spiritual needs — perhaps most painfully represented in the absence of public funerals for the thousands who have died — they also have faced their own unmet needs in the form of untouched collection baskets.

“We are in uncharted waters, financially,” said John Quaglione, a St. Anselm’s parishioner who is also a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. “There will be some serious conversations and some strong conversations with the parishes and the economic folks to help get us through this.”

Easter Sunday is one of the biggest donation days of the year for U.S. churches, due largely to the spikes in attendance they typically see, according to church officials and nonprofit groups.

Even before health guidance shuttered most U.S. churches, many were struggling financially. Just half of Americans reported belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque in 2018, according to Gallup polling, down from 70% two decades earlier. Those who attend services go more erratically, according to the Pew Research Center, leaving fewer people to fill collection baskets.

The high cost of maintaining older church buildings and — particularly for the Catholic church, legal costs related to the clergy sex abuse scandal — have also taken a toll on churches in the United States and around the world.

“This is the first time where we have this almost national shutdown of churches,” said John Berardino, president of Fredericksburg, Virginia-based Griffin Capital Funding, which specializes in church real estate loans. He said he believed the extended shutdowns would take a heavy financial toll on about half of U.S. churches.

Scott McConnell, executive director of Nashville, Tennessee-based LifeWay Research, which conducts surveys and research for Christian ministries, sounded a similar note.

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“It would not surprise me at all if 5% of churches close over the next year,” McConnell said.

That is five times the typical annual closure rate estimated by The Christian Century, a U.S. mainline Protestant magazine.

Most American churches do not have sizeable endowments. According to LifeWay, 26% of churches have seven weeks or less of operating income. An additional quarter only have enough to last eight to 15 weeks.

“Churches at the end of their life cycle are going to be at the brink” during the coronavirus crisis, said McConnell.

The pain of the closures is not just fiscal.

After announcing a sweeping list of cancellations, Bishop Charles Blake of the Church of God in Christ, the largest U.S. Pentecostal denomination, expressed regret at their necessity.

Slideshow (4 Images)
“While the fellowship with one another is priceless, your safety is most important to us,” Blake said, adding, “stay at home.”

FIRST BANKRUPTCY, THEN THE VIRUS
Three years ago, the Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church in Youngstown, Ohio, which had been a pillar of its community since its founding in 1918, the year of the Spanish Flu, faced the “perfect storm,” said the church’s bankruptcy attorney, Andrew Suhar.

“Shrinking population, shrinking congregation and shrinking donations,” Suhar said.

The Church filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began to work with its major lender, the Christian Community Credit Union, to reorganize. In 2018, the church emerged successfully from bankruptcy with a new solvency plan, which was on the way to putting the church’s balance sheet back in order — until COVID-19 emerged.

“They had worked so hard and done such a good job,” said the church’s legal counsel, Matthew Blair. “Now, with COVID-19, there is no church attendance ... Revenue is nonexistent.”

Mount Calvary’s pastor declined to be interviewed.

Many churches are turning to their online donation portals for help, but those typically lag what funnels into church coffers from passed donation plates during Sunday services.

“Many churches are still run by older people ... they may not be as technically savvy,” said Berardino, of Griffin.

He noted that religious organizations and lenders had successfully lobbied lawmakers to include church personnel in the list of American workers offered support by the $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief package passed by Congress last month. Churches will also be eligible for the administration’s stimulus package small business loans.

Reporting by Michelle Conlin in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis

Sew_What

How the CARES Act Works for Churches
Churches, along with other non-profit entities, have explicitly been declared eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program. This is designed to enable small businesses–and, yes, congregations are classified that way for the purpose of the program–to keep giving their employees a paycheck, even though they cannot come to work and even though the company is not bringing in its usual revenue due to the coronavirus epidemic. They can also get money to pay for facility costs and utilities.

This comes in the form of a loan, but the loan used for these purposes will be “forgiven.” That is, it does not have to be repaid. The money comes from a lender, which makes it quicker to receive, but the government will fully reimburse that lender. It is possible to get larger loans for other purposes at a low rate of .5%, but loans for payroll and facilities are actually a grant.

Congregations that cannot hold corporate worship services cannot pass the offering plate. So many are finding themselves in dire financial straits. There is not enough money to pay the pastor or the church secretary, and the mortgage payment for the building is due. If that happens to your congregation, the government is willing to bail you out.

Cheryl Magness has written an excellent article for the Lutheran Reporter, explaining exactly how the program applies to churches and how congregations can apply for this money. Basically, you fill out a form, which you can get here. Then go to a regular lender approved for Small Business Administration loans. Not all of them are, but your local bank may well qualify.

But Should Churches Take the Money?
So that’s how the government bailout for churches works. The bigger question, though, is, should a congregation take this money from the government?

First of all, it shouldn’t need to, if members would keep up their giving as they did before the coronavirus hit. Friends, just because you can’t attend corporate worship, just because worship has moved online, you still need to keep giving your tithes and offerings! Don’t forget that!

But what if that doesn’t happen? My own view is that congregations should take the money. They should do that rather than cutting their pastor’s salary or laying off other staff or missing a payment on the mortgage. Not paying someone what they are owed is more problematic morally than taking money from the state.


A congregation is a spiritual entity, but insofar as it exists physically, handles money, owns property, and is a legally-incorporated body under the laws of the state, it is also a temporal institution, part of God’s Kingdom of the Left.
As such, a local congregation should be entitled to the same benefits as any other corporate entity–such as secular non-profit organizations and small businesses–in the state.

If strings are attached to those benefits, it’s another story. But the Paycheck Protection Program attaches no strings, to the point of including a clear Religious Liberty statement exempting religious institutions from federal anti-discrimination statutes that are often used against Christian teachings regarding sexual morality.

There is certainly plenty of precedent for the state to support churches, as is the practice in Europe. For centuries, this was the norm for Lutheran churches, including in Luther’s day. The United States, though, has laws separating church and state, though sometimes, arguably, they are taken further than they need to be. One could reasonably ask why tax money should go to a church. But that assumes the bailout is funded by taxes, whereas, given the deficit spending, it is actually money created by government fiat.

Consider this: Taking government money is against our principles. Not paying our pastor violates a clear command from God (1 Tim 5: 17-18). There are times when we may have to sacrifice our principles, valid though they be, to avoid an outright sin.

So I say, if your congregation has to, take the money. I may be wrong, though. In fact, I feel uncomfortable with my own advice. So feel free to correct me if you think I’m wrong.

I do agree that churches should be supported by their members. If the government prevents that from happening, it’s right for the government to make up the difference. And yet, churches are not businesses selling goods or services to their customers. Members of a church are not customers. Rather, they constitute that church. So members, no matter what the coronavirus does, keep giving to your church. Doing so would make this issue a moot point.

Radiance3

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All the Church staff members and the priests are also taxpayers. I think they should get some help from the stimulus, otherwise there is no way they could survive.

Kevyn

Let the megachurch prosperity preachers reach deep into their pockets to bail out their struggling fellow Christians.

Fodaoson Loc: South Texas

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise there of; …”
Using tax money to support a church is establishment

Michael10

When Churches start paying taxes then maybe the public should bail them out. The Catholic Church,, ask the Pope to start selling off some of the gold he's got the Vatican City painted with.

saltwind78

Kevyn, Don't bet the ranch on that possibility.

Radiance3

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You are talking about the 1st Amendment Rights about religion. The churches employ people, who pay their taxes.

We are talking about the employees of the Church, who also pay taxes, must be fairly treated with the others who did not even pay a dime to the Federal government. The Church employees are taxpayers. They are the ones who needed help just like you, or others who don't even pay any tax.

Look, I paid $37,300 of federal income tax in 2019. In addition, I pay more than $9,957 for property tax in 2019, part of it fund the illegal alien kids. I am not getting a dime that the Federal government is giving, because my income is above the limit. I give to charity any ways.

However, I would be happy, if the Federal government also pay those Church's employees who paid their income taxes, and must equally be provided the same benefit.

Those who did not pay taxes, like Seniors get theirs, adults get theirs, children get theirs. That's okay with me. I want them to have it. But it must be fair. Just because those who work for the church are God's employees does not mean they must not receive the same benefit.

Pelosi gave some of my tax money to the illegal aliens and the Muslims. I think you are happy about that?

Michael10

Pelosi didn't give your money to anyone, any money spent has to go thru the Republican Senate for approval, then be singed off by the President, high school civics class. If they're Gods employees, he will provide. Ain't that the way it goes.

factnotfiction

Don't even bother trying to explain to her, since she is just a closed minded trumpcon who worships the ground he walks and farts on

Radiance3

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Don't fool me. The stimulus approved by Congress was $2.3 trillion. The $2 trillion went to the Coronavirus Emergency funds.

The $300 billion went to Pelosi's program for the illegal aliens, the Sanctuary cities, the Kennedy center, Foundation for the Art, for the Planned Parenthood to abort babies, and so many others not relevant to the emergency funds. Without the $300 billion Pelosi will not sign the bill. That was why Congress had approved it. They had the share of the $300 billion. And part of that was my tax money and those others who paid taxes.

Michael10

SO what you're saying is the Senate DID approved this and the President DID sign off on it too. You just made my point

Radiance3

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Remember, this $2 trillion approved by the Senate took to long to get approved because Pelosi was negotiating her share? But the Emergency fund was urgently needed, our people are dying. So, they when they include Pelosi's $300 billion, the bill was finally approved in Congress.

Lonewolf

Lonewolf

And after republicans agreed to include low income people be included and extend unemployment benifits then it passed