Every church I’ve ever been to has done these 2. My wife knows I won’t abide the political ones so she hasn’t taken me to any that would do your 2nd point. I can’t say how much of the budget went to those activities, but a fair amount of time went into them.
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when it’s tax free it does bother me
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If all the churches you’ve been to dedicated a meaningful amount of their budget to assistance for the needy, the data would say they are outliers. Given that you don’t actually know but have a good feeling about it, the data makes me skeptical of that claim.
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So, does that mean that your church is also silent on the legal status of abortion?
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But that is a completely different and opposite argument that is made that charity is more efficient than government programs.
I think they are orthogonal, as I suggested either charity or increased public funding, and didn’t distinguish between the two.
Yes but the original argument was religious people were more charitable by donating a lot to their religious organization which in turn was charitable to the poor which pretty much blown up by the study AI posted showing very little of that goes to the actual poor.
Where as you can argue about the efficiency of government programs I’m guessing more than 3% goes to the actual poor.
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That makes sense. But donations to emergency services, cancer/diseases, schools while not directly puting money in poor people’s pockets do help them too.
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Many would say it never contradicts itself… that there are valid explanations for apparent contradictions.
One apparent contradiction is Jesus’s paternal grandfather. According to Matthew it’s Jacob. According to Luke it’s Heli. The explanation I have seen for this apparent contradiction is that Jacob and Heli were brothers and one died without an heir. Thus the other fulfilled his duty by marrying the widow and producing an heir (Joseph) that is the legal child of the deceased brother. One genealogy lists the legal father while the other lists the biological father.
There are explanations out there for every apparent contradiction. Opinions of these explanations obviously differ.
Some of those explanations require even more mental gymnastics than Alito’s leaked ruling.
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I mean, there’s an entire cult thinking the earth is flat when we can directly observe it not being so…
I think you need to look at total donations, not just donations to churches. Less than half of our charitable contributions go to our church, as an example, even excluding contributions to arts organizations. We give more to World Vision, International Justice Mission, and St Jude than we do to our church. We also give to One Great Hour of Sharing which is collected by the church but then passed on. I’m not sure if that counts as money given to the church or not. The check is written to the church with One Great Hour of Sharing in the memo line. But the church essentially acts as a clearing house. None of that goes to the pastor or the electric bill or the Sunday School curriculum, and they have no discretion over that.
I also know of a number of churches that have formed separate charitable foundations with separate finances from the church. This is to make them eligible for employer matching gifts. The church itself probably doesn’t qualify because they’re a religious organization and the employer probably doesn’t allow that. But their foundation likely does qualify. 100% of the giving to the foundation is going to programs to help the needy. And that’s probably not counted in the 2% figure because it’s not contributions to the church.
And then there’s a lot of assistance that’s not monetary that may not be getting counted. When I donate food to the Deacon’s Pantry or buy a toy for the Angel Tree or volunteer at the homeless shelter… is that counted?
You’re a commendable person with your charity twig, statistics show that you are atypical. But your anecdote only says something about you, not the overall population.
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No, I was pointing out flaws in the statistics. Not looking for accolades.
I think one major issue around the Church’s “charitable” contribution toward the poor is the funding of overseas missions. I’ve known many missionaries that work in some of the poorest countries and actually help improve both their living conditions and future outlook for sustainable living.
I wonder how much of the focus on “helping the poor” in this discussion is helping the American poor. (Note that I’ve not had a chance to read AI’s article; so don’t know if this is addressed there or not.)
I think it’s important to know how organizations I support spend their money. I can’t speak for other churches I’ve attended but the one I currently attend gives away at least 10% and encourages parishioners to give to charities formally or informally. (For example, we are in a part of town where there are a lot of unhomed people so we keep a small pantry of grocery items that we can give away. This is done totally through donations of these items.)
I am on the board so I’m privvy to a lot of details but even if I weren’t, my pastor discusses church finances at a high level a few times a year as part of what he calls “church meetings” but which are held during normal service times.
Having experienced this, I don’t think I would want to attend a church that is not open about their finances.
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I don’t attend church, but I feel the same way about all of my charitable contributions. If they aren’t transparent they aren’t getting my donation.
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Pretty sure that falls under the “international aid portion” of AI’s study. That came in a 2% overall. Which in fairness was double what local/national aid came in at.
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Yeah, this is all over the map. The book of Acts instructs us to minister to those in Judea (local), Samaria (regional) and the ends of the earth (global). It’s all important and different people, different charities and different churches will all find different balances between the three. Or even the same people/churches/charities at different times.
For sure a lot more of my church’s mission budget stayed in the US in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, than it did in 2010, the year of the earthquake in Haiti. And I bet that’s true of an awful lot of charitable organizations.
Good question re helping the poor. We help the local poor and the international poor. We tend to help the international poor through our denominational compassion organization. I don’t know all the ways that particular organization spends its money but I do know they are often early responders to disasters around the globe.
I was super impressed at a charity luncheon I attended a few weeks ago. It was held at a large church and the entire cost was offset by the people of the church, so that any donations the organization received went directly to its programs. They provide housing to disabled people and young adults aging out of foster care. They also have a program for single moms that provides assistance both before and after childbirth. The organization was not particularly religious. Anyway I loved that this church was using its large building to help with stuff like that. I’m guessing that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what this church does in our community.