In my teenage years the church I grew up in started publishing the attendance and offering incomes from the last week and the year before in the church bulletin. This was followed by a line called budgeted needs per week, and monetary needs for each program the church elders and pastor had decided the church would pursue. I found this advertising in the church bulletin to be passive-aggressive. I call this grift the congregation guilt giving procedure.

When I served as a board member at a different church as an adult I got to see the budget ledgers at board meetings. The budget for the church I attended rivaled successful small businesses. The amount of money the congregation donated was mind boggling. I served the church and even played or sang for the church because I could not offer much financially due to student debt, insurance, auto payments, rent, etc… The rest of the congregation, mostly middle class workers, offered nearly a million dollars a year toward the budgeted needs of the church.

The biggest expense obviously is the building and maintenance to the building. The larger the building the more maintenance. They had a pipe organ. This alone cost a fortune to maintain and keep operational. It is mind boggling how this part time used building sucks money away from parishioners.

The second largest expense was the clergy and their housing. Our church had two pastors and both of them earned nearly twice what I made as a teacher. This was the 1990’s by the way. I still hadn’t crossed the $30K threshold. That didn’t happen until 2001. We also had church secretaries, deacons, music director, and other minor employment positions. Only the clergy received a family insurance package on top of their salary and free housing.

This grift was minor. There were many ways this church could have saved money, instead they begged the congregation to give more, and more, and more, and more… I watched older congregates pass away and give their estates to the church via the trust. The money from these trusts gave the interest to the church (tax-free) without being included into the budgeted needs per week offering grifts. Instead these trust monies were used for conventions, or building updates. I found this form of giving to be a huge grift. The family’s of the deceased would use the church for the burial service (had to pay for this service too,) and then find out from the will they would receive nothing as the church was getting everything.

When we apply this grift to the super, mega, richy rich churches it becomes infuriating. https://julieroys.com/megachurch-mega-mansion-pastor-homes-parsonage-millions/ Why do these clergy need million dollar homes or multi-million dollar homes. Why are they asking for tens of thousands in tithes to support their ministry? There are lonely desperate people out there believing in their miracle and end up bankrupt instead supporting the religious lives of the rich and infamous. All in the name of Jesus Christ.

These grifters and yes I am considering the clergy from my past church and mega churches as grifters. If you have a budget as large as these churches and the clergy are living in multi-million or at least lavish homes compared to the neighborhood they are preaching in, then these places need to be taxed. If you preach politics on the pulpit, you are now a lobbyist and should be taxed. If your church or religious business is founded or developed on a TIF District or redevelopment grants then you need to be taxed and follow all secular government laws.

Slight detour, businesses that use religion to justify their insurance offerings and business dealings that use government incentives like TIF’s or grants to develop a property then they should follow secular laws not sacred choices. An example would be an arts and crafts store (closed on Sunday) that does not offer financial support for contraceptives or the morning after pill through their insurance. This would also include abortions, vaccines they don’t believe in, or other medical procedures as outline by their faith practice. I’m sorry many of these stores occupy TIF districts and receive government incentives and tax breaks to redevelop a property vacated by another business. I’m sorry, that’s a grift. You should follow secular law if one uses secular funding. Now if you own your own business and receive nothing from the government then feel free to do what you wish. As Jimmy Buffet said there is a “fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.”

This grift gets worse the longer $47, the divine providence of the megachurch, remains in the office of the president. The blurring taking place between secular and the grifting “Christian” churches that support him is unacceptable. It violates our constitutional rights to exist how we wish. If you want to practice as faith… you have my blessing to do so. Don’t expect me or millions of others to live under your faith practice. I don’t need that oppression nor the grift. You can worship the Great Pumpkin all I care. Don’t make me believe in the awful squash. I prefer my secular scientific rationale thanks.

Do all churches practice the big grift? If I use my secular rationale that answer is a yes. My heart and empathy for those that need their church family and community for social support and or help with substance abuse or something else. Then that answer is a no. There are churches out there and clergy that actually practice what they preach. Every dollar is spent on service for their parishioners. The clergy live modestly. Money is not the object of their service. There are social clubs that also offer these same services for their clientele. I see nothing wrong with that. Like most things in the human existence there are shades of gray. Or is that grey?

Money and power goes to the heads of those in charge. It corrupts even the most sincere. I think we have seen in the United States how religion has corrupted political practice. It has distorted what service is supposed to look like and turned it in to some distorted justification for being selfish and careless. It is time for people to wake up and realize they are being grifted by their mega-churches in suburbs into believing something that doesn’t exist… I dissent with all grifters. This includes $47 and his administration. …and so it goes…