Church revenue

“ I say that is a policy of good sense, and good judgment; and that is what is done and no more than that when the Trustee-in-Trust of the Mormon Church invests Mormon Church tithes in business enterprises. But the Church holdings in the various corporations where the investments are made are not sufficient to dominate those institutions or to establish them as trusts in the industrial affairs of the state. Charitable, educational and missionary work are the purposes to which the revenue of the Church is directly devoted. ”

“ On the other hand, if the paltry revenue be not worth a struggle for its own sake, neither is the principle at issue of much value. The supporters of the Church Rates maintain that this is a question of whether or no we choose to make abnegation of our character as a God-fearing nation—of whether by a solemn act of the Legislature we will cut off the connection between Church and State. ”

“ Some years later, when Lord Shelburne asked Bishop Watson 'if nothing could be gotten from the Church towards alleviating the burdens of the State,' the Bishop replied that the whole revenue of the Church would not yield 150l. ”

“ Moreover, in proportion as the clergy, no longer mere ringleaders of a despised and persecuted sect, became beneficiaries and administrators of rich endowments—and this at a time when the external safeguards against embezzlement were comparatively weak—a strong feeling grew up among the laity that church revenues should not go to support the priest’s family. ”

“ Of all Livings throughout the Kingdom none suffered so much in the general alienation of Church revenues as those in Cities and great Towns; for scarce any of these were without one or more Monasteries, the Monks whereof supplying the cure of those Livings, had only a small stipend for their pains. ”

“ It is false, because the taxable property of the country churches, as may be readily seen from the preceding discussion, and may be learned by any person through direct observation, is of extremely low value, and bears far less proportion to the available income of their aggregate membership than the holdings of the city churches. The few dollars of taxes which an honest fiscal policy would impose on the average country church would be raised without the slightest difficulty. ”

“ They asked that the Prerogative should be limited by triennial meetings of the Estates, and by the appointment of a Council from which the clergy should be excluded. They petitioned for the sale of church lands. From the interest of the capital thus obtained, the clergy were to be paid fixed stipends, and the balance was to be spent on paying the debts of the crown, and in loans to the principal cities for the furtherance of their commerce. ”

“ He lays stress on his recorded assent to the principle of corporation reform, the substitution of a treasury grant for Church rates, the relief of dissenters from various civil disabilities (but not from university tests) , the restriction of pensions (saving vested interests) , the redistribution of Church revenues and the commutation of tithes, but so that no ecclesiastical property be diverted to secular uses. ”

“ There appears to be no difficulty in raising funds by these means, particularly if the clergyman is popular. If he is unpopular, or his doctrines unacceptable or extreme, he suffers by the falling off of his income. This system, moreover, has the advantage of giving every man an interest in his church. ”

“ The amount of the indirect subsidy annually paid to the churches by our government which pretends to separation of church and state cannot be exactly determined. Statistics of the value of church property are inaccurately gathered, with a tendency to underestimate ”

“ The ecclesiastical revenues and the income of the cloisters are subjected to a progressive taxation on behalf of a religious fund, mainly for improving the condition of the lower clergy, for which the episcopate hitherto, in spite of all entreaties, had done practically nothing. Newly formed religious societies received state recognition if their denomination and principles contain nothing contrary to law and morality or offensive to those of another faith. ”

“ Why, it is no longer necessary for churches to{514} be built solely by those who are members of the congregation which is endeavoring to erect the edifice. A subscription for the building fund of a church of any denomination is passed around among people of all faiths and no faith, and money is subscribed as freely and as unreservedly as if the effort was being made simply for the relief of some individual in embarrassment. ”

“ Whatever was not paid to the clergyman would inevitably at the next lease be paid to the landholder, while, as the case at present stands, the revenues of the Church are in some sort the reversionary property of every family, that may have a member educated for the Church, or a daughter that may marry a clergyman. ”

“ The great burden of the Church today is not getting in souls, but getting in dollars. Magnificent buildings are erected costing hundreds, yes millions of dollars. The members are compelled to pay for the costly structures. We forget that the groves were God’s first temples. We forget that He was pleased to live in a tent with His people. The Church has gone money-mad. The struggle of the pastor is to get his salary after the great and increasing expenses of the Church have been met. If he fails to accomplish this herculean task, he must go. ”

“ Individual bishops and clergymen may claim personal revenues as assigned to them by Act of Parliament, but that is all. The individual claim that is, is the only claim to be satisfied in the event of disendowment. The Church is no more a corporate body than the army is; in its relations to Church property, the endowments pertain not to Protestant Episcopalianism, as such, but to the State Church for the time being, whether Roman, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian. ”

“ The church, like every other organized or unorganized group of human beings, receives certain definite and regular services from the state, which cost money to render, and which create a debt just as palpable as the debt to the carpenter who builds the meeting house or the coalman who furnishes fuel to keep it warm. If the church had any adequate conception of common honesty, it would pay its taxes without a whimper and as a matter of course*, just as it pays its gas bills or settles any of its accounts with individuals. ”

“ Considering that nearly half the churches raise their money haphazardly, the average contribution per church and per member, in these four counties on the Range, is most encouraging. Of course, it must be borne in mind that 1919-1920 came at the end of the fat years, and hard upon this prosperous period followed the lean one of high freight rates and low prices for farm products. Church finances depend in part upon the practical presentation of the financial needs of the Church, and upon education in Christian stewardship—i.e., in learning the value of church work at home and abroad. ”

“ I think it would be much better if the incomes of the clergy could be equalized; for, so long as matters are managed otherwise, so long will it be considered as a system of revenue of which religion is only the pretext. ”

“ Since we wish all other prelates and clergy to have a share in this meritorious work and its reward, we, with the approval of the council, decree that all the clergy of whatever rank shall, for three years, give the twentieth of the income of their churches to the aid of the holy land, and for the collection of it we shall appoint certain persons. We except from this tax certain monks and also those who shall take the cross and go in person on the crusade. Moreover, we and our brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman church, will pay a tenth of our incomes ”

“ Yet the difference between the Pope’s valuation and the reforming King’s, is far less than the actual value of church property in Queen Victoria’s reign and that which is entered on “the King’s books.” It is true that the clergy are now taxed differently from what they were before the Reformation ”

“ Yet in the face of all these exaction's of tithes and donations, the ecclesiast still boasts: "We are not like the 'preachers for hire and diviners for money.' We never pass the plate at our sacred services. Our clergy labor, without pay, to give free salvation to a sinful world!"
In addition to doing missionary service, paying tithes, and contributing donations, the latter-day Mormon, if he be obedient to the counsel of the Church's anointed financiers, must support the commercial and financial undertakings of the hierarchy. ”

“ No; not after there is added to this income the portion of the burial-fees received by the churchwardens; but this source of income, which has averaged for many years more than £350 per annum, must soon cease. So that dissenters and others, who reside even on a bishop’s estate, have a fair prospect of being called on to pay a church-rate, after all the churches which the rate-payers have built, shall have been paid for. ”

“ But why in the name of all that is wonderful should the rest of us pay them some $200,000,000 a year for doing it? A moderate tax on church property would raise that, so we are meantime funding it ourselves. ”

“ In every mission where money is contributed by the faithful in the ways hereafter described it is to be accounted Church property, and not a donation to the priest. For from this money he must provide not only for his own decent support, but for the expense of religious worship, for the maintenance of the fabric, for payment of debts, where there are any, and for other wants. Wherefore, if any priest leave a mission during the course of the year, he has not a right to his proportion of the yearly income until the amount justly due for expenses be deducted. ”

“ The clergy possess immense property, in land, houses, and specie: when it was proposed to lay an impost of ten per cent upon the income of the church, the Benedictine monks offered to commute their part of the tax, by paying 40,000 crowns annually. ”

“ But as markets developed and farmers came to sell most of their products for cash, money became more plentiful and it became evident that no church can be maintained upon a sound business basis which does not make up an annual budget and raise it by the direct contributions of its people. Putting the finances of the church on a business basis has removed the need of church suppers for raising funds, but their social value has become so apparent that they are now held merely for the better acquaintance and enjoyment of the church people. ”

“ No appropriations were asked of the Board, except for the theological class, the female boarding-school, and one out-station; for all the rest the church provided. For these objects, for their own poor, and for their taxes to government, the sum total raised by the Protestants, in the then closing year, had been two thousand five hundred and fifty-six dollars, averaging one dollar and a quarter for every man, woman, and child in the community. The congregation being too large for one pastor, arrangements had been made to form a second church, and thus to have two churches instead of one. ”

“ About one-third of the churches carry some indebtedness on their property. Twenty-five churches report a total debt of $57,695, of which amount $28,500 was borrowed by six city churches, $21,700 by four town churches, $2,905 by five village churches and $4,590 by eight country churches. The money was spent for new buildings, new parsonages, repairs and, in one case, for a garage to hold the preacher’s Ford. Curiously enough, instead of being a hardship, working to pay off a debt often brings church members together into a unified working group. ”

“ That the growing wealth and property of the churches was partially responsible for revolutionary expropriations of church property in England in the sixteenth century, in France in the eighteenth century, in Italy in the nineteenth century, and in Mexico, Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary (to name a few examples) in the twentieth century, seems self-evident. A government with mounting tax problems cannot be expected to keep its hands off the wealth of a rich church forever. ”

“ In this Range country nearly all of the Church dollar is raised locally, except about twelve cents donated toward church work by denominational boards. Various methods are used by the local church for raising the other eighty-eight cents. Half the churches use a budget system. That is, they set down at the beginning of the fiscal year an itemized budget of the amount which they need, on the basis of which amount subscriptions are obtained from each church member or family. Twenty-five churches finance all their work this way and ten churches budget only their local needs. ”

“ It’s essential in reference to the financial program of the church that plans for Scriptural spending be 192 kept right up with, or a little ahead of, the income; because the income is flexible. When the congregation sees an increased need and a growing program, then the contributions will be increased accordingly. I don’t blame people for not giving to a treasury that’s already overflowing. ”

“ The bishop requires a great deal of money, especially since the State, become ill-disposed, cuts off clerical resources as much as possible, no longer maintains scholarships in the seminaries, deprives suspicious desservans of their small stipends, eats into the salaries of the prelates, throws obstacles in the way of communal liberalities, taxes and over taxes the congregations, so that, not merely through the diminution of its allowances it relieves itself at the expense of the Church, but again, through the increase of its imposts, it burdens the Church for its own advantage. ”