Church Foreclosures Have Nearly Tripled Since 2007: Report

Getting a complete picture of the financial health of churches across the country is difficult. But a review of filings in the Thomson Reuters Westlaw legal database shows foreclosure proceedings against U.S. churches have nearly tripled since December 2007, when the recession began, compared with the previous seven years, which included the dot.com bust and economic downturn.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[DRaymond]

04:57 PM on 04/05/2010

Something counter to this article I am on the building committee of my church and we are in the middle of constructing a new sanctuary and converting our old sanctuary into a community hall. And honestly finding donations is challenging in this economy. And we are proceeding modestly.

The last few years featured a kind of free-market christianity among the more generic protestant churches. They expanded to the 'unchurched' by lightening up on their doctrine and symbolism and adding two things. First was all sorts of social ammenities that cost a lot to build and a lot to maintain. Second was top rate production services, including expensive lighting and sound systems, jumbo TV screens in HD, more professional musicians, stage technicians and so forth. All very expensive stuff. And when other parishes saw people leave for those fancy shows many felt forced to step up with equal if not greater facilities and staff.

Anyhow when you have a large number of providers aggressively trying to get market share for the same service not all will succeed. And the ones that succeed in the short term may not succeed in the long term. That particularly goes for those churches that rely heavily on the charisma of one person. The once dominant Crystal Cathedral is 55 million in debt and was just sued for two million in unpaid debts. What will happen to the Saddleback mega-campus when Rick Warren is no longer there?

[booboopickle]

03:31 PM on 04/04/2010

so what? they build one of these god awful blights to the landscape every 15 seconds in this country.

[Joseph Joyal]

02:30 PM on 04/04/2010

Thats what happens when pastors get greedy, they build churchs that cost millions and do nothing for the community they are in.
they reap as they sow

[haiku man]

02:24 AM on 04/04/2010

Amen. Thank you Lord for closing down the facilites of your followers.

[Cowboylove]

12:41 AM on 04/03/2010

Living well beyond their means on a wing and a prayer. It happens even to pastors, if you play the roulette will, you take your chances.

[themodernleader]

07:51 AM on 04/02/2010

The foreclosures could indicate that church members are giving up on the gatekeepers to the hereafter. If so, where are they going for sustenance? My uneducated guess would be that Americans who turn from one ideology move fervently into the arms of another ideological movement more virulent than the one that was abandoned.
With millions of bored and idled Americans having nothing to do except think, the Obama Administration does not realize that their inattention to this condition is social dynamite. We are in peril of political convulsions unlike any we have seen in our history. The Administration better wake up. And the Congress better start addressing this massive unemployment or suffer the consequences.
Read the Preamble to the Constitution and follow it. Then all will work out for the best.

[1differentdrummer]

06:59 AM on 04/02/2010

Now, when do they start paying taxes as businesses?

[andycan]

05:32 AM on 04/02/2010

THEIR LIVING DAYLIGHTS

Those who foreclose churches should fear divine wrath every second of their living daylights!

[MNKen]

11:35 AM on 04/02/2010

Hopefully you are being sarcastic.

If not...Why should they fear anything? It is a building. It has nothing to do with a person's beliefs. If someone loses their belief in a higher power because they could not afford a big building, then their trust was in materialistic wealth instead of a power greater than themselves.

If we would tax churches, then they would not keep building bigger and more opulent buildings. They would build inexpensive, modest buildings and then would have more money available for charitable works. You know, the stuff they are supposed to be doing anyway.

[Chickenfoot]

04:53 AM on 04/02/2010

Ha, sign from god much?

[AirViceMarshalPark]

12:50 AM on 04/02/2010

This is some very welcomed news. I hope that this is a long-term trend.

I heard that the Crystal Cathedral is going BK. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

[NWBrunette]

11:34 PM on 04/01/2010

Cool. Buy 'em up and turn 'em in to homeless shelters. That'll be a lot closer to the divine then many of the previous inhabitants ever got.

[ResoluteBob]

01:38 AM on 04/02/2010

Excellent idea.

On a slight tangent, I also agree with the late George Carlin about two other enterprises that use up enormous amounts of acreage that could be put to better use--GOLF COURSES and CEMETERIES!

[AmericanLeslie]

10:15 AM on 04/02/2010

Just what I was thinking!

'm sure organizations such as habitat for humanity can organize such an effort and I also sure there are homeless folks currently living in shelters or on the streets and well as some out of work families who've lost their homes to foreclosure that possess the skills and willingness to bring the idea to fruition.

It's time these holy tax-free edifices did more than take up space. I'm sure God would approve.

[jalowe1957]

10:34 PM on 04/01/2010

How about foreclosing Vatican City?

[jsgaetano]

01:02 PM on 04/02/2010

Vatican was made into it's own nation in exchange for ignoring what Hitler and Mussolini were doing during WW2.

[larry278]

10:28 PM on 04/01/2010

Does Pope Benny call the records at the Vatican Re: priests engaging in sexual abuse of minors his Pedio Files? I'm waiting for the National Enquier to investigate & verify this. Apathetic atheists & agnostics are unlikely to appreciate such a verification in any sort of media. Summer is coming, it will soon be the season for pulling off flies's wings, now that's useful fun.

[PlayTOE]

10:14 PM on 04/01/2010

If God isn't able to handle his own finances or his churches ... then the church really does not have an inside track to the god ... (or the god is fiction)

[ramal]

10:14 PM on 04/01/2010

Good! A hopeful sign that the fairy tale is losing its allure.