Christian Ministries and Government Funding
The recent government memo directing all federal agencies to stop all government grants and loans has raised many questions. The administration aimed to review everything and find government waste and fraud. Many left-wing NGOs received billions in federal aid, but among the left-wing appropriations were also billions in funding for the social efforts of more mainstream evangelical organizations.
Warren Smith identified several favorites:
But the outcry was not just from progressives. A number of Christian groups, some of them relatively conservative, also objected. World Relief, the benevolence arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the freeze would hamper their refugee resettlement efforts.
PEPFAR, an AIDS prevention effort in Africa and elsewhere that costs $5 billion a year, has been a favorite of evangelicals. It too faced a funding freeze. Sanitation and clean water efforts, many of them led by Christian groups in Africa, India and elsewhere, faced immediate shutdown.
In fact, a spreadsheet sent to federal agencies naming the programs under review ran to more than 50 pages.
Shockingly, even Christianity Today, the granddaddy of evangelical periodicals, received nearly $2 million in funding from USAID.
One of the Baptist Distinctives is the separation of Church and State, but does that mean the separation of parachurch institutions from the state? Have we become a frog in the water on this issue? We have to consider all kinds of connections.
- Grants for education in Christian Schools, including property improvement grants.
- PPP payments during the Covid Crisis.
- Tuition tax credits for private education.
- ESA payments for private education.
- Disaster relief efforts administered by Christians.
Here are some things to consider.
Is funding direct, indirect, or both?
Vouchers and ESAs (those are Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) for education are a form of indirect funding. State governments give parents funds to use in selecting the educational path for their children. This includes faith-based education. The Supreme Court has ruled that this is not a violation of the Establishment Clause since the funds are given to parents. In Arizona, this has been a great blessing to parents who desire to put their children in Christian Schools. However, the program has created a huge demand for Christian Education and schools are scrambling to find teachers and space to meet the demand. It has forced schools to make financial commitments to meet a need that could evaporate with the next change in administration.
In the end, we concluded that ESA’s are not a violation of our conscience as Baptists, but we approach the situation with care and wisdom.
Are we just participating with our community in an emergency?
This might be what happens when Christian people and Christian institutions help in disaster relief efforts. In such situations, churches often make their buildings and manpower available. They might even distribute funds. This happened in the recent hurricane disaster throughout the Southern US. Such community involvement is an expression of the love of Christ in crisis, and is a testimony of love to the world. It is not our ongoing mission, but it was the mission of God’s people in the moment. Churches should not be financially benefitting in such cases.
Is there control, overt or not?
The argument against accreditation for Christian Colleges back in the 1970s was that accrediting agencies would have the power to change the curriculum and through that the philosophical distinctives of Christian institutions. Most Christian Colleges were able to work through that, but the problem could still exist in the future. The bigger problem is indirect control. Take the situation with Christianity Today. Direct funding from USAID constituted 20% of their gift income. It is not clear who, within the US government was responsible for making decisions regarding such funding, but it would be hard for any institution to walk away from such a significant revenue source.
How will we be perceived by the public?
Again, the situation with Christianity Today also comes into view. The public might wonder the reasoning behind some of the positions taken by Christianity Today (and which politicians they supported) in the last election, given the fact that the establishment political apparatus was paying a percentage of their bills.
Are we trusting God or the government?
While one-time grants would cause some concern, continuing support from a governmental organization can create a situation where we begin looking to government to meet our needs (Christian ministry needs) rather than God and His people. At some point then, the government becomes our provider instead of God Himself.
The PPP payments distributed at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic exemplify the complexities of this type of funding. When the pandemic first broke out, none of us knew how things would develop and what the economic implications of the pandemic might be. The U.S. government acted quickly to ensure that institutions, and even non-profits, it deemed vital remained functioning. Christian Schools were among the institutions deemed essential. The U.S. government made PPP grants available so these institutions could meet payroll, rent, and utilities in the potentially troubling months ahead. As our church leaders considered the situation, we made an application as a precaution. While the early indication was that these payments would be “loans” there were no specific terms given regarding interest rates or payback schedules, and we were told that these payments would almost certainly be 100% forgiven in the end.
We received the funding and deposited it in the bank without touching a penny. Remarkably, God not only provided for our ministry during those trying times, but also blessed us abundantly. Not only did we not need the funds to operate, we became increasingly uneasy about having received them. After just a few months of holding the money, we returned it, in full and untouched. We did not have a financial need to justify it, but even more so, we came to believe it could damage our Christian testimony to keep it. Not all institutions acted as we did. Some never applied. Some applied, got the money, received forgiveness for the loan, and have considered a blessing from God.
This article is not intended to condemn any ministry for the decision made in the PPP situation. The point is that when we start mixing public and private funds in the sustenance of Christian ministry, it presents some potentially complex compromising problems. There is a reason our Baptist forbears held so tightly to the separation of Church and State. If we are not careful and principled, we could lose our independence and identity as truly God-dependent institutions.
Listen to the audio version of this article here: Christian Ministries and Government Funding