Church Debt | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1875

Church Debt.

The Boston Transcript enters protest against the prevailing habit of religious denominations of “going in debt” for fine church edifices. It is admitted that few churches, except the Roman Catholic, have been recently constructed in Boston without incurring liabilities far from justifiable; and that these have proved to be enormous burdens upon the congregations, restricting all holy influences, and too often causing ill-feeling between pastor and people. When these vast and elegant structures are built and the debt incurred, the necessity follows that they must be crowded with rich people, who can buy pews at great prices, pay high taxes, and give largely toward the liquidation of the debt. Hence the necessity for a pastor who can draw! The pulpit is put upon the same standing as the stage of a theater, and whether actor or preacher, he is the best man who can in the quickest time and the more continuously draw his house.

This wretched habit (for it seems to have become such in large cities) of getting into debt seems to stand by itself among the unrighteous things of the world which are permitted to increase without suitable reprehension. A merchant, a bank, or any public institution, gets into debt and must immediately fail. A poor man or woman goes beyond his or her means and meets the consequences in public disdain or odium. But churches are permitted to be built, and to linger on under a load of debt and unfulfilled promises to pay. We do not see any heeded warning taken from previous precedent. In fact, incumbents of parishes, even, allow them so to be built, knowing all the time how far the excess of expenditure will exceed the means of payment. Where is the clergyman who will have the courage to say to any building committee, “Gentlemen, I will preach to you if you will build the church without a debt. If you go one cent beyond your means I shall not be your pastor.”—Sel.