Donations to Churches Fall, Study Warns

A Christian research organization that tracks trends in religious giving says the institutional church in America might be dead within 200 years, but some prominent religious researchers say reports of the church’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

A report from empty tomb inc., of Champaign, Ill., falls short of flatly predicting the end of local congregations and denominational bureaucracies. But it warns that church giving patterns point in that direction.

“The extinction of the national and regional structure of the church as it is constituted today is not inevitable. The financial giving data suggests, however, that it is entirely possible,” the report said.

The study found contributions drying up at national levels, then at regional and congregational levels. “The next stage,” the research group warned, “may be from the congregation to the individual.”

In 1968, the group found, church members gave 2.4% of their income to the local congregation and 0.6% to church work beyond the congregation, including national church structures. By 1991, empty tomb said, those figures had declined, to 2% and 0.4%, respectively.

Extrapolating from those figures, the report projects that by the 2048 giving to the denominations will reach zero.

However, two well-known researchers in the field of church membership and organization challenged the report’s conclusions and methodologies.

The Rev. William McKinney of Hartford Seminary in Connecticut called suggestions of reaching absolute zero in giving, based on extrapolating statistics, “silly.”

And the Rev. Lyle Schaller of Chicago, an authority in the field of church growth, called the report flawed for assuming that all money given to congregations and denominations shows up in church treasurer reports.

Sylvia Ronsvalle, executive vice president of empty tomb, defended the report, adding that she hopes it will create a “healthy anxiety” about church giving that will ultimately lead to a healthy and dynamic church.