It is further claimed that the church is directly engaged in social and
philanthropic activities, which would become sorely crippled by a forced
diminution of revenue. Advocates of this view have declared that the
church is specially fitted for many branches of social service, being
able to command invaluable volunteer assistance, which the state could
not hire at any price. Hence they conclude that the elimination of the
churches would throw on the state a burden far in excess of the amount
now conceded to these institutions in exemption from taxation.
It will be seen that the foregoing claim of the church rests entirely
on assumptions of the most gratuitous nature. In the first place, only
a minority of the churches are of the "institutional" order, and
practically engaged in social welfare work; and in the exemption laws
no distinction is made between this minority and the large majority of
churches which render no such public service. In fact, the law works
entirely in favor of the parasitic churches, the mere accumulators of
wealth. The institutional churches attract to themselves the support of
individuals who wish to see the work done, and who will stand by them to
any extent needed; while the other class of ecclesiastical bodies, which
exist mainly for the promulgation of effete dogmas, lean on the state
for a much larger proportion of their total revenue. With state help,
they fatten and become rich; while the few socialized churches spend
their revenues as fast as they come in. The repeal of exemption laws
would not kill any churches which are doing a work felt in the community
to be one of public necessity; it is the socially useless churches which
would be forced to perish, if they could not win sufficient voluntary
support by showing some indication of deserving it. The fallacy that the
repeal of exemption laws means the killing of the institutional churches
or the crippling of their work is a most glaring one.
It is further not true that the supporters of the social work now done
through the higher type of churches would lose all interest in it if the
church were to disappear from the scene. Such a claim is an insult to
human nature and a fatal confession with reference to the quality of the
religion which is thus assumed to teach its followers to labor only for
the sake of the church and not for the love of mankind. The desire to
minister to social needs, found among the nobler men and women of all
forms of faith and of unbelief, would persist in undiminished degree. If
the church were gone, it would simply use other channels through
which to work. They would likewise be joined by others, who cannot
conscientiously assist in the promulgation of dogmas they consider
false and pernicious, even though the doctrinal teaching is subtly
interblended with philanthropic work; and by still others, whose
earnestly proffered services are rejected by the religious bodies,
because, although eager to help in social service, they cannot pronounce
the doctrinal shibboleths of ecclesiasticism. The spontaneous response
of men and women to proven human need has been demonstrated again and
again, and never more than during the great world war, in the immense
sums of money and quantities of needful articles eagerly proffered and
the vast amount of personal service freely rendered, sometimes at the
risk or cost of life itself, to alleviate the sufferings of military
and civil victims resident in alien lands and totally unknown to the
millions of volunteer helpers. No church activity was needed to stir
all this active and uncalculating benevolence into life; and none is
required to arouse the higher sentiment in the community to co-operate
in combating its poverty, illness and degradation.