The Greek Orthodox Church, and our big, fat, Greek-style economic funeral?

With those caveats in mind, the Greek decision to pay some taxes and carry on with their genuinely charitable work demonstrates that churches can do both. Having said that, should it have to come to a Greek-style financial crisis before a church pays tax?

To his credit, the fourth president of the United States, James Madison, saw all this religious wealth coming. In his 'Detached Memoranda' written sometime after 1811, he warned the new United States to keep a watch on how much property churches could acquire because they would continue to build wealth indefinitely into the future, to the extent that they would lose their very purposes of the founders of their religions.

The warnings went unheeded and what President Madison predicted has happened. In the June 2015 issue of the French magazinel'idée libre, Rob Boston summarized the wealth of the Religious Right in the United States that has evolved alongside the wealth of the mainstream churches from the 19thC:

• The top ten Religious Right groups in the US raise more than $1B each year;
• This money is used for lobbying Congress and arguing legal cases against secular law;
• Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network raises $300M annually and has an endowment of $2B;
• The Christian 'American Center for Law and Justice' have a budget of $62M per annum;
• Jerry Falwell's Christian 'Liberty University' in Virginia has an annual budget of $885M;
• The Christian 'Alliance Defending Freedom' spends $40M annually in legal actions against secular law;
• The Christian 'Family Research Council' spends $13M;
• The Christian 'American Family Association' spend $20M on political actions;
• The Catholic 'League for Religious and Civil Rights' has assets of $35M.

In theSydney Morning Herald 12February 2011 Jessica Irvine ('Tax breaks add up to a big minus') queried fringe benefits for the religious, among others, in Australia . Fringe benefits are mortgage payments, car expenses, children's school fees, and sundry other things, that ministers of religion are able to take in lieue of taxable income. On 20 June 2007, NSW MLC, John Kaye, detailed in the parliament how a Christian sect in Sydney exploited this tax break to its fullest extent.

Irvine's senior economics colleague at the Herald, Ross Gittins,has just published his biography. Turns out he was raised in a Salvation Army family. While he has described himself as a 'backslider', the term Christian sects use to denounce those that have moved away from the faith, he informs us that at census time, sentimentally, he still puts himself down as a member of the Sallies.

I thought it was curious that Gittins has never turned his considerable forensic mind to the tax breaks for religion. Now, all is clear. It seems he is a big fan of the British Christian philosopher, Michael Schluter, who has tried to 'turn the UK back to Christ'.

It seems likely Gittins has bought the 'cross-subsidy' argument described above, for in a 18 April 2014 interview with the ABC he said 'the archbishops of the world should be out there putting in their spoke' about social justice issues. Would that include the Anglican archbishop of Sydney who lives in a $30M pile with views of Sydney Harbour while there are hundreds of homeless living on Sydney streets?

And, there is a problem with the Sallies. In 2012 we (NZARH) were able to research just how wealthy churches are in New Zealand as their Charities Commission, as it was once called, does have a wealth reporting requirement.

We found the Salvation Army had $425M in equities and $17M sitting in NZ banks. At the same time, there is good evidence, that despite New Zealand's relatively sound economy, that a quarter of its children are living in poverty. There are many ways some of that $17M could be spent. Why aren't they spending it? Also, we found the Seventh Day Adventists (owners of Sanitarium) had a whopping $37M in the bank.

So, to the question of much religion is costing, after discounting the value of the charitable work churches do, significantly funded by government, the likely answer is between the higher figures cited above: somewhere between $8B and $31B.

I suggest Australia could do with some of that, as month by month, if the terms of trade do not reverse, we move ever closer to a big, fat, Greek-style economic funeral.