With the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs, conversation turned to the need for Christians to step-up and meet the needs of women who previously would seek abortions but will now be giving birth in a post-Dobbs America.
It is a big step up. Talk, positive thinking, nor bragging will get it done.
Some Christians love to point out that Christians have already been supplying help in these various areas, as if “We’re better than those other folks,” is the goal. The problem, as even a semi-honest observer can see, is that churches alone are not meeting all the physical needs of the needy—including expectant moms with crisis or unwanted pregnancies—nor are they likely to meet the increased needs and the subsequent children birthed post-Dobbs.
A few facts post-Dobbs
We can start with data from 2019 from the CDC which recorded 629,898 abortions and the Guttmacher Institute which recorded 916,460. The significant differential is due to data-collection methods, but both organizations are cited as authoritative. If we take the average (773,179), then aggressively assume a 50% decrease in total abortions due to Red State laws, then assume 25% of the balance don’t have financial needs, that leaves 193,295 annually who need varying degrees of direct financial aid, food assistance, medical care for mother and developing child, birth expenses, and more.
Are churches up to the task?
Tithly reports $124.52 billion given to churches in 2018. Of that amount, church budgets generally broke down across these categories:
- 49% on personnel
- 23% on facilities
- 11% on missions
- 10% on programs
- 6% on dues
In my experience as a pastor, help for the poor, hungry, single-mothers, care for crisis pregnancies, and like benevolence are a minor part of the 11% mission line. Foster notes, “Churches spend much more money acquiring real estate and developing property than they do on helping the poor and needy. For every dollar spent doing the actual work of helping the poor and needy, the church spends at least five dollars paying wages to its pastors and leaders.”
If you want to know how much your church is likely to reallocate its budget in light of Dobbs, just ask how much has your church increased its benevolence budget over the last few years to help children, the poor, single mothers, and pregnancy care (all phases) already existing in your community?
Consider a Grey Matter/Infinity Concepts study that found among evangelical Protestants,
“The median for church giving is 0.57% — yes, that’s just over one-half of one percent — while for charitable giving, it is 0.1% (or one-tenth of one percent). Total giving to church and charity combined shows a median figure of exactly 1%. Think about that figure for a moment: half of all American evangelical Protestants give less than 1% of their household income to church or charity.” Further:
- One out of five evangelicals did not give anything—not a penny—to a church or charity in 2020.
- Half of all evangelical Protestants give less than 1% of their total income to church or charity. (Grey Matter and Infinity Concepts)
If you insist evangelicals are suddenly going to change their habits and begin sacrificial giving to help hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers and children born into poverty in the wake of Dobbs, you’ll need to proof your pudding.
Interlocking issues
The problem with the approach taken by most churches is the issues are far more complex than we admit. We say “Yes, we want to help,” but the problems are not merely overlapping, they are interlocking.
In the specific context of food banks, the pernicious and complicated nature of food insecurity makes a collaborative approach taken by food banks ideal and even necessary…Food insecurity relates to a bevy of other social ills including but not limited to public and environmental health, economic barriers, educational access, limited labor opportunities, homelessness and transportation…The already cited literature provides key examples. For instance, limited employment opportunities that can plague certain socioeconomic brackets results in reduced income, which means reduced ability to purchase necessary food. Yet another example lies in the close connection between food insecurity and educational outcomes, specifically the correlation between reduced nutrition and school performance as well as engagement among students. In areas with little or less than affordable public transportation, access to discounted or free food resources is critical. (Parker, et al, 2020)
Over the shadow of paltry evangelical giving looms the larger question: what percentage of money given to churches makes it to the types of help a post-Dobbs America requires? What would realistically be needed to meet all the needs? A miniscule sampling:
- President Biden’s FY2023 budget requests $12.9 billion for child welfare programs authorized in Title IV-B and Title IV-E of the Social Security Act (SSA), the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) and related programs, and the Victims of Child Abuse Act. (Congressional Research Service, US Congress)
- In a recent budget request, Tennessee governor Bill Lee, noted a 15% increase in foster care needs in TN. The number of children and youth entering foster care is steadily increasing each year, as well as the time the individual spends in foster care custody.
- In January 2019 there were 29,927 children in foster care in Texas and 3,378 children waiting for adoptive families. (AdoptUSKids)
- The 24 counties served by the Central Missouri Foster Care & Adoption Association is working with 1,400 foster kids in their care. (MO Foster Adopt) Sadly, Missouri has a hard time keeping up with the kids they already have.
- There are over 7,000 children in the foster care system in Oklahoma. (KJRH News 2)
Because churches by-and-large receive donations without actually generating income, economic downturns affect their ability to be charitable with their charitable gifts. If members’ income drops, donations drop. And if donations drop, budgets tighten. And if budgets tighten, benevolence takes a hit. If such a downturn is severe enough (think 2007-2008 or the Covid-19 pandemic) that the entire country is in dire straits, churches simply cannot be depended on to meet increased needs. This is precisely what happened during the Great Depression:
Informal networks of local support, from churches to ethnic affiliations, were all overrun in the Great Depression. Ethnic benefit societies, building and loan associations, fraternal insurance policies, bank accounts, and credit arrangements all had major failure rates. All of the fraternal insurance societies that had served as anchors of their communities in the 1920s either collapsed or had to pull back on their services due to high demand and dwindling resources.
Nor is there reason to think all Christians will happily agree to pay more taxes to meet the needs our lack of charitable giving to the poor exacerbates. A recent, soundly-defeated candidate for presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention called such “steal[ing] from people & redistribut[ing] what is stolen to pregnant moms,” an unbiblical sentiment sadly held by many. He was objecting to the suggestion by long-time pro-life champion, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior, that the government might need to be involved to meet the needs of expectant mothers, giving them options other than abortion.
Accordingly, in a recent Times Opinion essay, Patrick T. Brown acknowledged the need for “a broader vision of policy than just prohibiting access to abortion.” A post-Roe world, he wrote, “is one that compels a greater claim on public resources to support expectant mothers” and demands that we “take seriously the challenges that women and families experience not only during and immediately after pregnancy but also in the years that follow.”
The conservative think tank where Mr. Brown is a fellow, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has developed a robust, holistic Life and Family Initiative aimed at protecting the lives of prenatal children and offering concrete support to the families in which they will be born. California’s Catholic bishops have also outlined a commitment to support women, children and families. And the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention has included in its 2022 public policy agenda a range of issues beyond its ongoing focus on abortion, including alleviating hunger and strengthening low-income families.
Popular Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (quoted here) all but admitted helping alleviate the situations that make abortion a preferred option has not been a goal of the pro-life movement:
The pro-life impulse could control and improve conservative governance rather than being undermined by it, making the G.O.P. more serious about family policy and public health. Well-governed conservative states like Utah could model new approaches to family policy; states in the Deep South could be prodded into more generous policy by pro-life activists; big red states like Texas could remain magnets for internal migration even with restrictive abortion laws. (italics added)
In 2019, Pew Research found that 54% of Conservative Republicans think people on public assistance should be given less and another 34% said the levels were about right. Whenever someone says charity is the responsibility of churches yet does nothing to lead churches to meet the overwhelming needs, while opposing the use of tax dollars to meet those very needs, that person does not care about infant mortality, maternal mortality, who lives, or who dies.
Douthat has a long row to hoe.
Stepping up is a great idea in theory, but it will take a monumental shift in budgeting priorities for churches to meet the near-certain increasing needs. And given that churches are comprised of people who on-average give little and that many of those same people wrongly consider government assistance theft, it is a step requiring a miracle to take.
fides quaerens intellectum
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