When churches are
charities
Religious organisations which
operate as charities have special features, hence a different
approach may be needed in terms of regulation
BY WILLIE CHENG
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
THE City Harvest Church court case has resurrected the periodic
question: Why should a church, or for that matter, a religious
institution, be accorded charity status?
The naysayer's reasoning goes like this: Charity is about
helping society's poor and needy. Sure, churches can be charitable
and give some money to those in need, but so do many other
organisations which are not charities. Religion, after all, is
fundamentally about God and spiritual matters.
A proper discourse on this subject however requires an
appreciation of how the definitions of charity and church have
evolved over the centuries.
Charity and church
defined
SINGAPORE and about 60 other countries trace their legal
heritage to England. Specifically, the legal definition of charity
harks back to the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 of Elizabethan
England and its subsequent refinements in common law.
Chief among the common law cases was Income Tax Special
Purpose Commissioners v Pemsel (1891) where four categories of
charitable uses were defined:
• the
relief of poverty;
• the
advancement of education;
• the
advancement of religion;
• other purposes
beneficial to the community not falling under any of the preceding
heads.
Over the years and across the world, the fourth category
has been used to cover an increasing variety of causes such as
vulnerable groups (the disabled, elderly, etc), animal welfare,
environment, the arts and heritage. Singapore, for example,
specifically added sports as a charitable cause in 2005.
One reason for including the advancement of religion as a
charitable cause in early England was that much of the charitable
work of providing for the poor and needy was being done by the
church. Religion, in those days, meant the Church of England.
However, over the centuries, the religious scene has
changed significantly. For starters, there has been a proliferation
of and diversity in churches.
In the first few centuries after Jesus Christ died,
Christianity was consolidated and became widespread with the
establishment of the Roman Catholic Church. Starting in the 16th
century, a movement by certain priests to reform the Catholic
Church led to the formation of several Protestant denominations
such as the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans and Methodists. In
time, these denominations sprouted further subdivisions and sects,
alongside untold numbers of independent "non-denominational"
churches. Larger ones with weekly attendances of 2,000 or more,
such as City Harvest Church, are called "megachurches".
These churches may differ in opinion regarding theology
and/or liturgical practice. But they mostly subscribe to Jesus
Christ as the saviour and the Bible as God's word (even if they may
interpret its contents differently).
Some critics consider independent churches shallow in
theology while being deep in secular models of entertainment-based
worship and marketing. For example, critics take issue with the
doctrine of the "prosperity gospel" some of these churches around
the world subscribe to. The prosperity gospel teaches that
financial blessings are the will of God and more donations to the
church result in increased material prosperity to the individual.
It is a philosophy which some theologians argue has no sound
Biblical basis.
Another key distinction among the various forms of
churches lies in their structures and leadership.
The Catholic Church and the mainstream Protestant
denominations have fairly well-established organisational
structures and processes for the formation and conduct of the
clergy. For example, a Catholic priest is ordained only after an
intensive period of scrutiny and formation of eight or more years,
upon which he takes a vow of chastity, obedience and, sometimes,
poverty. He is expected to live less than modestly. In Singapore,
Catholic priests are given a stipend of $500 per month, with their
board and lodging provided by the church.
On the other hand, most of the non-mainstream churches
are essentially independent congregations, some loosely affiliated
to each other, but mostly with their own rules and practices. Many
of these churches do not have the same kind of rigorous
institutionalised approach to selecting and developing leaders.
Indeed, leaders often emerge by virtue of their charisma and
ability to win followers. It is the congregations, rather than
institutional rules, which determine leaders and lifestyle
expectations of the leaders.
Should such charismatic leaders have flawed characters,
they can do untold damage. In extreme cases, such organisations are
classified as cults. Cults are banned in Singapore, but not in some
countries. Yet, by granting charity status to such cults or
near-cults as some countries do, regulators confer on them tax
benefits and, more significantly, legitimacy.
Keep religious groups out of
charities?
GIVEN the historical broadening of the definition of charity, it
would be, in my opinion, wrong to narrowly target religion for
exclusion as a charitable cause.
Yes, (most) religions are about God and the afterlife,
but they are also fundamentally about goodwill and bringing out the
goodness in man. Which is to say: they are about the community
good.
If religion is excluded - say, we revert to the layman's
notion of charity as helping the poor and needy - we need to also
exclude sports, the arts, heritage, animals, education and health
care. We would, in fact, exclude the whole gamut of other causes of
"community good" that have grown over time.
At the same time, we also need to recognise that there
are churches and there are churches. What then do we do about the
errant religious organisations that may not be extreme enough to be
classified as cults (and thus be banned) but, in all other
respects, qualify to be charities? The default answer is: Treat it
as any other errant social service charity or sports charity.
In other words, have a clear set of rules and regulations
for how charities are to be governed and managed. And if there is a
breach by any of the charities or its personnel, throw the book at
them.
Special features of religious
groups
HOWEVER, the application of such
rules and regulations to religious charities is not so
straightforward. There are three related and distinctive features
of religious organisations that regulators have to grapple
with.
The first is the basis of donations. An inviolable
principle in the charity sector is "donor intent". This means
respecting the basis for which a donation is given. In the case of
religious institutions, most believers give with a blanket fiat for
their leaders to do with the donation as is deemed fit rather than
for specific or even general charitable purposes.
The second is evangelisation. The missions of most
religious organisations include evangelisation, not just of the
converted, but of the broader community. Evangelisation sits
uncomfortably with regulators in the more secular countries. Yet,
it can be argued that evangelisation is no different from, say, the
advocacy of other charities, such as the healthy lifestyles (to
avoid certain diseases) promoted by health-care charities like the
Singapore Heart Foundation and Sata CommHealth.
The third is the leadership of these organisations. The
governance and management of religious institutions tend to be
bound together, rather than be separated, as is considered best
practices by secular bodies. Religious leaders also have a sway
over their followers which can sometimes be seen by regulators and
outside parties as bordering on the irrational.
The interplay of these three factors has challenged
regulators when they seek to implement a single sector-wide
approach to regulating charities.
In Singapore, the same set of regulations is applied to
all charities, regardless of sub-sectors (for example, the
religious, social service and arts sub-sectors).
There is, however, differentiated treatment in the
Charity Code of Governance based on the size of the charities: the
bigger the charities, the more controls and scrutiny are
needed.
As highlighted above, there are unique aspects of
religious charities, as there could be for charities in other
sub-sectors.
It might be timely to review these sub-sectorial
differences for a more targeted and meaningful approach to charity
governance and regulation.
The writer, a former partner at
management and technology consulting firm Accenture, is author of
Doing Good Well. He sits on the boards of several commercial and
non-profit organisations, including Singapore Press Holdings,
Singapore Institute of Directors, and Catholic and secular
charities.
Opinion, The Straits Times, Saturday, July 7 2012, Pg A38
