There are more churches in California than their are in Texas. We just don't brag about it as much because religion isn't a costume in California like it is in red states.
Saying California has churches is like saying a desert has cacti—it's true, but it misses the point.
Texas' religious density, from Austin's sprawling non-denominational hubs to its Catholic and Protestant strongholds, isn’t just a headcount of steeples, it's a cultural force that outmuscles the state’s flimsy, election-timed gestures.
These communities don't just exist—they act, relentlessly, weaving safety nets that endure beyond the next ballot. California's churches, where they stand, are drowned out by a secular dogma that kneels to bureaucracy over human need. If they were enough, San Francisco wouldn't be playing whack-a-mole with encampments while Houston houses people and moves on.
California has more churches - but not more practitioners.
San Francisco has four Orthodox Christian cathedrals. Many big cities only have a single Orthodox Church, much less a cathedral. San Francisco also has a many Catholic Churches - most with an ethnic component, not to mention Buddhist and cultural associations.
Most of these are due to extreme diversity, not religiosity.
Diversity isn’t an absolute good.
Having 200 churches, each with 50 members, does not make you more religious than a city with two megachurches, each with 20,000 members.
Nor does going to a megachurch to hear a rock band play Christian rock while your pastor tells you how great Trump is make you more religious than going to a more pious orthodox smaller church.
Don't act like this is the solution. It's the same as "religious people give more to charity than secular" which rapidly becomes untrue if you remove "their church" as the charity, in which case secular people tend to give more.
But, you say, it's the church that is doing all that charitable work, so why should it get removed from that accounting?
Religious people like to point to charitable giving.
But studies performed by religious organizations themselves (who, if anything, are likely to skew the numbers more positively) show that across the board, "Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget," and an additional 5% goes to "church-run programs" (be it after-school care, social, or group activities).
If a secular charity - and let's go to Charity Navigator here - Top Ten Inefficient Fundraisers (https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten), we see some of the worst charities spending 15% of their donations on "program expenses" (i.e., doing what they are being given money to do).
I'm not familiar with the monitoring of 501(c)3 groups, but I suspect if secular charities regularly spent only one percent of their givings on what they were entitled to enjoy tax exemption for, they'd likely have such a status revoked.
And, if you factor in this average percentage (even the six per cent combined, which is generous, as as much fun as social and youth activities are, they're not necessarily serving a critical need), and start to question 'how much money is being spent on 'spreading the word', patting themselves on the back, competitions in Texas to see who can built the world's biggest cross just down the road from where the world's previously biggest cross was built at costs of millions, there comes more and more skepticism of just how highly you can value "giving to your church" on the scale of charitable contributions.
A study by ECCU (https://web.archive.org/web/20141019033209/https://www.eccu....) stated that churches use 3 percent of their budget for children’s and youth programs, and 2 percent for adult programs. Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget.
There are more churches in California than their are in Texas. We just don't brag about it as much because religion isn't a costume in California like it is in red states.
Saying California has churches is like saying a desert has cacti—it's true, but it misses the point.
Texas' religious density, from Austin's sprawling non-denominational hubs to its Catholic and Protestant strongholds, isn’t just a headcount of steeples, it's a cultural force that outmuscles the state’s flimsy, election-timed gestures.
These communities don't just exist—they act, relentlessly, weaving safety nets that endure beyond the next ballot. California's churches, where they stand, are drowned out by a secular dogma that kneels to bureaucracy over human need. If they were enough, San Francisco wouldn't be playing whack-a-mole with encampments while Houston houses people and moves on.
California has more churches - but not more practitioners.
San Francisco has four Orthodox Christian cathedrals. Many big cities only have a single Orthodox Church, much less a cathedral. San Francisco also has a many Catholic Churches - most with an ethnic component, not to mention Buddhist and cultural associations.
Most of these are due to extreme diversity, not religiosity.
Diversity isn’t an absolute good.
Having 200 churches, each with 50 members, does not make you more religious than a city with two megachurches, each with 20,000 members.
Nor does going to a megachurch to hear a rock band play Christian rock while your pastor tells you how great Trump is make you more religious than going to a more pious orthodox smaller church.
Don't act like this is the solution. It's the same as "religious people give more to charity than secular" which rapidly becomes untrue if you remove "their church" as the charity, in which case secular people tend to give more.
But, you say, it's the church that is doing all that charitable work, so why should it get removed from that accounting?
Religious people like to point to charitable giving.
But studies performed by religious organizations themselves (who, if anything, are likely to skew the numbers more positively) show that across the board, "Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget," and an additional 5% goes to "church-run programs" (be it after-school care, social, or group activities).
If a secular charity - and let's go to Charity Navigator here - Top Ten Inefficient Fundraisers (https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten), we see some of the worst charities spending 15% of their donations on "program expenses" (i.e., doing what they are being given money to do).
I'm not familiar with the monitoring of 501(c)3 groups, but I suspect if secular charities regularly spent only one percent of their givings on what they were entitled to enjoy tax exemption for, they'd likely have such a status revoked.
And, if you factor in this average percentage (even the six per cent combined, which is generous, as as much fun as social and youth activities are, they're not necessarily serving a critical need), and start to question 'how much money is being spent on 'spreading the word', patting themselves on the back, competitions in Texas to see who can built the world's biggest cross just down the road from where the world's previously biggest cross was built at costs of millions, there comes more and more skepticism of just how highly you can value "giving to your church" on the scale of charitable contributions.
A study by ECCU (https://web.archive.org/web/20141019033209/https://www.eccu....) stated that churches use 3 percent of their budget for children’s and youth programs, and 2 percent for adult programs. Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget.
If you’ve got data showing California closing the gap, I’m all ears. But until then, the scoreboard speaks for itself.
> These communities don't just exist—they act
This smells like ChatGPT.