[minorannoyance2]

No, but they are more of a scam than most taxes. Historically speaking, churches haven't exactly abstained from war or pretty much any other atrocity. In terms of our current reality, they are usually not better value for money than taxes. Any time you can point to corruption, misuse of funds, politics or other issues, it is worth remembering that this applies to the churches as well.

[dahfizz]

Even if this is true "historically speaking", it doesn't have to be true of this guy's local church. Despite the bad press generally, an individual church can still be an unambiguous benefit to its community.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of local (single location, <400 members) churches are like this. Free meals for the community, donating money / labor / resources to homeless shelters, partnering with food banks and soup kitchens, etc are all very common. You just don't hear about it.

[lmm]

The larger and less accountable an organisation is, the more corruption and waste there tends to be. I would agree that donations to a large national religious movement are probably more of a scam than national taxes, but that's not the comparison being made here.