Cutting the Church's Cut

West Germans beset by inflation have found a novel remedy. At the rate of about 4,800 a week, they are going down to their courthouses to renounce Christianity. They need only endure some red tape, pay a modest fee and in effect excommunicate themselves to escape a surcharge of up to 10% on the income taxes of church members.

Most West European nations have given religion some help since the Middle Ages, when a tenth of a farmer's produce was handed over to the church. But in modern times, West Germany's generosity seems almost spectacular. The Weimar constitution fixed the right of churches to levy their own taxes. After World War II, the West German government even began collecting the tax, largely through withholding from wages. The surcharge nets the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches more than $1 billion a year.

In the past three years, in growing protest over the tax, an estimated 480,000 Germans have formally renounced their religion. The churches have tried to make the payments more palatable by opening their books, publicizing beneficial uses of the money, and involving laymen more in decision making. But that may not be enough to keep either the churches or their coffers filled. More new churches were built in the past two decades than in the four centuries since the Protestant Reformation; many of these bright new buildings are nearly empty most of the time.

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