One does not like to play fast and loose with Scripture, but imagine if, after John had baptised Jesus, a man in a peaked cap with a leather satchel slung on his shoulder had come down from the banks of the Jordan and presented the Baptist with a bill for the water he had used. That is what is suddenly happening to churches in England.
They are having to pay water bills for the first time, even though some of them use no water. Where churches are struggling to survive, the extra expense may tip the scales and make them close. This is the prospect faced by Park Lane Unitarian Chapel at Bryn, near Wigan, which was founded in 1697.
“If suddenly you propose something like a 20 per cent increase on our outgoings, we would very quickly find ourselves eating into our very limited resources,” commented Ian Lowe, a trustee of the chapel. “It is unthinkable, but we could go out of existence.”
I think the utilities in Britain got the message garbled; it’s not “Runoff from Anglican parish properties”. It was meant to say people are *running off* from Anglican churches, or possibly people are trying to *run off* with church property AS they run off…Easy error to make. Hey, this was bound to happen once Henry dissolved the Houses. Once it’s Crown property, the government gets involved.
Those churches are quite lucky really: that rain might be considered an act of god, and they’d be stuck with the whole bill.
Our church pays its water bill, why shouldn’t they pay theirs?
Many US churches are also paying a “stormwater fee” based on the size of the impervious surfaces. This is the result of an unfunded federal mandate under the clean water act. In Asheville the fee is figured on $28 per 2000 feet each year. All homeowners pay that amount – an average of a random sample of houses figuring roofs, driveways, etc. Non-residental uses pay at the same rate based on the size of parking lots, roofs, etc. It is commonlyu called the “rain tax” but it is a fee not a tak so the city can charge otherwise tax-exeempt entities like the hospital , government buildings, churches and other non-profits. I serve on a city ctormwater advisory committee.
There were Unitarians in 1697?