Religion: Givers: Big & Small

What to give the church is solely up to the individual conscience—but what everybody else is giving does have a certain guideline interest. Last week the National Council of Churches reporter the latest averages (for 1963) of Protestant bodies. As usual, members of the tiny Holiness sects proved most zealous in support of their churches: the 53,601 Free Methodists led the nation, with an average of $358.17 each, and the 30,433 communicants of the Pilgrim Holiness Church gave $264.20. Among major church groups, the 937,558 Southern Presbyterians averaged $109.46, followed by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod with $102.26 and the United Presbyterians with $90.46. The lowest per-capita donations were reported by the nation’s two largest Protestant bodies: Methodists averaged $59.60 in gifts, Southern Baptists, $53.49. Total take: $2,858,600,845, up $58 million from the year before.