Cameron McWhirter

But there are instances, and they're increasingly popping up, where people are seeing these assets coming in and using them in ways that divert from the original intent or the intent of the religions.

Steeplejacking is like carjacking.

A group or an individual comes along, usually a younger person to the elderly congregation, expresses interest in joining the church, and the next thing you know, they're in charge.

We are in a situation in America where churches are in decline, many of them.

And some of them have a lot of assets because they were at one point in America, churches were incredibly wealthy and prominent in society.

So they'll have buildings that are worth a lot of money.

They'll own property that's worth a lot of money.

A lot of them, a lot of people, when they died in their wills, they would leave money to their churches.

So there's a lot of cash there.

in a lot of these places but they have a very small membership often and a very limited group controlling who's in charge of all that aren't churches supposed to have some kind of oversight these are usually congregations that aren't hierarchical like the catholic church you know the catholic church knows all the buildings that it owns it has its own financial problems but it knows everything that it owns and it knows down to the penny you know what other assets it has

Small churches don't have that.

A small church in a town in the Midwest that was a single congregation, it's really unclear how much money they have.

And because the government is so reluctant to intervene in a lot of these, especially the courts, we don't really have an idea.

This case in Nashville is so interesting because it kind of laid it all out there.