Probably a Church:

A Field Guide to Southern Mitosis

There is a point in any ten minute drive through South Carolina where you will pass more churches than traffic lights.

I'm not exaggerating. I'm simply counting.

A Baptist church across from a Baptist church. A Methodist church that used to be a Methodist church but is now something slightly more adjectival. A former strip mall now home to “New Covenant Restoration Fire Outreach Ministries International,” which sounds less like a congregation and more like a software update.

Elsewhere, when attendance declines, buildings shrink.

In England, where the monarch is ceremonially head of the Church of England, ancient sanctuaries are being converted into cafés, apartments, and wine bars. Stone arches now frame espresso machines. Pews hold brunch.

Here, in South Carolina, we’re converting ex Best Buys and ex K-Marts into tabernacles. Old malls become religious annexes complete with buses and regularly rented police officers to control the traffic.

In a state where roads are widened at the speed of continental drift, sanctuaries rise with remarkable efficiency. A former hotel ballroom becomes a ministry center. A warehouse becomes a fellowship hall. Half a house becomes a “church” with folding chairs and a donation plate.

It's a fascinating architectural instinct.

Part of this is schism. American Protestantism has perfected theological mitosis. One disagreement over governance, music, or the metaphysical geometry of grace, and suddenly there are two congregations where there was one. Occasionally three. Sometimes directly across the street from each other, like rival coffee shops competing over the same four customers. The energy feels less like doctrinal catastrophe and more like football season. Not evil. Just tragically certain the other side is wrong.

Obviously, I'm not talking about your church.

Yours is the good one. The doctrinally sound one. The fiscally responsible one. I mean the other one. The one that drifted. The one that compromised. The one that split in 1997 over a footnote.

You knew exactly which one I meant.

That reflex is part of the story.

We are remarkably adept at spotting excess in someone else’s belief structure. Less enthusiastic about auditing our own. Rest assured, if they read this, they’d be thinking about yours. That’s the point.

Then there's the incentive layer.

Churches enjoy automatic federal recognition as nonprofit religious organizations. They generally do not file the same public financial disclosures as other nonprofits. Property used for religious purposes is broadly exempt from local property tax. In a state where property tax funds roads, bridges, schools, and emergency services, that exemption isn't abstract.

This doesn't mean every church is a financial strategy.

It does mean the category is structurally attractive.

An old church with eight regular members that only holds services every third Sunday, sharing a preacher among other such aging congregations, can sit on valuable land without contributing to the tax base. An empty commercial building can find new life with a cross and a donation box.

When a type of property is culturally insulated, lightly scrutinized, and financially advantageous, it will proliferate. Not because of conspiracy. Because of incentives.

Elsewhere, vacant retail becomes storage units or gyms.

Here, it often becomes “Victory Lighthouse Covenant Tabernacle.”

At some point it begins to feel like we upgraded the wandering vagrant on the street asking for a dollar. We gave him stained glass sunglasses, stuck a cross on his head for a hat, and suggested he ask for ten instead. Not a moral transformation. A structural one. Hunter-gatherer to agriculture, but for tithes.

This isn't a theological problem.

It's a land use pattern.

In a state with visible infrastructure strain, one category of large real estate footprint remains almost untouchable. More curious still, disagreement tends to produce multiplication rather than consolidation.

Elsewhere, declining attendance hollows out cathedrals.

Here, disagreement produces new parking lots.

My wife and I have a game we play while driving through South Carolina, or whenever we cross state lines. We count churches between sightings of schools, museums, zoos, historical sites, botanical gardens, something educational, something civic, something that doesn't involve a collection plate.

You would be amazed at how high the number gets.

It’s the only thing we have more of than Dollar General.

Have some land you need to keep from the tax man? Put a shoddy metal building on it and call it a church. Have an old big box building no one wants to use, and turning it into a homeless shelter isn’t profitable? Turn it into a church. Got an old house in a rundown area and don’t want to pay five hundred dollars in property tax annually? That’s not a house. That’s the newest church in town. Put up a gaudy neon sign and invite the world to “Bob’s Big Baptist Bible Blessing and Baptismal Font.”

Keep in mind, I’m not asking anyone to stop.

In fact, it's far more interesting and entertaining if no one does. I’m genuinely curious what the tipping point would look like. At what ratio does the sanctuary overtake the sidewalk?

Do we reach a point where the last remaining grocery store becomes “Food Lion Fellowship Hall” and the only place to buy milk requires a sermon?

Does the DMV eventually rebrand as the Department of Vehicular Ministry?

Will zoning maps simply read “Residential,” “Commercial,” and “Probably a Church”?

At some point, does the tax base collapse under the sheer weight of stained glass?

Or do we just accept that every third building will eventually sprout a cross like architectural kudzu?

The point isn't reform. The point is recognition.

Why does this landscape feel normal here and unusual elsewhere?

Why do we multiply sanctuaries faster than sidewalks?

Drive ten minutes. Keep score.

Then ask yourself:

When did this become the most protected form of square footage in the state?

And why are we all nodding at it?