Federal Regulators Trace Some Debanking Practices to Left-Wing Southern Poverty Law Center

Current Events, , , ,
Photo Credit: Ian McKellar (CC BY-SA 2.0)

A recent report from federal regulators shows that America’s nine largest banks deliberately closed accounts belonging to conservative individuals and organizations based in part on information from the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Americans rely on banks and other financial institutions every day, and they expect these institutions to serve everyone regardless of their religious convictions or political positions. But over the past five years, congressional testimony and news stories have highlighted how federal officials and financial institutions targeted conservative organizations through debanking. Conservatives deemed “high risk” could have their bank accounts closed without warning and without explanation.

The SPLC has dismissed concerns about debanking, referring to it as a “conspiracy theory movement” led by “Christian dominionists.” But last month’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) report shows that financial institutions debanked conservatives for their political positions and religious convictions — and that in some cases, banks actually based their decisions on information from the SPLC.

The SPLC has a long history of labeling legitimate, conservative organizations as “hate groups” alongside the KKK and Neo-Nazis.

The OCC report says that WePay — a company owned by JPMorgan Chase — used information from the SPLC as part of its screening and debanking pratices. The report says:

“In December 2020, WePay closed the account of a conservative legal advocacy organization ‘for [terms of service] due to the merchant being associated with a known hate group and fundraising for their initiatives.’ The related notes flagged the Southern Poverty Law Center’s identification of the organization as a ‘hate group.’ . . .

“In June 2021, WePay closed the account of a customer that employees characterized in the bank’s internal tracking system as a ‘[r]ight wing religious conservative non profit with strong anti LGBTQ rhetoric.” WePay escalated the matter to JPMorgan reputation risk employees. The escalation discussed recent negative media linked to the merchant’s position on hate crime legislation and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s categorization of the organization as an ‘extremist hate group.’ WePay had maintained an account for the merchant since 2019, and there was no evidence to suggest the merchant’s views changed during that time. JPMorgan reputation risk employees advised WePay that ‘from a Reputation Risk perspective, we would recommend an exit from this account.'”

The report indicates other financial institutions also relied on the SPLC when deciding whether to close accounts.

In 2024, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco pointed out that the Southern Poverty Law Center “one of the biggest proponents” of debanking.

It’s important to note that earlier this year a federal Grand Jury in Alabama charged the SPLC with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

According to the indictment, the SPLC secretly funneled millions of dollars to a covert network of informants affiliated with groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Some of these informants were listed on the SPLC’s own “Extremist File” fundraising webpage at the same time the SPLC was secretly paying them. The indictment says the SPLC also used these informants to indirectly funnel money to other violent extremist group leaders. Leaders have gone on record saying the evidence indicates the SPLC is “manufacturing hate.”

The SPLC has denied any wrongdoing.

In 2021, Family Council’s credit card processor WePay — a company owned by JPMorgan Chase — terminated our account after designating our organization as “high risk.”

At 10:29 AM on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, our office received a terse email from WePay saying, “Unfortunately, we can no longer support your business. We wish you all the luck in the future, and hope that you find a processor that better fits your payment processing needs.”

Within 60 seconds, Family Council could no longer accept donations online. The processor never explained why we were labeled “high risk.” All we could do was speculate that our conservative principles and our public policy work might have had something to do with the decision to close our account.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. As the OCC report illustrates, many other organizations have had similar experiences.

Family Council is grateful to the many people and organizations who have stood up against debanking in recent years. Your religious views should not cost you your bank account. After all, banks that are too big to fail are also too big to discriminate.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers. Photo Credit: Ian McKellar (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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The Coming Tsunami of Church Closings Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Christianity, , , ,

Church attendance is declining, but predictions of a coming collapse go far beyond the data.

The title of a recent article from CNN announced that “(a) ‘tsunami’ of church closings is poised to remake America.” In it, author John Blake suggested that the United States may face a future that is, like Europe, “filled with empty cathedrals and church buildings converted to condos.” One church he highlighted once served 1,000 people but is soon closing its doors to only 12 congregants. 

Experts project an estimated 100,000 churches in the US will close or be repurposed over the next decade. Many churches will be unable to escape this “tsunami” of closings—a grim trajectory one pastor described as, “Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter.” 

Today, less than a third of Americans attend church weekly. 75 years ago, half the population did. But are 10,000 churches closing every year? Not really.  

As Ed Stetzer, dean at Talbot Seminary, wrote in response to Blake’s article: 

[T]here is no evidence—cited in the article or in the actual data—that something like a tsunami of church closings is coming. The data points to decline. But it is slow decline and churn, not a tsunami.  

Specifically, Stetzer argued that there is not evidence to suggest a net loss of 10,000 churches a year. In 2024, for example, 4,000 Protestant churches closed, but 3,800 opened, a drop of only 200 that year. Even including Roman Catholic churches in the analysis does not approach the 10,000 number. Also, the numbers don’t address the somewhat recent experiments with multi-site congregations, or the host of small, nondenominational “storefront” churches that fly under the radar. 

The largest number, Stetzer pointed out, (the 100,000 churches to close in the next decade) refers to church buildings sold or repurposed, not congregations dying out. Churches that move are not reflected in these stats, and at least some of the shifting attendance numbers have to do with Christians moving from church to church, not in or out of church altogether. 

Part of the problem with the CNN article is the attempt to reinforce an existing narrative. Blake noted, for example, the cultural distrust of institutions, the political divide within churches, issues of sexual morality and identity affirmation, and various scandals in churches over the years. At the same time, his discussion of the positives that churches provide was limited to things like the importance of community and a sense of connection with the past. He worried about what would happen to the social services provided by churches if they no longer exist. 

While his concerns are valid, those are things churches do. They aren’t what churches are. The Church is God’s gathered people. A church is where God’s word is proclaimed, His sacraments are practiced, and His people are discipled.  

Blake ignored any questions of truth or genuine spirituality. Like too many have, he assumed that if churches don’t “get with the times” and update their doctrines to appeal to younger generations, they will die. In his view, creeds are secondary to marketing concerns. Any talk about spirituality must be subjective, primarily about meaning and connection, not who God is and what He is doing in the world. It should not be missed that the churches that are shrinking are those that think of themselves in the same way.  

Thankfully, to paraphrase a line from Mark Twain, reports of the Church’s death are greatly exaggerated. The American church certainly has some problems and, so far, the recent hopes for revival haven’t panned out. But it’s His church, not ours. He promised to preserve it, not always grow it.  

Predictions of the Church’s demise are not unusual. G.K. Chesterton wrote that, “(a)t least five times, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.” Jesus put it even more strongly. He promised to build His church, and that the gates of Hell could not stand against it.

Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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Quena González on the Debanking Practices of the Largest U.S. Banks

Free Speech, , ,

In a recent interview with Washington Watch, Family Research Council’s Senior Director of Government Affairs Quena González discussed federal regulator reports showing the nine largest banks in America deliberately closed accounts belonging to conservative individuals and organizations.

Americans rely on banks and other financial institutions every day, and they expect these institutions to serve everyone regardless of their religious convictions or political positions. But over the past five years, congressional testimony and news stories have highlighted how federal officials and financial institutions targeted conservative organizations through debanking. Conservatives deemed “high risk” could have their bank accounts closed without warning and without explanation.

On October 14, federal regulators released a major report showing that America’s largest financial institutions had internal policies and communications targeting conservatives for debanking. Officials now say they plan to investigate whether these institutions broke any consumer protection laws.

González discussed the report in a recent Washington Watch interview, saying:

“It’s hard to think of anything more troubling than the idea that your bank might be spying on you and deciding whether or not they’re going to keep your account open or close it based on your political donations, based on your nonprofit donations, based on your banking activities . . . These nine banks, which represent a majority of the accounts that people hold in the United States, had policies in place internally that went after organizations and in some cases turned off the ability for organizations to receive or process donations. So this has a massive chilling effect. And of course, this is something we didn’t know that was happening towards the end of 2020 through 2025, which if you do the math, the majority of that time was within the Biden administration. So, there are a lot of unanswered questions.”

In 2021, Family Council’s credit card processor WePay — a company owned by JPMorgan Chase — terminated our account after designating our organization as “high risk.”

At 10:29 AM on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, our office received a terse email from WePay saying, “Unfortunately, we can no longer support your business. We wish you all the luck in the future, and hope that you find a processor that better fits your payment processing needs.”

Within 60 seconds, Family Council could no longer accept donations online. The processor never explained why we were labeled “high risk.” All we could do is speculate that our conservative principles and our public policy work might have had something to do with the decision to close our account.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. As the OCC report illustrates, many other organizations had similar experiences with WePay, Bank of America, and other major financial institutions.

Family Council is grateful to the many people and organizations who have stood up against debanking in recent years. After all, banks that are too big to fail are also too big to discriminate.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

READ MORE