”Some of the available stats were damning. "One calculation of the resources expended by 271 U.S. congregations found that, on average, 'operating expenses' totaled 71 percent of all the expenditures of religions, much of that going to pay ministers' salaries," the report said.Cragun and the others have compared this to the American Red Cross, which "spends 92.1 percent of its revenue directly addressing the physical needs of those it intends to help; only 7.9 percent is spent on 'operating expenses.' ""