Last but not least: "Good feeling" to win
The Reformed Church has come up with a unique idea to discourage disengaged members from leaving the church: scratch-off lottery tickets.
Distant members are people who pay church taxes but never go to church - according to estimates by the Aargau church, the driving force behind the campaign, around 50 percent of members. The fact that they do not attend church services on Sunday is a nuisance. But it would of course be even worse if they no longer contributed financially. The gambling campaign therefore aims to show what is being done with church taxes. Starting on August 26, reformed people - the target is 1.3 million - are asked to scratch for two weeks. The prize is "a good feeling". Anyone who hits the target will choose a church project that will receive a sum of money.
It is currently difficult to predict whether the campaign will be a success. It depends not only on the enthusiasm of the distanced members. Publicity campaigns by the Reformed Church usually trigger mixed feelings among its members anyway (NZZ am Sonntag). Added to this is the cantonal spirit: each cantonal church can decide for itself whether it wants to participate or not. This means that while the cantons of Aargau, Bern, Jura, Solothurn and Zurich, for example, are allowed to rub shoulders, the people of Basel are denied the chance to win the good feeling. That makes for bad blood!
