Pastor Ben Squires did not have “baseless allegations of money laundering by Lutheran social service agencies” on his 2025 bingo card.

And yet, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Feb. 2, Squires found himself reading a flurry of social media posts about Mike Flynn’s unfounded accusations and billionaire Elon Musk’s promise that the Department of Government Efficiency would be “rapidly shutting down” supposedly “illegal payments” to a list of Lutheran groups including Global Refuge (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services), Pacific Lutheran University, and Lutheran Social Services organizations in Florida, Wisconsin, and South Dakota.

Flynn’s post included screenshots of select Lutheran groups that receive such funds. It is still unclear how or why Flynn singled out these Lutheran groups in his post, or what prompted Musk to presume those payments were illegal.

Each year, billions of federal dollars go to faith-based nonprofits that provide a range of community services, such as housing support, refugee resettlement, or food assistance.

While Squires’ Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation in the Chicago village-suburb of Gurnee, Ill., does not receive federal funding nor work directly with Lutheran social service agencies, the posts were painful and shocking.

“These are services that vulnerable people in our congregation and community rely on,” he said. “To see them get attacked for no reason and for the funding to be frozen is really disheartening.”

But more troubling, Squires said, was how the posts represented an attack on the longstanding tradition of Christian community service and neighbor-care.

“Christians have always been doing charitable work, caring for the poor, caring for the dead,” he said. “That’s the DNA of the church, the values the church champions.

“Rather than attacking it or thinking that kind of work takes away from the gospel, why not celebrate that? I just don’t understand.”