They’re coming for you next: Despite operating two different bank accounts without problems since 2015, Bank of America suddenly shut down the bank accounts of the Christian charitable non-profit Indigenous Advanced Ministries in April 2023, with the bank’s letters announcing the shut down [pdf] exceedingly vague but suggesting that politics played a part.

The initial letters gave no specific reason for the closures, only stating that “upon review of your account(s), we have determined you’re operating in a business type we have chosen not to service at Bank of America.” A later letter said, without explanation, that Indigenous Advance “no longer aligns with the bank’s risk tolerance.” The nonprofit does not advocate for any political causes and has maintained the same mission since it first opened its account with Bank of America.

Officials of the non-profit suspect hostility to its mission was the reason for the cancellations, however, and they have filed a consumer complaint [pdf] against Bank of America with Tennessee’s attorney general, demanding an investigation and noting that the sudden nature of the bank’s action caused a great deal of disruption and the non-profit.

We had to find another bank and open new accounts and adjust our payroll, accounting, accounts payable and receivable, and other parts of our business. It also disrupted our mission trip to Uganda in June and we were temporarily unable to pay salaries in Uganda.

…“Real people in Uganda rely on us, and they matter,” said Indigenous Advance Ministries Founder Steve Happ. “We have five employees in Uganda, and they had to wait an extra week for a paycheck. That may not sound like much in the West, but in Uganda, that can mean a week without eating a full meal. At the end of the day, our purpose is to serve people in need in Uganda. No bank should hinder efforts to help widows, orphans, and the impoverished.” [emphasis mine]

Indigenous Advanced Ministries is a Memphis-based Christian missionary organization that partners with other Christian missionaries in Uganda to spread the Christian gospel there while providing charitable services. In its complaint to Tennessee, submitted with the help of the legal non-profit Alliance Defending Freedom, it expresses concern that the cancellations occurred because Bank of America “disagrees with our religious views,” a concern that is entirely reasonable based on the recent wave of blacklisting from the left against many Christians and conservatives, solely because of a hatred of those viewpoints.

Several banks have sadly contributed enthusiastically to that wave of blacklisting. For example, Bank of America has previously done this exact thing to a firearms manufacturer in 2013 because it believed the manufacturer “should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet.” Chase Bank meanwhile took the same cancellation action for political reasons against President Trump’s first National Security Advisor Lieutenant General Mike Flynn in 2021, did it again in that same year against Covfefe coffee, and repeated this discriminatory behavior a third time this year against a doctor and his family and friends. Minnesota Bank & Trust also did the same to My Pillow owner Mike Lindell in 2022.

Sadly, it is questionable the complaint will achieve much. What really needs to happen is for customers to flee these banks — which I have so generously named in this post — and find banks that don’t play politics and don’t believe in blacklisting. Everyone should go to the 1792 Exchanges Corporate Bias Ratings list and find the banks that have been rated as a low risk for such evil behavior, and switch to those banks.

Don’t sit on your hands. Don’t simply make a snarky comment below. Do something! Make these thugs sweat a little for being jack-booted thugs.