There’s a little arrangement here in the USA. This article goes into far more detail then I will here, but I’ll touch on some of the basics. Basically it boils down to this: chuches stay out of politics and the government doesn’t tax them. At all. They’re also exempt from all sorts of labor laws that the rest of the country has to follow.
This is all part of a rather civil and pleasant arangement, actually. Basically the deal is, we don’t tax them and they keep out of politics. In return for not paying taxes, the churches agree to not endorse specific candidates for office. Religion stays out of politics and politics stays out of religion.
Well, not quite. This is good in theory, but we still allow the churches to talk about various political issues and keep their tax exempt status. This is a massive, massive loophole and causes no end of problems.
So here’s the solution: let’s tax churches like we do any other business. If we do that, they can then talk about whatever they please, endorse whoever they want, and do what they like. In return, we get tons and tons of money injected into the economy.
Basically this is a win-win for the churches and the government. Wanna bet it won’t happen anytime soon?
March 13, 2008 at 11:48 pm
It’s too bad that so many “Christians” have turned their “churches” into businesses.
If they were following what Jesus taught, the “church” is the body of worshipers–not a building–and certainly not a business. Then there’d be nothing to tax, would there?
Unfortunately, whenever people get involved in something, they drag power and money and ultimately corruptness into it.
Thank goodness that Christ will return someday. (Hopefully soon.)
March 13, 2008 at 11:54 pm
There are times I hope I’m wrong about religion and that Jesus does, in fact, come back at some point (assuming he was ever here to begin with, which I doubt). The main reason I hope this is cause I’d love to see him give some of these megachurches and televangalists what they deserve.
But since I don’t think that’ll ever happen, I’ll just hope for the government to crack down on them and for the people to wise up.
March 14, 2008 at 12:54 am
We have the same situation in New Zealand (and I think quite a few other countries). Here our legislation defines charity to include alongside things like helping the poor and education – religious purposes. To qualify for this you have to argue that you are promoting supernatural beliefs. As you can imagine, some of the declared purposes are pretty weird and still qualify. And there are a number of businesses which manage to get tax exemption because they claim they are doing it for religious purposes.
The dishonesty of the situation really does show that most religious groups are only giving lip service to an ethical position.
October 30, 2008 at 3:35 am
If the church were to endorse candidates, and the church is the word of god, then not voting for whoever the church wants you to is a sin. This is the real reason, 90% of Christians would vote for the churches candidate, and you know who that would be *cough*republican*cough*
October 31, 2008 at 3:23 am
Yeah, that’s one of many reasons why the churches shouldn’t have tax exemption. Let them endorse whomever, or whatever, they want, and in return, they pay the same taxes the rest of us do. I think that’d be a valid trade-off and people are so naive as to believe they’ll go to hell if they don’t vote right, then they deserve whatever they get.