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Taxation is a purely secular matter with all parties
purportedly being treated equal and if churches refuse to
change their policies or standards about their treatment of
same sex couples or gay people, someone will eventually file
a lawsuit challenging the church’s right to enjoy tax exempt
status.
It is not unfair to say that of the hundreds of
religious denominations in the United States
and with the thousands of clergy who populate pulpits across
the country, one losing an IRS tax exempt status could be
financially devastating.
Churches in America are glued to the idea of receiving
tax exempt status for their activities and to disallow such
“free” money would be a colossal blow to both existing
churches and their facilities and a chilling effect against
new church “start-ups”.
Although the U.S. government does not, as with some
countries (France and England),
have an “official national church,” nevertheless, to cut
asunder the bond of the IRS and the tax exemptions that
churches enjoy would create a new American landscape of
religious activity and evangelism.
Some of America’s wealthiest churches like the Mormons,
Roman Catholics and Methodists would suffer a financial
tsunami if they were faced with the tax man evaluating their
multiple realty holdings according to today’s market value.
Any taxing agency would be drooling once it finished
adding up the potential tax revenue that could be derived
from taxing parishes, parsonages, parking lots, buildings,
annexes, vacant land, retreat properties, commercial
properties, cars, trucks, trailers, investment income,
income from radio and television undertakings, income from
solicitations from annual conventions, money generated from
public appeals, salaries for church pastors; and income from
receiving full sales taxes from the retail or wholesale
purchases of churches and their affiliates.
How many churches would not be started if the
facilitator knew that everything that they accumulated or
held in a corporate name would be taxed the same as a
restaurant or the clothing boutique next door?
How many charlatans preaching under the veneer of a
tax-exempt status would preach a false Prosperity Gospel if
they knew that those monies would be tapped by the tax man?
Think of all of the revivals and collections that
churches take up each week that are not reported income.
Rather the evangelist or visiting preacher is paid in cash,
with a wink, and with no receipts asked for or given.
I think it is way past time for the IRS to unilaterally
strip all churches of their tax-exempt funding save for
audited public service works such as adoption agencies,
hospitals, domestic charities, homeless shelters, half way
houses, job training programs, clinics (not abortion) and
academic scholarships.
Why? Actually the reason is quite simple. A body of
believers is called the church… and not the physical
building they meet in.
When a committed body of believers want to meet and
worship and do outreach activities, they do not need a
tax-exempt status to do good works such as feeding the
hungry, donating clothes to shelters or giving a ride to a
person to get to work.
You do not need the IRS to approve or condone your
style of worship or to give you permission to be a Good
Samaritan. You do not need to be coaxed by a tax
exemption to spread the gospel. You do not need the IRS to
encourage you to do the works of ministry…unless of course
you are not doing such works to being with!
The body of believers that convene under the banner of
Jesus the Christ do not
need any tax exemptions (except as stated above and even
those are questionable) to do what the Word of God enjoins
them or extolls them or commands them to do.
If anyone was to tell you that she could not operate a
ministry or a mission or fulfill her religious calling
without bowing the knee to the IRS tax god and getting that
golden calf of a tax exemption to grace her endeavors, she
is spouting idle gibberish.
If anyone cries and bemoans a loss of any tax exemption,
you might want to follow his trail of crocodile tears and
find out that he is teary eyed at the loss of tax free
goodies and perks that his fleshly appetites have become
accustomed to and does not want to give up.
If any preacher of the Word of God rants and raves about
not being able to convene a body of believers to worship due
to not having a 501(c) (3) exemption, he is in the final
throes of lunacy since not having a tax-exempt covering does
not mean that you can not engage in ministry.
It comes down to this. When the Body of Christ says
that, “My God shall supply all of our needs according to His
riches…..” do the members really believe that or is it just
for talking points?
The true church of Jesus Christ does not need a
tax-exempt status to do what they are called to do. Can you
imagine the early church running to Caesar for his approval
or coverage and using the argument that without Caesar’s
blessing, they were powerless to perform?
The spiritual church of God does not depend upon the
vagaries of the secular world or its enticing perks in order
to carry out its various works of ministries. If someone
tells you that, that person is a Bible illiterate.
What would happen if the IRS was to strip all
“churches” of their tax exempt status? Simple. You would
find the real church emerging and that would be a church
spending more time in prayer and Bible Study and doing the
works of ministry because now, their sole dependence would
be on God and not under the umbrella of the all wise IRS.
Imagine what would happen to “church” giving if the pew
sitter could not write off on their tax returns, a deduction
for charitable giving (a/k/a: the tithe) to their “church”
or mosque or synagogue? Talk about a nosedive in attendance!
Will the tax man strike with his calculator and
appraisal books? I hope so. It would be a welcomed and nice
winnowing out of the wheat from the chaff. The counterfeit
from the real. The sheep from the goats!
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
Tolliver@Juno.com |
