Tax Churches For Christ’s Sake

The place to begin is by acknowledging the fact that religious exemption is not a Constitutional right, and that such exemptions are entirely the product of the legislative branch. As such, they can be amended or rejected outright, and amendment to our 501(c)3 tax-exemption laws as they apply to religious organizations is the place to start if we want to rid politics of religion.

I was talking with my mom the other day about what she'd been up to lately. She said she had recently volunteered to help with some Halloween activities at her local church. Now my mom has always had a soft spot for kids that go trick-or-treating. One year, she grabbed a Granny Smith apple out of my hand I'd received from a man in our neighborhood, sliced it open with a steak knife, and with surgical precision extracted a double-edged razor blade embedded discreetly within. Go mom!

In general, I dislike church, not conceptually, but for what it is. And when I say I dislike church, I don't mean to imply that I've went to a Protestant service or two and concluded it was for the birds. An upcoming post will touch on some of the various denominational services that I've survived. My favorite, and one that was actually very telling about religious institutions, was the time I sat through an entire Watchtower service because I met a JW bartender the night before who I wanted to go out with, but the point of this post is to banter about the tax-exempt status of religious organizations so let's get to it.

Now I realize this is touchy, and like most touchy issues, hardly reducible to a simple black-and-white answer. Not all religious organizations abuse their 501(c)3 status, and quite honestly, when functioning properly and ethically, tax-exempt religious organizations can relieve overburdened public institutions and provide real solutions to a community.

Case in point: whereas SF General opted to let my arm hang off my shoulder because I didn't have $20 for an X-ray co-pay, I recently received $30,000 worth of comped orthopedic surgery from St. Mary's, a bill I would likely have had to pay in full otherwise were it not for that hospital's status as a religiously-based, tax-exempt organization. Now there might be a conflict of interest here, but this and similar usages of funds are not the type I think we should restrict.

However, I think we definitely ought to restrict the liberty of any schmoe in America to found a church or religion and avoid taxation in their various exploits. I think we ought to restrict or revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions who meddle in politics. I think we ought to restrict or revoke the tax-exempt status of religious businesses, especially when those businesses compete with for-profit companies that have to "play by the rules."

Among many of my reasons is a simple principle: The more things are given freely, the more they are taken for granted. In my opinion, exempting religious organizations from taxation encourages wastefulness and oversight, and lends well to the mindset of charlatans and frauds. If churches were forced to pay taxes, they might think twice before buying 10 extra pounds of Halloween candy or that new copy machine. If meddling in politics brought swift penalty, maybe churches and well-known religious officials would think twice before endorsing Proposition X, Y or Z. For example, I've heard that Rick Warren admonished his congregation to vote a certain way on Prop 8, which is unusual for a Baptist because Baptist tradition typically respects the wall of separation. We all know how the Mormon church recently used their authority to meddle in politics as well.

Besides, at some point a reasonable believer has to ask what's more in line with Jesus' mission? Christianizing allegedly pagan holidays? Carpeting the main sanctuary? Reproducing tracts that might or might not reach somebody? Or direct service to the suffering and needy? I understand their line of thinking. "Even if we spend $1,000 on tracts and only one person gets saved, it was worth it." That is one inference. Another says, "If we take this $1,000 and freely feed all those people living under the river bottom, maybe somebody will see the love of Christ."