As Exemptions Grow, Religion Outweighs Regulation – New York Times

Did you catch the NY Times article castigating churches for their tax exempt status? It may be a more popular idea to jump up and down on the church today, suggesting that we should be treated like any and every other business and secular non-profit group in the country. Just a comment or two:

1. The NY Times presents a hopeless double standard, along with others in the national media and other secular groups. I think it a bit disingenuous to suggest that the church and state should remain seperate, except when it comes to the church’s paying taxes like a business and further being accountable to the government for the way the church’s affairs are conducted. Where was the scream for the much hallowed Jeffersonian ecclesiastical separation from governmental affairs in this article? I’m not asking for mandatory prayer put back in the public schools; just that the government shouldn’t have it both ways: one hand stiff arming us from public involvement and another in our pocket pilfering our offerings. Why would the NY Times care that the church was escaping the clenches of the state, when they argue so often for such separation?

2. Redefinition of Ministry by the churches. Why are churches building “day care centers to funeral homes, from ice cream parlors to fitness clubs, from bookstores?” I know, evangelism, right? I’m not convinced. Is the Time so interested in seeing the church taxed like a business or secular non-profit group because the church has been actiing more like a business secular non-profit group? What’s the difference? You can’t necessarily say it is our music, our buildings, our financial statements, our organizational charts or our corporate values statements. The Times articles notes:

As religious activities expand far beyond weekly worship, that venerable tax break is expanding, too. In recent years, a church-run fitness center with a tanning bed and video arcade in Minnesota, a biblical theme park in Florida, a ministry’s 1,800-acre training retreat and conference center in Michigan, religious broadcasters’ transmission towers in Washington State, and housing for teachers at church-run schools in Alaska have all been granted tax breaks by local officials or, when they balked, by the courts or state legislators.

Many churches have such a business-driven success syndrome that it is beginning to encroach on the business world. Now they want to tax and regulate us. It is a telling time when the vision of the modern American church looks amazingly similar to that of the typical fortune 500 company.

I would feel more comfortable with the state’s desire to take the non-profit status or tax exempt status from the church because they were deeply offended with our lack of pluralistic camaraderie due to our exclusivistic message of salvation alone in Jesus Christ. However, it appears that the secular world is becoming more frustrated with us, because we are becoming too much like them.

Just a thought.