The 501(c)3, Should Be Reconsidered

It is time to rethink the 501(c)3 tax exemption for churches. What started as an exemption to encourage charitable giving has since morphed into a gag order on pulpits for the purposes of allowing government to operate without fear of the enormous force for good, resident in the Church. As a result, God has been expelled from our nation at a cost of enormous suffering to its people.

A Brief History

During World War One taxes were raised to new highs. (15% for incomes over $546,500) There were concerns at the time as to whether the wealthy would continue giving to those organizations that depended on philanthropy for their existence, so tax exemptions for charitable giving were put into place. By the 1950's the tax code had morphed into a monster containing about 100 code sections; albeit a baby monster compared to today's 700 or so, but a monster all the same. In the bowels of that monster was a marionette's string waiting for a savvy politician to happen along and put it to use. That politician's name would be Lyndon B Johnson.

In 1954 a section of code of interest to then Senator Johnson was numbered 501 which dealt with exemptions from taxable income. Of particular interest was sub-paragraph (c)3 of that section which exempted certain charitable giving to houses of worship. The reason for this interest? Johnson saw the raw federal power enjoyed by the IRS, and since he was facing an uncertain campaign to hold his ill gotten senate seat, he needed to use that power to squash what was at the time a powerful force, the body of Christ. And he did. Yanking on the string he effectively pulled preacher's mouths shut, as least as it pertains to shining light on government activity.

For several generations now the government, through the IRS, has been supplementing the tithes of the faithful by means of a refund check. But thanks to Johnson, those refunds now come with strings attached; strings that are now accepted as good and right..., even Biblical. As a result of generations living with this "law" there are many who now consider it a sin for a church to venture into the arena of politics, that is, unless that venture involves calling on government to act as an interceptor between sowing sin and reaping its consequences. Now while such activity has proved to be profitable for those seeking gain in the economy of power and guilt assuagement, in the economy of love such ventures are being shown to be bankrupt. For throwing other people's money at symptoms brought about by the Church's retreat from the public square is not an act of love at all, it is idolatry.

Why Did The Church Agree To This Restriction?

Keep in mind that government is responsible for the dual tasks of legislating morality and educating the majority of children according to those morals. Keep also in mind that, being a democracy, the people ultimately have the final say. These realities should bring to our mind a nagging question: Why would the American Church willingly agree to withdraw itself from the arena where the debates concerning the morality that will be taught to the next generation happens?

One sad answer may simply be "mammon". And as could be expected, the Church has been incapable of serving only one master. It perhaps could be said in defense of pastors that they may have rightly assumed that if their congregations, the hook of government refund checks now firmly set, suddenly lost those refunds it would cause giving to wane. This very well may have been a precarious position for the man of God given the debt load that many of them found their organizations struggling beneath. The pastor may have rightly concluded that the congregation was no longer willing or able to withstand the loss of a portion of their tax refund checks in exchange for removing the government mandated restrictions on what is said from the pulpit.

But a sadder answer yet may be that pastors did not want to delve into the ugly world of politics and this gave them the out they were looking for. Considering that the government had already become a benevolent benefactor in the minds of many in the congregation, politics had become a potential division bomb. Many in the congregation, having adopted a mostly material, as opposed to spiritual, mindset, the bottom line for them had thus become a material one in which goodness was no longer a matter of an adherence to Christ-likeness, but rather based on whether or not one supported government handouts.

Also, no doubt that, for the church especially, politics is fraught with the hazards of the corruptions that are part and partial with the potential of power. But this had always been the landscape in which churches functioned. The haunting fact remains that the church at large made a "social compact" with the government that potentially held the equivalence of shirking its calling; a potential that would ultimately prove to be reality. Worse yet, it accepted money for it's shirk.

Sadder even yet still, many churches, having dumped the concept of a spiritual realm accessible through Biblical truth are now aligning themselves with spiritual forces of evil that are in opposition to God's Truth. Under the guise of so called Social Justice, a justice based on pure materialism and at its core sees is a war with any input from Christianity, this new "church" is more than willing to compromise in exchange for a material pittance for the "poor" drawn from other people's pockets . For these churches there is no discernible difference from them and the government party with which they have aligned themselves. What the party says goes regardless of whether or not it agrees with Biblical teaching. The Bible is simply reinterpreted to suit the fantasies of the willingly blind. How ironic that this same party also finds itself aligned with organizations that are no less than hostile to Christianity. For these churches, there is no fear of division in the congregation. They are clear about the ground, apostate though it may be, upon which they have taken their stand. The potentially "divisive" in their ranks are not tolerated, they are shown the door.

The Ramifications

As a consequence of the Church's withdrawal from the public square, a great light has gone out in the halls of government leaving it to operate at every level without fear that that light will be shined onto its activity. Many Christians are now at best woefully ignorant of a Biblical understanding of government in regards to its function and purpose, or worse, have bought entirely into the social justice lie that sees Government as a God like entity capable of ending the curse, or controlling sea levels and the earth's temperatures. In this darkened state many true Christians also see the murder of millions upon millions of children in the womb as an acceptable price to pay in exchange for a total fixation on these material ends. In this new world the hunger and thirst of the spiritual man is now, by judicial decree, denied when it comes to government help; a denial that all the money in the world cannot overcome in its attempts to alleviate the suffering that occurs as a result, and a denial which the Church currently seems more than happy to accept. Many look back to 1962 as the beginning of our nation's fall. I see that era as merely the first harvest, the seeds of which were planted with the social compact of 1954. The dominoes have been falling ever since.

Now, generations later, as if God gave us the ultimate desires of our heart, we, even in the midst of an economic down-turn, are a wealthy nation oblivious to the fact that we are also spiritually poor, blind, and naked. Our Churches are now either completely apostate, or hospitals dedicated to applying salve to the lives wrecked by a culture that has institutionalized sin and anti-Christianity, content to deal with the symptoms rather than causes of suffering. Or worse simply becoming centers of feel-good-therapeutic-theistic entertainment that have passed the buck of the hard work of caring for the poor on to those who simply confiscate wealth from some sinful men and redistribute it to other sinful men asking only for power in return. And at the center of all this is what has become the Giant Pink Idol that no one wants to talk about standing in the of the middle sanctuary, the Democrat party.

Conclusion

There were attempts a few years ago to change the law to give pastors more freedoms in the pulpit while allowing the congregants to keep their subsidies. But God would not have this. The attempt was thwarted. A bill entitled " Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act" was voted down. As one could reasonably expect, the votes were mostly along party lines, the true alliances of the Democratic party in plain sight for all who cared to look. But why should have Democrats voted to let loose of its control of pulpits? Churches that openly endorse those Democrats have pretty much always been exempt from scrutiny.

It should also be remembered that nations which do not enjoy freedom of religion do have their state run churches. They are simply controlled, eerily, through similar restrictions on speech that challenges the state.

America has only ever had one hope, the Church of Jesus Christ. Unless that Church comes to its senses, America will continue its decent into darkness and suffering. Furthermore, all our attempts to alleviate that suffering by mammon will only cause more suffering which will open the door for even more "fixes" and losses of freedoms. Our nation awaits salt for its preservation, and light for its vision. Whether that salt will arise from under the foot of man, or that light will ever shine, remains to be seen.