In modern America, it seems almost everyone is welcome at the political table. Almost any person or group can legitimately enter the arena of ideas, articulate a position and advocate it's adoption. Today's political arena has room for almost every group, except one: Christians.
It's becoming a recurring theme during election season to have everyone from Letter to the Editor writers to columnists to reporters to the IRS itself pronounce ominous concerns when a church or group of Christians speaks in favor of a legislative measure.
We saw this sort of thing in 2006, the year South Dakota geared up to vote on an abortion ban, a marriage protection amendment, and a video lottery ban. The IRS got the ball rolling with several memos warning churches not to get off the plantation. Local "mainstream" newspapers soon followed, continuing the drumbeat of intimidation to keep churches (they hoped) from taking any sort of moral position in the public forum.
The fear-mongering and intimidation got so ridiculous that the South Dakota Family Policy Council invited Senior Vice President of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) to visit several South Dakota cities and inform pastors of exactly what they could and couldn't do, according to IRS rules for tax exempt organizations.
Among the things McCaleb told pastors in Rapid City:
“What they are saying is that you can lose your tax exemption as a church if you speak out on the abortion ban, or the gambling issue if it comes up, or in favor of marriage. I’ve come up from Arizona...to tell you very directly that this is absolutely inaccurate, wrong, false information. If you speak out even directly from your pulpit and tell your people to vote in favor of the marriage amendment, or vote in favor of the abortion ban, that is not going to put your tax exemption at risk.”
McCaleb also said churches may use an “insubstantial portion of your ministry resources to directly lobby on legislative matters like these [marriage and abortion] laws.” He said this is at least 5% of the total ministry value (not just the church budget, but the value of volunteer labor, and all the things that go into the ministry) on direct lobbying; this can involve buying yard signs, advertising, holding public rallies and such to encourage others to support legislation. McCaleb said some courts have said it is permissible to go up to 15-20%, but he advised 5% as a completely safe figure. Churches can also financially support the work of groups like the South Dakota Family Policy Council, VoteYesForLife.com and others, as long as reporting procedures are followed.
McCaleb said, “If anybody tells you differently, find out what they are quoting and give me a call. I guarantee you they are wrong. They are spreading misinformation. They are trying to silence the church.”
McCaleb also said that if a church was acting within IRS guidelines for tax exempt organizations and a complaint was filed against them, that the ADF would represent them at no cost.
It is, unfortunately, one of the key failings of human beings that we tend to forget. And those who would love to emasculate Christians and prevent them from being effective in the public forum rely on that.
So it began last week with a couple of articles from the Rapid City Journal about petitions in support of a new abortion ban being circulated in some of the Catholic churches in the area (Protestant churches are doing so, too). These articles came complete with intimidating headlines like "Politics can hurt churches’ tax status" and "Politics: Cross line?"
This week the fear campaign continues from Rapid City Weekly News columnist John Tsitrian.
Tsitrian is a Rapid City businessman and a liberal Republican. Tsitrian has written about his disdain for protecting human life before. In addition to supporting a woman's right to abort her child, Tsitrian has written in favor of homosexual rights. He also supports amnesty for illegal aliens.
In Tsitrian's column today, he claims he's being asked "to support a group whose aim is to impose its will on me." His logic is that, since churches are tax exempt, his property taxes would be lower if churches paid taxes, so he is "paying for" them. The logic here is a bit fuzzy, since politicians seldom lower taxes when the revenue stream increases; they usually just find more things on which to waste taxpayer dollars.
Besides, he seems to have no problem with organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign, that want to "impose their will" on us by encouraging the murder of innocents and the legitimization of homosexual behavior--the former with taxpayer funding. Is it only when that "will" is moral that he objects?
The threats to the tax exempt status of churches arrives in the second paragraph with a pronouncement that the latest abortion ban petition
stretches the terms of that exemption to a degree that should be reviewed.
Tsitrian quotes SDCL 10-4-9 as stating "any religious society and used exclusively for religious purposes, is exempt from taxation." This section of South Dakota law actually deals with the sale of property belonging to a "religious society," but okay, I think Tsitrian's emphasis is on the "exclusive" use part, and I don't think it's worth debating the full applicability of SDCL 10-4-9 for the purposes of this discussion.
Tsitrian claims that churches supporting the abortion ban petition constitutes "the activity of a church that rips the veil of that exclusion and works itself into the political and social arena."
Stop and think about the term "political." Can you think of anything in our society today that isn't political? Is marriage political? Are family matters political? Is medical care political? Is the car you drive political? When you think about it, EVERYTHING is political today, due largely to the fact that we've allowed the constitutional design of limited government to fall by the wayside and promoted an all-encompassing federal behemoth that the Founders would have shuddered to see.
But if we are going to prohibit churches from having any say in anything political, then they really have no say in anything at all. Churches have traditionally been the moral conscience of a society, especially in a free country like America which is based on Christian principles. From the time of the American Revolution when they spoke out against King George's abuses and oppression, to the abolitionist movement to end slavery, to the civil rights movement seeking that all people regardless of color would be equal in the eyes of the law (as they already were in the eyes of God)...throughout American history, the church has been involved politically because politics usually involves morality.
In fact, Christ commanded Christians to tell the truth to others, to speak out and try to spread the light of that truth to others in society:
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
What needs light more than the slaughter of innocent unborn children, created in the image of God? With about a million a year killed, the world apparently needs light on this darkness pretty bad.
Tsitrian apparently expects churches and Christians to directly disobey their Lord.
He also seems to favor limits on the church and religious expression that are specifically prohibited by the United States Constitution, the highest law in our country:
According to Tsitrian, you churches can exercise their freedom of speech and expression...but you have to trade servitude to the state in order to obtain that right. That our society has found such an idea repugnant is exactly why churches are NOT subject to taxation.
In fact, churches were not even subject to any rules at all regarding tax exempt organizations until 1954 when when Senator Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through a law restricting nonprofit organizations; he did this to muzzle nonprofit organizations who were criticizing his liberal policies.
Tsitrian tries some ineffectual logic that because many Catholics don't obey church teachings in other areas, that supporting an abortion ban can't be considered "religious activity." Huh?
Catholics and Protestants alike sometimes disobey the teachings of the Bible, going ahead and having sex outside marriage, having abortions, stealing, lying, vandalizing, and so on. If full obedience to church teachings is the standard to consider a subject "religious activity," then I guess there ARE NO religious activities.
In a free society, the church doesn't get to automatically "impose it's will" on anybody. After all, America isn't a theocracy and nobody's advocating one.
But in a free society, whoever works the hardest, organizes the best, and convinces a majority of the voters to see things their way, wins. If individuals and parties and 527s and various interest groups are free to pursue political goals in line with their personal and moral code, why not the church, a group with a charge to promote morality? Why is it okay for everyone else to "impose their morality" on others (if that's what promoting your cause boils down to), but not churches?
By the time this tortured piece of Tsitrian's is over, it is quite obvious that what Tsitrian objects to more than anything is being told that he might hold opinions contrary to the church. It seems to go well beyond even abortion, because he appears to dislike anything from the church that escapes the stained-glass of their windows.
He gets in one more threat in the closing paragraph:
That kind of pressure makes the property a haven for political and social strong-arming. It’s impossible call this a “religious activity” that merits exemption from property taxes. A reconsideration of the tax code is overdue.
I would encourage any pastor, elder, deacon, church leader or Christian to read what I wrote about Gary McCaleb's presentation to pastors in 2006. Also review the guidelines available from the IRS.
Then get out there and be the "salt and light" Christ has commanded you to be.
We cannot allow our opponents to dictate through fear, intimidation and misrepresentation the terms and parameters of the debate to us--especially when those terms and parameters are not nearly as restrictive as our opponents imply.
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