Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States begins with some famous words: "Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This simple phrase has created storms of controversy, but oddly enough, very little controversy until the middle of the 20th century. In Engel vs Vitale, 370 US 421, the US Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a practice which had taken place in many US schools for years. This practice was the beginning of each day with a prayer that had been composed by the state and ordered to be recited by all students. While the prayer was faith neutral, the prayer nonetheless was a religious exercise. The Supreme Court held that the practice was unconstitutional and overturned the practice.
This decision has been decried by many churches, but none so much as the religious right. They have generally portrayed this decision as "banning prayer in schools", and "banning religion in schools". In this they are either deliberatly ignorant or are deliberatly misreading the opinion of the Court. The Court said nothing of the sort. The Supreme Court, in fact, has ruled over and over that religion is not banned in schools, nor is prayer. However, state-sponsored religion is not allowed because this violates the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.
Most religious organizations, including churches, are organized as tax exempt entities under Section 501(c) of the Internatl Revenue Code. However, it should be noted that religious institutions are not the only types of organizations that are so organized. Schools and charities of many different types also hold 501(c) status. This is because, like a church or other religious institution, their income is tax exempt, and donations to those orgnizations is usually tax deductible. The income is tax exempt and (usually) deductible because the government has decided it is in the best interest of the state that those organizations be allowed to devote more of their resources to their stated goal: religious, educational or charitable. With this important exemption, comes a special caveat: Holders of a 501(c) tax status may not endorse any particular candidate without risking the revocation of their 501(c) status.
Many of the religious right see this as a violation of the 1st amendment in that it somehow infringes upon their exercise of their faith. On the contrary, this provision was placed in the code to protect churches and other organizations from being distracted in their mission. Their mission, if a church, is to spread the word of their religion. If they are advocating one particular political candidate, they are not spreading their faith, but the message of another. For instance, Jesus Christ is not running for office. To advocate the word of Christ is the duty of Christians everywhere, of any denomination. To advocate for any particular candidate (in the pulpit, etc) is a violation of the trust and special privileges granted to religious institutions.
In closing, let me point out one more thing: There is no "right" to be exempt from taxation for religious institutions written in the Constitution. The government has chosen, as a matterof public policy, that it is in the interest of society to do so. However, Congress could, if it so chooses, remove religious institutions from the 501(c) list, and as long as they were taxed the same as any other business, it would most likely survive constitutional muster. I am NOT saying that they would or could do so, but it would be constitutional.
As we listen to the leaders of our house of worship in this election time, let us remember that they should preach the beliefs of the faith, and then allow their congregants to decide how to vote on their own.
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3 comments:
The right claims the separation clause dosn't exist, in that the exact wording Jefferson used in 1805 isn't present in the Constitution. But clearly the idea was that no single denomination was to be allowed to take a dominant position, and the logic that flows from that, is that no religion should either.
If a church choses to violate the tax exempt status, then any contributions to them should not qualify as a taxable deduction. Such an impact would immediately change the course of contributions for that church, and probably end all desires to comment.
Yet the real impetus should come from this. The presumption that God shows an interest in worldly politics, picking one side over the other, is as bogus a suggestion as can be asserted. It asserts knowing the mind of God on issues like taxation, or even Abortion - where no such claim would be made by even the Pope. It is blasphemy in the eyes of the most orthodox of Catholics to suggest knowing God's mind (which is why Aquinas wasn't sainted for almost 400 years).
Finally, the idea is 'render unto Ceasar' means we don't attempt to mix the temporal with the spiritual, and that we grasp the risk and irresponsibility of doing so.
The thing is you cannot say a church cannot continue to teach at election time. For over 1000 yrs the Church has taught that abortion is wrong. In the last 35 yrs since it became legal in the US that teaching has been explained and refined to include supporting abortion, as a nurse, doctor, or politician. So without mentioning names, the Church should point out at election time that abortion must be considered when you are voting. Preaching the same message that you were preaching for a few hundred years before there was a United States is not telling people how to vote.
ToE, Pengima mentioned just this morning that you also had a blog. I enjoy your comments on his blog, so came to check out yours. I have enjoyed what I have read so far. I notice that it is a bit old, so I hope I might nudge you into writing something newer. Given your unique qualifications, I'd love to hear what you think of the assertions that passing hate crime laws will mean the downfall of American churches for example.
On the topic of religious freedom, I found the observations of Sam Harris very interesting in his two books, Letter to a Christian Nation, and its predecessor, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, specifically that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Only Islam and Christianity, among the major world religions, have such strong admonition requiring proseltyzing to expand their numbers. I mention this in the context that while many of those Christian churchgoers that favor inserting themselves into areas that many of us would consider to be properly the domain of the state, I doubt that they have considered the possibilities that in attaining a dominant position relative to other religions or points of view, they could subsequently be unseated, and their efforts to erode that separation of church and state could lead to the dominance of a different religion than their own. What they propose looks very different when you change which religion you want to promote. I write this not as someone who wishes to use Islam to frighten Christians, quite the contrary. Rather to underline that their actions are more about asserting control or influence of one their belief over others than it is about the actual belief itself. This is not at all what it appears to me that the founding fathers had in mind. They seem very clearly to favor the personal following of conscience to the greatest reasonable degree of each and every individual.
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