By clamoring for financial concessions and support (from federal, state, and local governments), thereby transferring
our responsibilities to others, we people of faith have slowly given up freedom
of religion in the United States of America. It started innocently enough when
we were overwhelmingly, at least nominally, Christian and when we almost all
agreed that Churches were important to the general welfare and the common good and
that every marriage of a man and a woman resulting in children who would be raised
and cared for by a full time mom and a wage-earning, grocery-buying,
mortgage-paying dad was a key building block of our society. We all pitched in
to make those things happen by granting financial concessions to churches and
their pastors with tax exemptions, housing allowances, etc., to married couples
by allowing them to pay lower taxes with joint tax returns and lots of
exemptions, and to all citizens by letting those who wished to do so take tax
deductions for gifts to their churches.
The so-called establishment clause in the US Constitution, "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof..." was not violated, but Congress made many laws
encouraging the establishment of religion and rewarding the free exercise
thereof. And that worked fairly well so long as we were overwhelmingly
religious and Christian and of pretty much one mind about what was good for the
USA. And the unfairness inherent in the facts that singles, couples without
children, and folks who didn’t give money to their churches had to pay higher
taxes to make up for the rest of us was not a major problem.
But then we became “diverse” and “multicultural,” and the
definition of “church” was broadened to include some things the old-fashioned
Christian church considered just plain wrong, and the concept of “non-profits,”
even profitable ones, getting tax advantages similar to those of churches
became popular. And people began to believe that it is unfair for only some “family”
configurations to get tax advantages. A fundamental truth is that when
concessions are offered by government, the citizens will clamor to receive
them. (Government governs best when focused on doing its job rather than on devising concessions-for-votes
programs.)
Even Christian charities, hospitals especially, began to
clamor for government grants and government insurance payments, all of which
came with strings attached, some of those strings requiring that some
Christians deny or abandon core beliefs or lose funding.
So, here is my suggestion. Let’s render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s
and unto God what is God’s and pay our own way without asking others to
shoulder the burden for us. Let’s pay property taxes on our property and fair
and flat income taxes on our incomes. Let’s fund our own charities with no
government involvement. Let’s eliminate financial motivation for following the
commandments of Christ and leave only the Holy Spirit as the prime mover. By so
doing, we can begin to regain the freedom of religion that we have lost. I
believe such a change would lead to bigger and more powerful Churches taking up
space in the world, proclaiming freely the Gospel, speaking freely on public
issues, paying their fair share for government provided services, asking for
nothing and giving everything, inspiring and attracting believers, and a lot
fewer storefront churches doing little other than paying utility bills, making mortgage payments, and supporting founding pastors
and their families.
We would have true separation of Church and State, most IRS
employees would take early retirement, politicians would quit spending their
time granting concessions for votes, freedom and faith would take giant
steps forward, and the clamoring would cease.
(Revised slightly May 10th, 2015)
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