Please read THIS excellent blog post.........I don't feature a post too often because there are SO MANY good ones every day, but I just finished reading this and I had to. I think he makes a fascinating point and I hope to hear what you think. Let me know...and leave Dan a comment, too!
By the way, our buddy MUSTANG has a super post today, too, but it'll scare the living ...... out of you, so don't read it :-)
( Thanks, Dan and Mustang!........and thanks, everybody.)
z
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6 comments:
That is a very good post by Dan and a much needed wake-up call for the churches. I've been hearing about the dangers of the 501c3 exemption for some time now and felt churches should just sever ties with the government and trust God to supply.
But Dan seems to have a different view of the history of all this than I've been aware of. As I've understood it, tax exemption for churches started with the founding of the nation and there were no strings attached at that point. The strings have been added in the last century.
Here's a discussion of the history of this practice I just found.
Again, I agree completely that no church should ever have accepted the slightest threat of government muzzling in exchange for the exemption, and should now give up the exemption and trust in God instead. It IS a sign of God's judgment on the churches that this has heppened and the solution is to abandon every compromising connection to the world and trust God alone.
As for Mustang's post, I've got to add that this revolting state of affairs is ALSO the result of the church's abdicating its role in the nation and the world. If we clean up our act, if we abandon our idolatries, if we repent of our worldliness and seek God alone for all our supply while praying that He stop the encroachment of Islam, He MAY -- if it's not too late -- do it for us.
Political activity by church/religion naturally comes from every point in the compass ..and naturally, those we agree with should be exempt.
Elementary.
Question always remains - who's the "we" ... and who decides the division-line between a "cult" and a "religion"? Ironically, true separation of Church and State would exist moreso if government didn't try biasing tax exemption toward one or another group - but rather remained neutral (as in no de facto preferential treatment) to such judgement, and merely taxed all religious establishments equally. Cheers.
Faith
Wow, scared me for a moment that my research was off. The 501(c)3 is a part of the federal tax code. Property taxes are levied by state and municipal gov's.
Thanks for the mention Z.
Sorry if I misread you, Dan. I'm not up on the distinctions. I'll reread your post.
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