Should the Church be Taxed ?? (churches, Baptist, bible, worship)
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Have you ever noticed those instances where church leaders will deliberately cross boundaries into politics provoking there own views, and will profess to be doing God's work?
The state of Rhode Island has linked a severe budget problem with its proliferating illegal immigrant population. Concerned about depleting parishoners many clergy, particularly Catholic bishop Tobin has "demanded" that deportations and raids be stopped meeting with the governor and other politicians. He called on I.C.E. to not do their jobs and requested a moratorium on all the raids.
If the Church engages in this type of action do you think it should be taxed? Do you think the people have the right to vote on such an issue as to tax churches?
Have you ever noticed those instances where church leaders will deliberately cross boundaries into politics provoking there own views, and will profess to be doing God's work?
The state of Rhode Island has linked a severe budget problem with its proliferating illegal immigrant population. Concerned about depleting parishoners many clergy, particularly Catholic bishop Tobin has "demanded" that deportations and raids be stopped meeting with the governor and other politicians. He called on I.C.E. to not do their jobs and requested a moratorium on all the raids.
If the Church engages in this type of action do you think it should be taxed? Do you think the people have the right to vote on such an issue as to tax churches?
That's a difficult decision.... there are some churches that actually do good, help the homeless and are full of genuinely good people. On the other hand, there are the 'mega churches' and the churches that do nothing but spread hatred (Westboro baptist anyone?).
Churches should be able to keep their exempt status if, and only if, they stay out of politics and do not donate money or publicly endorse a candidate, proposition etc.
If they keep meddling in political affairs and keep using money to build these ridiculously large mega churches instead of building homeless shelters, womens shelters, even orphanages, then they should definitely lose the exempt status.
They should be taxed, of course.
With the cost of real estate in most cities, property taxes would be amazing.
The greedy evangelists forced us to look at them.
Once any church in any denomination speaks of anything political and advises who to vote for, all churches in that denomination should lose their tax status.
JetJockey, Are you saying that people wouldn't do good deeds without being part of a church? If so, I'd like some proof.
Should churches be taxed? If the government wants to, then fine.
A part of the unwritten ideals within our nation is that churches and the state should be completely separate. [and I agree]
Our nation's founders came from lands where the church was very oppressive, dictatorial and often tyrannical. they did not want to support any one church exclusively. So that no one church could come to control the state, as had happened many times in Europe.
Thousands of good Christians had been labeled heretics and been tortured and died for their Christian beliefs at the hands of a one such 'church'.
Many kings had allowed themselves to become puppets of that same Church. Such happens when we allow churches to enter politics.
Our nation's founders wanted to avoid that destiny.
So no one church should be supported, nor encouraged.
Every session of legislature is opened with prayers and a wide variety of ministers are invited to perform such prayers. So as not to show any favoritism among the denominations.
So it was that at our nation's beginning no church was to be given any show of support or favoritism from the government. Everyone is allowed to seek their deity and to worship freely.
Keep in mind that many of those Founders were ministers. Many of them had been trained as clergy, many of them held degrees from Seminaries.
There is no Bible command that churches should not be taxed.
In the Bible the idea of the 'church' is the group of Christians, it is clearly not a building. The early church as recorded in the Bible had no buildings.
At one time there had been a tent. Simply as a place to house the stuff.
Then later it changed to a stone Temple. And so for a time the gathering of believers was thought of as that Temple. The 'Temple' then became a metaphor for the believers. But that Temple was physical. It was not spiritual. It was made by human hands. Man needed to be reminded that spirit is not contained by stone.
The Temple veil was torn open, the holy of holies was exposed, and the 'presence' of deity was no longer to be found therein. And the Temple was utterly destroyed.
The spirit of deity descended upon men, and it rested within men. It was planted as a seed within those men. Those men were born again as the sons of God, children of the household of God, brothers of Jesus.
Today the true church is the children of God, the believers, the gatherings of Christians. Because our deity is spirit and resides within us.
The true Church is not a building. It does not hold land,
No church building is the 'true church' of God. Buildings are made by the hands of men. They are owned by men. The maintenance of such buildings requires focus, effort and money, it is physical and has no spiritual significance. To focus on such a building draws Christians away from ministering to the 'true church'.
What Caesar does, pertains to Caesar. Caesar must be allowed to do whatever Caesar wants to do. Caesar is for a moment, Caesar is temporary, Caesar is not eternal.
If the government controls the coin, the government will tax anything that they wish to tax. If the government wishes to tax 'air' so be it.
If the government wishes to tax the land that a 'church' building sits upon, fine.
It has nothing to do with spirituality. It is purely Caesar and politics.
Yes they should if they have an income over a certain level. taxes would ruin the little countery churches. The church i saw this morning with the Obama sign in its yard should definitely be taxed! I would want it taxed if it said Mccain too so dont get your panties in a bunch!
It's the property tax that annoys me the most. Why is it that the pastor for a profit/non-profit church uses the system so as to not be taxed for his 3 villas?
If the chruch gets involved in a sancuary endevor, then yes they should be taxed. They have to realize this illegal problem is such a big financial problem for the cities and states. We just cant pull
money out of our " you know whats" to pay the cost of illegals , medical, housing, schooling, crime.
The cost of them being here is undermining our quality of life. I think anyone that employs them or hides them should be punished.
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