A pastor just recently, during a Sunday morning service, said some things that technically by the rules in place that underlie the tax exempt status for churches, could have gotten him into trouble.
What I witnessed was sadly ironic as well.
The pastor was essentially directly telling the congregation to not vote for Hillary Clinton. He may have thought he was getting around the rules by not specifically naming her but referring to her as the “she” and “woman” who was running for president but it was not hard to know who exactly he was referring to.
The pastor’s reasoning behind telling them to not vote for her stemmed from his belief that she would end the church’s getting tax exception status (501(c)(3) ) due to her hatred of Christianity.
The irony is that he was restrained in speaking as freely as he wanted to such as being able to name the “she” by her actual name. This was due to the restrictions on speech that he knew were the underlying rules of 501(c)(3).
By taking on 501(c)(3) status churches believe that they are being fiscally responsible. It is difficult to fault the intentions of people’s hearts from this perspective but it is a perspective lacking truth in reality...
By taking on 501(c)(3) status what is essentially happening is a trade off, money in lieu of free speech. The irony then runs deep as what is realistically happening is that in order to have more money the churches opt to follow the tax exemption rules which, as stated previously, essentially limit what is able to be preached from the pulpit. In Christianity this power ought to only be God’s only but instead the churches choose to transfer this power to the state. More irony here is that realistically they do not have the power to do this transfer. Instead what they are doing is going under the State’s authority and not God’s. This does not come with consequences either.
Keep in mind that the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Buckley v. Valeo ruled that money itself was free speech but the money gained by the Church via their tax exempt status also has free speech limitations along these same lines as mentioned above.
This is indeed ironic and very sad that we have come to a time where Churches will literally fight to keep more money and in the process knowingly give up their rights to free speech which was given to them by God and not the state.
My son said this almost sounds like bribery and I have to agree. Taking bribes with the agreement to remain silent is not what the church ought to be doing today. We should be holding to the obedience of God over man and not being so fixated on money but instead focused on the preaching of the unrestricted truth.
No way will I ever report a preacher for speaking his heart on government issues such as I witnessed here recently. Also, I will not provide what church or pastor I am referring to in this post... IMHO I have the right to remain silent at this point....
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