Set Your Church Free

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  THE ART OF TYRANNY IS THE ART OF CO-OPTING a large enough or influential enough portion of the population so as to be free to use the power of the state for one’s own purposes without being stopped. Over the last 75 years, the progressive operators of the state have secured freedom to pursue their socialist and self-enriching agenda in large part by successful co-option of America’s ministers.
   During that 75-year period, American pulpits have been transformed. They have abandoned center-stage roles as vocal and inspiring bastions of liberty and the rule of law and taken up service as muted props on the sidelines of the public square.
   At one time, our churches were grounded in the Biblical and Jeffersonian principle that rights are God-given and unalienable, and said so.  At one time, our churches recognized the state to be a mere subordinate construct of men made solely for the purpose of securing those rights against all assaults, foreign and domestic, and said so.
   At one time, our churches were deeply suspicious of state claims to any power to determine or compromise the extent of our rights, and said so.  At one time, our churches encouraged and nurtured that mature perspective in their congregations. But today, most churches are silent enablers, if not outright cheerleaders for the state’s ambitions and the means by which they are pursued.
   The cause of this transformation is simple -- the widespread misunderstanding of the “income tax.”  HERE'S HOW THAT WORKS: Because most folks are successfully misled about the limits of the tax and the activities to which it applies, they believe themselves to benefit from IRS-approved charitable-contribution deductions.  Consequently, churches feel themselves better able to attract donations and tithes if they can claim IRS-approved status, either by virtue of actually applying for “501(c)(3)” status or by conforming to the speech restrictions required for that status.
   The speech restrictions imposed by 501(c)(3) essentially gut any and all political advocacy. Deductibility of donations under the 501(c)(3) rules is invalid if the recipient organization engages in advocacy on behalf of any candidates for political office or attempts to “influence legislation.”  The bias of the IRS toward finding reasons for denying deductions and other benefits being as well known as it is, any organization wanting to preserve 501(c)(3) deductibility feels compelled to refrain from all political advocacy.
   Peter Kershaw of “Heal Our Land Ministries,” offers this summary of the effect of subordination to 501(c)(3) rules:
   When a church accepts the 501(c)(3) status, that church:
•  Waives its freedom of speech.
•  Waives its freedom of religion.
•  Waives its right to influence legislators and the legislation they craft.
•  Waives its constitutionally guaranteed rights.
•  Is no longer free to speak to the vital issues of the day.
•  Becomes controlled by a spirit of fear that if it doesn’t toe the line with the IRS it will lose its tax-exempt status.
•  Becomes a State-Church. 
   Thus, churches believing that tax deductibility of donations is important must make a deal with the devil, accepting state censorship of their political views for money.  The tragedy (aside from the disgrace of this “bargain” generally), is that the self-imposed gag is completely unnecessary.
   Other than perhaps churches located within shooting distance of the Washington beltway, few if any congregants in most churches actually owe any “income” tax in the first place. Hence, these folks actually have no need for any deductions. A deduction is of no benefit to someone who has no taxable “income” from which to deduct it, and who will have no tax burden to reduce by that means.
   All that is necessary to free these churches from the bonds of censorship is the widespread understanding of the liberating truth about the tax.
   Freeing America’s churches is no small thing, and it is no surprise that the worshippers of the State view our churches as dangerous opponents and have long striven to emasculate them as a meaningful force in public life. In our unbound churches, the State is put in its proper place -- below God and Man; a tertiary thing created by men for limited purposes, and endowed with no authority not inherently possessed by the individual men and women whose mere agent it is.
   Christian theologian R. J. Rushdoony says this, when speaking unbound:
“...Biblical faith assert[s] that the source of ultimate order is not the state, but God. Ultimacy and ultimate order are transcendent rather than immanent. For the state to claim jurisdiction beyond its realm is sin. The Bible gives us numerous examples of what constitutes signal evil on the part of the state. Drafting youth for non-military services to the state and taxing beyond the head tax to as much as 10% (a tithe) of a man’s wealth or income is cited as evil (I Sam. 8). For the state to claim a priestly role, and ’ the control of religion, is evil (II Chron. 26: 16-21). Expropriation of property by the state is a very serious transgression (I Kings 21). Debasing the coinage is charged against Judah as part of God’s indictment (“Thy silver is become dross,” Isa. I:22). Much, much more could be cited.”
   C.S. Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength” is a book-length contemptuous and appalled indictment of the modern state.
Many other ministers and church leaders, of every denomination, have expressed similar sentiments, when unconstrained.  But were a minister in any church to exhort his congregation to support or oppose legislation or any candidate in harmony with these positions, donations or tithes to that church would be denied deductibility.
   And so, misled into their devil’s bargain by misunderstanding of the tax (which really means seduced into a disgraceful abandonment of principle in favor of what is seen as a practical necessity), many churches which otherwise would be vocal, virtuous and powerful forces for good stand silent and simply watch as America slides into a collectivist tyranny in order to protect a “benefit” which actually offers them nothing at all.
   SPREAD THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TAX, and if you are a member of a church, focus a lot of your attention there. I firmly believe that few pastors are happy about the deal they imagine themselves obliged to make.  For example, here is what Dr. Joel McDurmon of the American Vision has to say even while oblivious to the realities of the tax:
 “For now, churches need to be aware that their path to freedom is not within 501(c)3, but outside of it. You don’t need it, and in fact you can only speak freely without it.”
   Further, these ministers are truth-tellers by nature and by calling. Once informed of the liberating truth about the tax and its fundamental harmony with Scripture (as well as the fundamental dissonance with Scripture of the tax as commonly misunderstood), these good folks will quickly become especially-effective word-spreaders themselves.
   “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”   -Thomas Jefferson
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