im pretty sure that it says in leviticus that a church that does not have free coffee available is damned
City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons
- Thread starter Gr8hope
- Start date
I think that's in the first book of Hesitations. [emoji2]im pretty sure that it says in leviticus that a church that does not have free coffee available is damned
Property tax laws leave institutions at the mercy of the communities, to be sure. As long as the law is equitable, though, I wouldn't complain.
I am of a mixed bag on Jon's idea of making churches taxable and them just spawning off a charitable contribution company.
For one, it would remove my biggest beef with churches, which is that some people use them as a way to create a massive tax free social club. If they were taxable then you likely wouldn't see massive 10K SQ/FT buildings with gyms, pools, and empty class rooms littering the countryside nearly as much. Granted you can't necessarily guarantee that the giving to a non profit charitable organization would have much more oversight. For example, Susan G. Komen's CEO makes ~650K per year and their expenditures in 2011 according to financial records are as follows from a Reuters article located here:
Granted its Huffpo but here is some more details on the Houston city subpoenas. Link
For one, it would remove my biggest beef with churches, which is that some people use them as a way to create a massive tax free social club. If they were taxable then you likely wouldn't see massive 10K SQ/FT buildings with gyms, pools, and empty class rooms littering the countryside nearly as much. Granted you can't necessarily guarantee that the giving to a non profit charitable organization would have much more oversight. For example, Susan G. Komen's CEO makes ~650K per year and their expenditures in 2011 according to financial records are as follows from a Reuters article located here:
The people who want to skirt the system will always skirt the system as long as you have such a complicated tax code. Anyways back to your regularly scheduled thread!
Granted its Huffpo but here is some more details on the Houston city subpoenas. Link
If this is actually the case, I am a little less cranky. It sounds like they are attempting to keep politics out of the pulpit, and technically, according to the law, utilizing a sermon to call for political action is against the law. What the pastors do on their own time, emailing, organizing etc, I think falls outside the bounds of the letter of the law, so I still think there are some shenanigans going on by the city with the request for text messages and other electronic communication.
And this is what I was referring to earlier in the thread and why the non-profit status of churches makes churches slave to the state. There is not a clear distinction between politics and religion for Christians. Most Christians believe abortion is wrong through their reading and interpretation of scripture. Most people also see abortion as a political issue. So, when a pastor makes a point in his sermon about abortion being wrong, does that give the state the right to yank the non-profit status of the church? It absolutely shouldn't but some will try to make the case that it should (because churches shouldn't be making political statements!).
First Amendment said:
funny thing is, abortion wasn't really a huge issue outside of the catholic church until it was made it a key political issue in the late 70's with falwell's moral majority push.
I whole heartedly agree, but if the article from HuffPo is accurate, and the pastors targeted by the subpoena were actively coaching their church members in filing out petitions regarding a specific piece of legislation, that has officially hopped over from saying that homosexuality is against God's law, into actively trying to influence politics. I guess my point is that while some things spoken about in church, abortion is bad, stealing is bad, or homosexuality is bad do tend to touch political elements, preaching belief according to one's belief system should still be fair game for preachers far and wide under the existing tax rats nest of laws. However unless there is a new version of the KJV that shows Jesus doesn't like the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, any mention of specific legislation should easily be construed as mingling politics and religion which currently is a no no.
More specifically, to your example, I think preaching that abortion is wrong has been shown to be perfectly acceptable in a legal sense ever since Roe v. Wade. However, if a preacher were to get into the pulpit and say "Vote for so and so because they are anti-abortion" would definitely be intermingling the religious views of abortion and political activism. Heck, religious organizations even go as far as preaching against abortion and providing information about candidates explicitly detailing their stances on various religious hot button topics. None of that has been seen as political activism in the past, and as long as its presented in an informational way, I don't see it happening in the future.
I should caveat all of this by saying that I am uncomfortable with this not just on a religious vs. political debate, but also on a government witch hunt type level. As of now, an LGBT mayor, with an obvious axe to grind, has gone in a public medium and alleged that a church did something. This smacks of someone trying to publicly shame an organization without due process. This has especially troubling tones. The mayor has no place going into a public medium attempting to drum up support, all the while using government resources in what could be a witch hunt. On the other hand, if these church leaders did in fact use their position to attempt to influence politics directly, instead of indirectly by preaching the standard message, there are definitely some issues that need to be raised.
Well duh, that might be because it was illegal until 1973.
And the judges coming up with the trimester ruling helped make it a political issue long before anyone ever heard of Jerry Falwell. For Pete's sake, Tom Eagleton had said long before he was McGovern's running mate that the McGovern was seen as the candidate of "abortion, acid, and amnesty." My goodness, Teddy White addresses abortion as a POLITICAL issue in his book about the 1972 election.
Blaming that on Falwell is ridiculous and historically wrong. And I say that as someone who never cared for Falwell's situational ethics.
How many of these properties are where Christian affiliated hospitals are located: like St. Luke's, Houston Baptist, St. Joseph's, Methodists Hospitals, etc.
How many Christian church related hospitals are in the U.S.?
How many atheists hospitals are located in the U. S.?
How many Islam hospitals are in the U. S.?
How many atheists go to Christian church affiliated hospitals for care for cancer, heart disease, etc.?
What would the U. S. do without all the Christian church affiliated hospitals?
im not blaming anything on anyone. it became a hot-button conservative christian issue post falwell/moral majority. to pretend that social/moral issues such as abortion didn't come roaring to the forefront of politics/conservative christianity in the 80s after the moral majority started pushing them is to ignore reality, i lived through this change in the southern baptist church. and it was a very noticeable change, even to a naive teenager such as myself. it was a politically brilliant marketing/political strategy, but it drove me and many others away.
I just wanted an educated person like you to answer some questions like those I included.
Also, I guess there was a question regarding the Church having properties that were not on the tax rolls.
i am well educated, thank you for affirming that, ill sleep better tonight.
churches and church affiliated hospitals are separate entities. the thread has been discussing churches, "political speech", and how churches are tax-exempt and the implications of that tax exemption, so im not sure what your point is regarding religious hospitals. maybe if i were better educated, i could figure it out
church property is generally not taxed, that is what i mean that the property is not on a city's tax roll. being technical, i am sure that the property is "on" the tax roll, just as a non-taxed property.
all of the questions you asked in your post are easily answered using google, regardless of whether one is an "educated" person or not.
Where has been the outcry against black churches' use of the pulpit to promote liberal political causes since the 50's ? In most cases they did not even bother to couch their messages in legal rhetoric, i.e., they openly stated who to vote for and what political action to take. Btw, I don't blame them.
FWIW, I don't care what any groups say or do, so long as it is not seditious. But this is just another example of the unequal application of the law, as well as political correctness, et al. There won't be any such requirements for Muslims either - just Christians - at least not until their hypocrisy is exposed, or they are legally made to cry uncle.
FWIW, I don't care what any groups say or do, so long as it is not seditious. But this is just another example of the unequal application of the law, as well as political correctness, et al. There won't be any such requirements for Muslims either - just Christians - at least not until their hypocrisy is exposed, or they are legally made to cry uncle.
It was a hot button conservative Christian issue in the 1976 election. Jimmy Carter managed to straddle that abortion issue perhaps better than any candidate in history. He would out of one side of his mouth say abortion was the law of the land and then turn right around and say he was "in favor of any law not in conflict with Roe v Wade that would make abortion illegal."
Think about that for a second. Carter was saying he was for any law that would make abortion illegal that did not conflict with the law that said it was legal. A real genius!!! Well - how he swung some conservative Christians over to his side, it worked.
Well I don't dispute that but what you're saying here (while I'm sure it's what you meant above) is slightly differently nuanced. So I don't disagree that they fanned the flames. Then again - that was all made possible first by Carter jumping in as a Southern Baptist and then abandoning everything he supposedly believed in his public life while wearing a pious face.
I think an argument could legimitately be made that Carter made the Moral Majority. Without a Southern Baptist who "betrayed" his home teaching, I doubt they would have had the public sphere of coverage they had. It should be noted that for all the ink spilled about Falwell, he had absolutely no influence in Washington. When Reagan appointed Sandra O'Connor to the SCOTUS, Falwell opposed her nomination because as a state senator she had supported family planning clinics providing all information to patients including abortion services. Falwell said every good Christian ought to be concerned about her nomination, which prompted the old warhorse Barry Goldwater to say that every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in his can (only he didn't say can).
Yes, that inerrancy thing and the moderates who picked and chose which portions of the Bible were inspired and which weren't. That was a whole lot more than a political war although at the time I was there myself and would agree with some of your basic point.
But Jon, you didn't even answer his point.you poor repressed Christians
When it was black preachers standing up for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s or against Vietnam in the 60s and 70s NOT ONE WORD was uttered about how they didn't belong in politics.
The moment the crackers showed up protesting abortion, they were suddenly violating some law. Fred Barnes pointed this out in a question to Mondale in a 1984 debate with Reagan. Mondale kept whacking Jerry Falwell and Barnes pointed out to Mondale that through his career he had said not a single word about black preachers and civil rights and had - in fact - marched WITH them.
He's not asking about oppression, he's asking about a double standard anyone with open eyes has been able to see.
yeah, I went for the cheap shot as it's just so hard for me to listen to Christian repression sob stories as their is no real evidence of its existence (start another thread if any of you feel the need, I'm not trying to derail this one farther)
your example and his is all about Democrats and their pandering to the black vote and Republicans being terrified of being called racist, period.
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