As churches get political, IRS stays quiet

[daaron]

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre85k1ep-us-usa-tax-churches-irs/

Pastor Jim Garlow will stand before congregants at his 2,000-seat Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, on Sunday, October 7, just weeks before the U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and urge his flock to vote for or against particular candidates.

He knows such pulpit pleading could endanger his church's tax-exempt status by violating IRS rules for a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. A charity can take a position on policy issues but cannot act "on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office." To cross that line puts the $7 million mega-church's tax break at risk.

Even so, Garlow not only intends to break the rules, he also plans to spend the next four months recruiting other pastors to do the same as part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday. On that day each year since 2008, ministers intentionally try to provoke the IRS. Some even send DVD recordings of their sermons to the agency.

Last year, 539 pastors participated. This year organizers expect far more. Participants want to force the matter to court as a freedom of speech and religion issue.

"I believe we're on the early stages of the next great awakening," Garlow told his congregation last year. "We're going to see it just sweep across this nation."

The situation is fraught with peril for the IRS, which needs to be seen as apolitical. When it cracks down on political activities proscribed by the 501(c)(3) regulations, it is inevitably branded as partisan.

[msongs]

1. musn't make our enemies mad at us before they jack us, eh? nt

[Goblinmonger]

2. Screw them.

That does not make the IRS political, it makes they enforcers of the rules that Congress passed and that are Constitutional.

Jackasses.

[mercymechap]

3. Republicans seem to have many plans up their sleeves

not only will they try to disenfranchise voters, they distort the truth and now, with churches chiming in and urging their congregations to vote for Romney, do we really stand a chance?

[humblebum]

4. It's a win win situation for the churches. Taxing them will

only multiply their influence many times over.

[skepticscott]

8. If that were true

churches would have ASKED to be taxed a long time ago.

Your statement is utterly without evidence. Shocking.

[humblebum]

10. And I would have to say "Your statement is utterly without evidence."

Most churches do not openly challenge the IRS as a habit. However, if you put them on an equal footing with all other for-profit corporations and organizations they will be free to campaign and to lobby just like anyone else. That would give them tremendously more political clout than they have now.

If the government heavily involves itself in telling the churches what they can and cannot do, churches realize that the separation of C&S is no longer valid and they would certainly and suddenly become very much more involved in dictating government policy.

Do you need examples from history where religion and government are virtually inseparable?

[daaron]

9. I see the article describing the blatant, intentional lawbreaking -->

of a few churches. It's not an issue of rewriting the tax code. It's a matter of enforcement. These churches are DARING the IRS to take action.

Either we have equal protection under the law, or we don't. The political ramifications be damned, I say. Fine 'em out of business and if they refuse to pay, lock 'em up.

[cbayer]

12. I agree and I think the articles depiction of the IRS being gun shy is totally bogus.

I think they are just waiting for the right set of circumstances before they swoop in with guns blazing.

[daaron]

13. Let's hope so. nt

[bluestateguy]

5. If IRS makes one move the churches will squawk VERY loudly

and then the noise machine will get started: Obama's war on Christians, (white) Christians are persecuted, tyranny! Fox News, talk radio, CNN will join in, you know how it works.

[daaron]

6. We're screwed. I give up. Bring on the Messiah.

Let's get started on the throne and crown for His global kingdom. Think right or starve, peons.

[LeftishBrit]

7. For the most part , British churches do not engage in this sort of electoral activism

However, there are exceptions: e.g. in St Aldates Church, Oxford, in 2009, Andrea Minichiello Williams gave a speech on 'The state of the nation', where among much else - including getting her 12-year-old daughter to sing an anti-abortion song - she explicitly urged that our then MP should be replaced by a 'pro-lifer' in the next election. (Sadly, he was; though we will never know to what extent this speech contributed to the very close result.) There were, so far as I know, no repercussions.

No, I hasten to add that I was not there, but the 'sermon' was recorded online.

[cbayer]

11. I hope he and his buddies do just that, and I hope the IRS bites them in the butt.

$7 million megachurch? I guess he doesn't much care about the IRS.

Screw him.