Chess and singing at an open mike are something that people typically do purely for fun and entertainment. A man singing at an open mike isn’t doing it to help people in need.
On the contrary, the purpose of preaching is exactly that–to help those in need.
By that token, I can claim that my posts to the SDMB are to help those in need.
You don’t know you’re in need, and don’t know that I’m helping, but I am! Lookee!
You could. But it’s a bad analogy because there no entity analogous to the church; the priest isn’t tax exempt (he pays income tax!) but the church that pays his salary is.
The people listening to the preacher typically do know they’re in need (that’s why they’re listening) and they typically know that the preacher is helping.
Frankly, I’m not sure you’ve been to an open mic night recently–it’s hard to imagine a needier buncha people ;).
The thing is, the preacher’s not offering charity: she’s offering advice, or else she’s offering a pep speech. My bartender offers me great conversation and is very insightful, but I don’t think our local watering hole should be tax-exempt.
Daniel
Yes, but much like salvation, entertainment is an intangible whose worth cannot be objectively measured. Someone who spends an evening singing to a bunch of people in a bar is doing far more good than someone trying to save their soul, in my view. Why is your intangible more charitable than mine, except for the fact that you have more of an emotional attachment to preaching than you do to singing?
Italics mine. I’ll bet it didn’t. The IRS just plain doesn’t work that way. It is quite possible that someone complained to the IRS, and the IRS sent out an inquiry letter, with the usual boilerplate warnings.
But in order for me to believe that the IRS “warned” the Church using that rather specific language I’d have to see a certified copy of the IRS letter. :dubious:
So would it be fair to say that you think something can only be “charitable” if the result can be objectively measured? And do you think that salvation is the only (perceived) result of preaching?
Heh. Nearly every part of the service I usually attend is sung. Even the Lord’s prayer.
So advice and pep speeches can’t be charitable?
The company that employs your bartender does so to make money for itself, not to help other people. The church that employs the preacher isn’t a for-profit entity.
Not exactly. If you’re going to argue that certain acts ought to be treated differently under the law, I think you should have to show how they are measurably different from other acts. Singing someone a song has a value, as does a good sermon, but if you’re going to argue that one deserves a tax break and the other doesn’t, you have to show that a sermon is objectively more valuable than a song. Which you can’t do, because that value is entirely subjective: it just comes down to which you prefer. In contrast, a blanket has a concrete worth: giving someone a blanket has a greater objective value than singing them a song or preaching them a sermon: that sort of act should given a tax break. Not the other two.
I would argue that it is the only result that is unique to preaching. Its other results (encouragment, community building, aesthetic value) can all be achieved by other means. And, again, those are all intangible benefits. How do you prove that preaching is better at providing those things than any other, taxable endeavour?
State = Country, in this respect(Seperation of Church and State).
I agree. And I think the Catholic churches under the control of the bishops who said they’d deny one of their rituals to Kerry because he is pro-choice should have lost their tax exempt status. But I don’t believe that ever happened.
I’m not arguing this. I have no problem with musical non-profits (and they do exist). If the organization isn’t motivated by profit, and its purpose is to provide free music, tax break away.
My argument is that free preaching is charitable, not that free music isn’t.
Those things can also be provided by non-profits. Once again, it’s not the preacher that’s tax-exempt, it’s the church. There are (secular) non-profit organizations that provide encouragement, community building, etc.
Also, how is the efficiency of preaching (versus other, secular activities that provide similiar benefits) relevant to whether or not preaching is charitable? Is an act only charitable if it was better at attaining its goal then other acts with the same goal?
Preaching is not charitable. Give me a break. You’re trying to leech the definition of “charity” so that it contains no quantifiable or identifiable content. Charity is supposed to be a tangible gift of goods or practical services (medical help, education, etc.) which would be useful and benefit the public as a whole. Proselytization offers no tangible good to anybody, is not needed by anybody and cannot be shown to benefit the public in any way. If anything, it can be a marginal to moderate evil, depending on the circumstances and is done primarily for the psychological gratification of the preachers not the preachees. It’s absurd to say that the government has any more business subsidizing religious proselytization any more than it should give people tax breaks for harranguing strangers with their personal UFO theories. I honestly see no appreciable difference between those two activities.
I’ve yet to see a definition of charity that includes either of those qualifiers (or any of the other conditions you set forth in your post). You’re trying to narrow the definition of “charity” so it matches your own personal religious opinions.
Then you’d see a complete end to corporate charity. All corporate charity is about advertising and PR.
I was with you up until this point. I think it is a minister’s duty to stand up and denounce immorality where he sees it particularly if it is an organization of which he is a member, as he is with the United States of America. He shouldn’t be using his church to run a campaign for a candidate no, but lots of candidates visit churches around the country all the time, it’s an American institution, expecting it to not go on is ludicrous.
One of the reasons that Osama bin Laden dislikes America is because of the seperation of church and state, beause the truly faithful cannot seperate their faith from any part of their being. There is kind of this secular misunderstanding that one’s relationship with God can be turned off at some point, and I do not see any reason at all to respect this belief, tolerate it yes, they are welcome to believe anything they want to believe, but as far as I am concerned secularism is a necessary evil, nothing more, something that is required until humanity has reached a level of understanding where all religions will become one. It is not fair to expect a minister to censor himself because his sermon touches on politics. Jesus was HEAVILY involved in politics.
Erek
Can you tell me where you see the word “seperation” in ‘unit, corps, god, country.’?
Erek
They are not subsidizing my house of worship. They simply aren’t taxing it. What I’d like to know is why you think you own the rights to that land? I don’t believe in land ownership, what gives you the right to say you own that land, other than there’s more of you?
What definition are you using?
I don’t have any personal religious opinions. I have no religion.
I think they’d have a problem evicting congregations from their churches.
The argument I would make is that it’s God’s land first, the state’s land second. God definitely trumps the state in all circumstances.
You can’t attend a church that is being bulldozed because it’s congregation couldn’t afford the property tax.
You are incorrect. Secular authority is above favoring one particular religion over another in America. This does not make it godless. Remember the tax exemption qualifies to Mosques and Temples as well.
Freemasonry doesn’t receive tax exempt status because it’s not catering to everyone. The purpose of a church is to be able to catch those in the flock that have run astray, and it has helped many people who were on a treacherous path. In the end you’d be removing the churches from the places where a lot of these lost souls frequent, namely the poorer areas. The church does society a service that would be hindered by taxation. You don’t need the church personally, so you don’t care, so fuck it lets start taxing them right? But how do you know what your life would be like if those christian churches were not there to minister to junkies and alcoholics trying to get their life straight. What if there was no door like that to open to them?
I disagree.
Erek
Are you of the opinion that we should remove the tax exempt status of any church that preaches against homosexual unions, as that is clearly a Bush policy? What about churches that have sermons against abortions?
As for the OP, as long as the rules are evenly applied across the board, I’m fine with a church losing their tax exempt status. I’d even be a fan of making things a bit tougher for churches, such as removing their status for things such as voter registration drives, which are usually little more than fronts for “getting the vote out” for a particular party or candidate.