# Starting a church - legalaties/ethics?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starting-a-church-legalaties-ethics/558592>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 27, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starting-a-church-legalaties-ethics/558592 "2010-10-27T23:47:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starting-a-church-legalaties-ethics/558592/1 "2010-10-27T23:47:39Z")

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Are there any legal issues that would prevent me from starting a church? A christian non-profit. I am atheist myself but do I have to tell people that I don’t believe what I’m preaching? I don’t see much difference between what I’d be doing what the other preachers do. I would comply with all laws, regulations and whatnot.

I’m not actually going to do it, so I don’t need any specific legal advice. Yet. A few acquaintances have said I might be good at it though.

I wouldn’t care about pissing people off but I wouldn’t want to end up in court.

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**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starting-a-church-legalaties-ethics/558592/2 "2010-10-28T00:23:02Z")

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Go ahead. Rent a hall, claim you are Jesus , get on the internet and haul in the tax free donations.