(from FotF)
Church and Politics
The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee said he thinks churches should either pay taxes or be silent when it comes to speaking out about political issues. In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Howard Dean said "The religious community has to decide whether they want to be tax-exempt or involved in politics."
In contrast, Gary McCaleb, senior counsel with the Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, said pastors can voice support for issues like the proposed marriage amendments from the pulpit and churches can assist in petition drives without fear of reprisal from the Internal Revenue Service.
"In respect to their Internal Revenue Service tax exemption, they have a lot of liberty and leeway to support a ballot initiative," McCaleb told Baptist Press. "As long as what they do is an insubstantial amount of their total budget, they're pretty much free to do whatever they want in support or opposition to the ballot initiative."
Related Tags: Howard Dean, Democrat, Republican, Focus on the Family, Focus Family, James Dobson, IRS, Internal Revenue Service, DNC, Gary McCaleb, Alliance Defense Fund, Baptist Press, Christian, Church, Bible, Tax Church, Tax Exempt, Church Politics
1 comment:
Howard has no idea what he is talking about. The religious community has to decide -- on his say so? Methinks he has delusions of grandeur.
The American church has always played a noticeable role in American politics. He wants to change something that has been present from the foundation of the republic. Even the cause of independence itself was hotly contested among churches which found its pulpits taking sides for and against the Brits.
Politics deals with the welfare of the State and the good of its citizens. Since welfare and good are terms that are defined metaphysically, it stands to reason that any discussion of those terms is going to have overlap with whatever voices in the community address metaphysics. The American churches do that -- its in their job description.
Howard is upset that his wing of the political spectrum is less and less representative of the dreams and goals of most Americans. Demographics will decide history and as the population grows it is conservative, religious types who have children (voters) and old world immigrants (largely religious) who tend towards large families that will control politics in this country.
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