Church and politics.

Nothing spices up bland dinner time conversation than these two topics, especially when spoken about together.

Many Christians are uncomfortable with the marriage that seems to exist between the church and the conservative side of politics. It is a well-established fact that white, evangelical protestant Christians overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump and his presidency to the point where “Evangelical Christian” has become a kind of synonym for “Trump Supporter.”

Yes, I have had friends walk away from the church because they can’t reconcile why the church throws its support behind morally questionable candidates just because they happened to say they are a ‘Christian’ and are happy to pander to the Christian lobby just to get their vote.

But, when a church tries to tell me exactly who God wants me to vote for as a Christian, that’s a whole other level of political interence. Enter Pastor Greg Locke — a man who is quite happy to tell Christians precisely who Christians should and should not vote for.

The video that cost a church tax exemption

Global Vision Bible Church, near Nashville, made headlines earlier this year when its pastor, Greg Locke, delivered an impassioned rant from the pulpit where he told members of his congregation: “You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation.”

He continued, “I don’t care how mad that makes you. You can get as pissed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. They are God-denying demons that butcher babies and hate this nation.”

See for yourself:

Following his comments, the religious advocacy group Americans United For Separation of Church and State (AUSCS) said the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) needed to investigate Locke and determine whether he had made partisan political remarks.

The investigation was reasonably brief because, well… it’s pretty darn obvious. Locke was issued a “please explain” from the IRS, but rather than respond to it, Locke renounced the church’s tax-exempt status and said he still held the same views about Democrats.

But in a live stream uploaded on Facebook, Locke boasted: “Guess what I did this week. I got an attorney, and I dissolved our stinking 501c3 in this church because the Government ain’t gonna tell me what I can and what I can’t say. So, IRS, we don’t need your stupid tax-exempt status. You can put it in a bag and burn it in your front yard for all we care. I renounced 501c3 communism in this church.”

Pastor Locke is no stranger to controversy. He once called President Joe Biden the “real virus in this country” during the COVID-19 pandemic and said that only “crack-smoking, demon-possessed leftists” believed he won the 2020 election over Donald Trump. He also vowed to remove anyone from his church who wore a face mask due to concern about their health during the pandemic.

What a lovely ‘man of God.’

Wouldn’t you love to have him as a pastor?

Churches and tax-exemption

Believe it or not, the first recorded tax exemption for churches was during the Roman Empire, when Constantine, Emperor of Rome from 306–337AD, granted the Christian church a complete exemption from all forms of taxation following his conversion to Christianity in 312AD.

Fast forward almost two millennia, and today, in the USA, all churches are still exempt from paying income tax. This exemption became official in 1894, but even before then, it was the unofficial and widely accepted position in all 50 states. Moreover, all donations to churches are tax-deductible in the USA. Similarly, churches in other western countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also enjoy income tax exemptions — though not all of these countries allow tax deductibility on donations.

Interestingly, many European countries, such as Germany, Italy, Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, take a somewhat different approach. The governments of these nations charge people who wish to be part of a church a “worship tax” to claim membership, with these funds then redirected back to state-recognized churches to cover their operating costs. Despite the secularization of Europe, a new report by Pew Research found that most citizens still support this tradition of paying a ‘church tax.’

Regardless of how a nation chooses to structure its tax benefits, the point is that churches almost universally enjoy them and have done for a good portion of human history.

The most common and arguably compelling reason that churches shouldn’t be taxed is that, whether you like the church or not, you have to concede that many of the charitable services that exist in the West are church-based organizations.

Tax breaks are afforded to the church to acknowledge their contribution to the public good and assist them in remaining viable. If churches were burdened with tax requirements, it is argued, it would reduce their ability to provide charitable services.

In fact, according to Anne Robinson, a leading expert on charity law, “If the church closed up shop and didn’t provide the schools, the hospitals, the social welfare infrastructure — society would go bankrupt, basically. It would cause the kind of social disruption that would bring governments down. They could not fund these social goods without the contribution of the church.”

Personally, I’m all for churches receiving tax exemptions for their charitable and community services. However, when churches use their platform for other purposes — political campaigning, for example — or blatant profiteering, these are certainly grounds to object to the practice.

The Church and politics

So, can the church lose its tax-exempt status by getting involved in politics?

Absolutely.

According to the IRS’s Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations, churches are expressly forbidden from activities that promote one candidate over another:

Other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not constitute prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner. On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that: (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention

A church’s tax-exempt status is also at risk if a substantial part of its activities attempts to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying). Churches are also forbidden from being part of political campaigning on behalf of a candidate.

How many churches would lose their tax-exempt status if this legislation were strictly applied? Probably plenty.

In fact, as a result of Pastor Locke’s vile rant, a grassroots movement has emerged on TikTok, holding churches who engage in political activities accountable by reporting them to the IRS.

The bottom-dollar

As I’ve researched the pros and cons of taxing the church, my personal opinion has swung back and forth several times.

So, where have I landed?

Well, personally, I believe that the church should receive tax exemptions for charitable purposes. This is a reasonable acknowledgment of the positive contribution that the church makes to society from a social justice and philanthropic perspective.

However, it is also true that not every church activity could reasonably be defined as a charitable activity. Where the activities of a church include political lobbying, I think the IRS has got it right. You don’t get tax breaks to promote one side of politics. You get tax breaks to help the poor. Do that, instead. Period.

And so, I think a line needs to be drawn. Exactly where that line ought to be is another question altogether. It is a polarizing debate, I’ll admit, but, at the end of the day, it was Jesus Christ himself who said, “You cannot serve both God and money.”

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