All Saints and the IRS
Dan Walters, veteran columnist for the Sacramento Bee, nails the absurdity (click on lead and sign in for free) of going after an Episcopal Church in Pasadena for an anti-war sermon during the 2004 presidential campaign. The sermon, a mock debate among Jesus, President Bush, and Senator Kerry about the morality of the Iraq war, has led the IRS to threaten to revoke the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal,and, most recently to serve summonses on the church demanding all 2004 "political" documents and an appearance by the Rector. Walters' main point is that
As long as churches aren't spending tax-exempt funds on behalf of specific candidates, the IRS should leave verbal exhortations alone...
Walters correctly points out that American churches have long taken stands on moral issues with political overtones, such as when Northern churches supported abolition, when Martin Luther King, Jr., and other religious leaders marched for Civil Rights, and when church groups opposed the Vietnam War. And of course religious involvement in public life isn't limited to liberal parishes, as witness the fervent opposition to abortion and gay marriage in conservative churches. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign stops at African-American churches are another recent example Walters cites.
Walters states what should be obvious, but apparently is lost on the tax folks, that
Whether All Saints opposes or endorses the Iraq war is beside the point. If the IRS can choose which topics of sermons are legally acceptable and which are not, not only would liberal churches be threatened, but so would the conservative ones. It is, as [Rector Ed Bacon of All Saints] said, a question of free speech and free religion.
Some of my neighbors in the Sacramento area emigrated from the former Soviet Union to escape anti-religious oppression that threatened their devout Christian beliefs. Many of us in this country are old enough to remember the horror stories about government crackdowns on dissidents in the Soviet Union. We should be hyper-vigilant (and hyper-incensed) when that kind of thing starts to happen here. Religious and non-religious people alike should take notice and be repelled by efforts to turn the IRS into the Thought Police.
And of course, a very famous preacher once said
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
If He showed up at All Saints and said that, would the IRS serve Him with a summons?