In yesterday's post, I noted how the Assemblies of God are rallying around Kenneth Copeland's latest attempt to derail Sen. Chuck Grassley's investigation of nonprofit groups.
There's a very valid reason why the Assemblies may be quite concerned, should Congressional attention focus on them.
Namely...not only is illegal electioneering rife within the denomination, but there is some troubling evidence to suggest that violations may be crossing over into direct contributions to Assemblies-favoured candidates--possibly the most blatant 501(c)3 violations ever documented.
The "funding trail" from the Assemblies to the GOP
As noted yesterday re dominionist concerns re Grassley's investigations of nonprofit groups, the Assemblies of God as a whole may not simply restrict funding of specific candidates to frontgroups. Research I have conducted points to a potential pattern of what would appear to be direct funding of some candidates by the Assemblies through pastors and seminary employees.
It is not widely known, but the Assemblies of God was one of the top political donators to Ashcroft's 2000 Senate campaign--to the tune of $19,850, including a known $1000 donation from the denomination's leader. (This is actually not as surprising as it sounds; Ashcroft's father is founder of Chi Alpha, a "ministry"/frontgroup of the Assemblies targeting college-age youth in a manner similar to Campus Crusade for Christ.)
Of note--and in a probable attempt to hide the fact the money was coming from the church itself or as a potential sign that persons were explicitly directed to donate to Ashcroft's campaign--this seems to have been done by pastors or employees, including a number of folks who are complete cyphers otherwise: three separate donations by Richard Arnold of Colorado Springs, CO amounting to $2000 and donations by Bob Houlihan, also of Colorado Springs, also for the same amount. (Both are listed in the top 100 contributors to Ashcroft's campaign.) Other Assemblies-linked contributors in Colorado Springs include Bob Cook ($250) and Daniel Vagle ($1000).
In fact, there are anomalous donations from Assemblies-employed persons in no less than 9 states outside of Missouri: the aforementioned Colorado donations; Kentucky from one person donating $250; Alabama from two separate individuals of $250 and $1000 respectively; a donation from Oklahoma for $250; two separate donations from an Assemblies employee in Minnesota totaling $2000; Ohio being a source of multiple Assemblies-linked donations including two separate individuals donating $250; Pennsylvania donations including a donation for $250; Texas including one donation for $1000 as well as one donation for $500; California including another case of "double donation" of $2000 total as well as a second "double donator" of $500 total.
Missouri's funding is equally sketchy; not only is there Trask's known donation but a donation for $500, another for $500, another donation for $250, another for $250, another $250 donation, a relatively lowball donor of $200, and another case of a "double donor" totalling $400.
Even this may be a lowball figure. If frontgroups and divisions of the Assemblies operating under their own d/b/a are taken into account, the full extent of moneys donated to Ashcroft's campaign may have been substantially underestimated: a triple donation of $2500 total from a party associated with the A/G Foundation (which is actually a division of the Assemblies handling the "Bible Quiz" front as well as encouraging people to sign over their possessions to them after they die--in other words, it's where the Assemblies stores a non-negligible part of its funding and also in part where its legal department lives) has been documented.
In addition, other donations by Assemblies fronts and subdivisions include a $500 donation by a person employed with one of the Assemblies' "Bible colleges", a second donation from a different individual at said "Bible college" for $500, a donation from the Assemblies General Council for $1000, and three separate donations by a second General Council member for $2000. (So add $6500 to that $19,850 figure--the total is closer to a minimum of over $25,000 dollars donated by the Assemblies via seminary and "Bible college" employees as well as pastors to John Ashcroft's campaign alone.)
An especially damning sign that this may have been money explicitly funneled from the Assemblies illegally is the presence of not only a redacted donation of $250 by Houlihan, but donations by both him and his wife independently of the Assemblies to the tune of $2500 between the two of them--indicating he was explicitly trying to keep the Assemblies under the radar. (Houlihan is an employee of the Assemblies' seminary and has conducted seminars on bait-and-switch "compassion ministries" as a method of recruitment.)
This is also not the only time the Assemblies has pulled this sort of thing. As recently as 2007, the Assemblies is known to have donated $1200 to Mike Huckabee's campaign (in fact, to the tune of $1000 from the general superintendent</a? and <a href="http://tinyurl.com/6kls7q">$200 from the editor of Pentecostal Evangel, if the FEC's homepage is to be believed), a similar donation of $500 was given to Bush's re-election campaign (in another sign of a damning bit of evidence pointing to this being official Assemblies funding, there is a separate donation by an Assemblies minister), as well as donations in 2002 for the election of James Talent for Senator. In fact, Talent seems to have had quite the campaign going around him, too; $1250 was raised for his campaign (via two separate PACs) by Assemblies officials--again, including two separate donations amounting to $500 directly from Thomas Trask (the head of the denomination) and a remarkably similar attempt at "double donation" by Tom Sanders of Bradenton, FL (involving two separate donations noted here and here that added up to $1000 in total).
The largesse of the Assemblies doesn't stop there. Not a single Democratic candidate is a target of funding, but an Assemblies missionary is known to have contributed $750 to the Republican National Committee in 2002, as well as a second $250 donation from an Assemblies minister to the National Republical Congressional Committee. In addition, a monster donation of $2500 was given to the Spirit of America Committee (a GOP PAC) by none other than one of the financial consultants for the denomination.
Of note, it's not just been local senatorial candidates that the head of the Assemblies has funded. Dubya himself has been a recipient of Assemblies fundage direct from Thomas Trask himself, per info from the FEC
Individual Assemblies churches are pretty bad about this, too; Robert Schenck, noted for his attempt to "annoint" the halls of the Senate in a neopentecostal hexing, would appear to be a non-negligible contributor to Sam Brownback's election campaign. At least one Brooklyn-area Assemblies pastor was a non-negligible contributor to Bush II's campaign,
Needless to say, if the investigation broadens and similar documentation is requested from the Assemblies as a whole..."problematic" would not begin to describe things. This is, to be blunt, the one thing that could pretty much not only shut down the Assemblies' electioneering engine (and also the similar engine that is being established in the SBC), but could also be the one thing to threaten the tax-exempt status of the Assemblies denomination-wide...including all of its frontgroups.
By far, not the only violations
Whilst being possibly the most blatant violations of tax exemption law documented, this is far from an isolated incident. I've documented in this diary extensively how the Assemblies of God has had an involvement with politics (and specifically, a theocratic theology that dictates it must "name and claim" governmental institutions to convert the country to a theocracy to "secure God's blessing") practically from the beginning; as early as 1980, the claim was made that Jimmy Carter was literally in league with Satan for being a member of the Democratic Party (and similar stunts are documented as early as the 1930s from Aimee Semple McPherson's early televangelist programs on radio).
The Assemblies, and the recently-steeplejacked SBC, are probably the two most egregrious offenders re illegal electioneering violations in churches--so much so that it's actually been recommended to people to monitor these churches in particular for violations of 501(c)3 regs.
The problems aren't restricted to the States, either. In addition to the horror of Guatemala's two neopentecostal dominionist coups--linked to an "Assemblies daughter" named Verbo Ministries--Australia in particular also has problems with this. In fact, in a way, the Assemblies seems to have gone even further in regards to politicking--as they couldn't successfully steeplejack a political party, they proceeded to start their own. (In fact, some of the policies that former Prime Minister Howard promoted were in part to placate the Family Firsters.)
Fortunately, Australia seems to have realised quicker than the US that something was rotten in Denmark--Family First and the multiple fronts of Hillsong A/G in particular have been the subject of some very damning exposes in the Australian press, including ongoing media coverage of Hillsong's attempts to stop press of a book critical of the Assemblies in Australia by a walkaway (by misuse of libel laws; they failed, and the book has gone to press after the author found a new publisher).
All the same, though, there's very similar stuff going on--and there are even now attempts to establish dominionist movements in the UK itself (largely through satellite churches of Hillsong A/G).
Final thoughts (and a commentary re separation of church and state from an unexpected source)
In all of this, I keep thinking back in regards to a wee quip that I recall hearing about. It seems there was a wee bit of debate among the religious authorities of a small nation (which, whilst being technically governed by an occupying foreign government, operated as pretty much an autonomous theocracy other than for purposes of taxes and national defense) over whether it was permissible under religious law to pay poll taxes to the occupying power. (Complicating things is the fact that the country in question had its own tax-protester movement by groups that wanted to re-establish a theocracy and drive the occupying power out altogether.)
The question was asked as to whether payment of poll taxes was a violation of religious law; the comment back was "Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's, and render to God those things that are God's."
Of particular note, this is something that--for all their bibolatry--one would think dominionist groups would be aware of (well, if it weren't for the scripture-twisting rife in these groups).
The commentary above--one of the earliest calls for separation of church and state--was uttered by none other than Jesus Christ and noted in Matthew 22, among other incidents in that book which are (at least according to Christian tradition) supposedly recorded directly by one of Jesus' own students and travelling-companions. This was one of multiple comments to this effect--another incident where he was asked whether he intended to take leadership of the country as king ended with a comment that Jesus' kingdom was not a traditional country but more of a brotherhood of believers (ironically, at trial by the Roman authorities) in John 18, and there are even explicit directives to not prosyletise to people whom do not wish to listen and to not publically breastbeat over how "Christian" one is but to rather let one's own actions show goodness (Matt. 7 and 6 respectively).
Even by the words of the person they consider to be Rambo Christ, dominionists should technically not be trying to mix church and state--faith is better expressed in doing good rather than trying to force others to be good.
To put it in a more succinct tone: One can either work for a temporal kingdom or a spiritual one--not both. You can have your tax exemption and "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"--that is, follow the law in that you stay out of things like prosyletising for and funding candidates--or you can start "rendering unto Caesar" in a completely different fashion, to the tune of back taxes and loss of 501(c)3 exemption.
You can't have it both ways. Either way, you will be "rendering to Caesar"; you have to choose between temporal power or the spiritual realm. Christ himself succinctly noted as much:
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
(Matt. 6:24, RSV.)
If I may be excused for using this parallel (which is especially hilarious from me, seeing as a) the first part of this section sounds a wee bit like it should come from a minister and b) I have not been a practicing Christian for something like fifteen years), I think we may well be at the point we need to start throwing out the proverbial moneychangers from the temple at both ends. And it's going to be a longterm process, certainly--but if either representative government or non-dominionist Christianity are to survive, it has to be done and done yesterday. (Hopefully I gave you folks who are practicing Christians some ammo with the quotes; as for the rest of us, time to start writing your congresscritters to change the tax law to remove the "form 990 loophole" so as to make it easier to throw out "moneychangers in the temple" from the other end too.)