So I take it you're a big opponent to the separation of church and state, and you think the government and religion should be one in the same. Got it.
What? No? Well, that's what you're advocating.
There is no surer way to destroy the free exercise of religion (or anything else, for that matter) than to tax it. There is an old Arabian proverb that, even though they didn't know it at the time, was written about the US Federal Government. It states: "If the camel gets his nose in the tent, the rest of him will soon follow." Do you really want Congress legislating how and what people can worship? Do you? DO YOU?!?
Oh, sure, Congress is prohibited from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or impeding the free exercise of religion, but as the Supreme Court once noted, the power to tax involves the power to destroy. Once the government gets its nose in the tent, the destruction of the free exercise of religion is soon to follow.
My views on God, and my views on religion and the free exercise thereof, and my views on whether the government should be involved with it, are three separate issues. I certainly can't wrap my head around the notion offered from someone who is, for lack of a better phrase, anti-religion, but wants the government intimately involved in religion.
There are three primary economic sectors of our society:
Public - government labors for essential services
Private - labors for profit
Civil - non-profit which labors for the social good
Non-profits are a critical portion of the economy. Schools, museums, churches, hospitals, homeless aid, disaster relief, all would all pretty much go out of business. The government would have to take over those roles. And they would. In a disaster, who would you rather come to your aid, the Red Cross or FEMA? When it comes to religion, would you rather choose for yourself what and how to exercise your beliefs, or would you prefer to let the government decide for you?
Ever since our founding, churches have been exempt from both state and federal taxes. Actually, tax exemptions go back a lot further than that, and it didn't have anything at all to do with small rural churches comprised of good honest people. The first recorded tax exemption for churches was during the Roman Empire, when Constantine, Emperor of Rome from 306-337, granted the Christian church a complete exemption from all forms of taxation in the year 312 A.D. He did it to create a separation of church and state. Constantine was a Christian and didn't like the way the government was involving itself in the church, so when he became Emperor he fixed that problem.
As for Joel Osteen's "enormous wealth," no, I'm not jealous of him at all.
