Lawmaker Hopes to Open Churches to Political Speech

[Tony]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156264,00.html ...full article

WASHINGTON — As one pastor resigned this week amid a firestorm over the role of politics in his Baptist church, a U.S. congressman continues to try to make it easier for religious leaders and their congregations to engage in partisan political activity on the church's time and dime.

Rev. Chan Chandler (search) resigned his post as pastor of the Waynesville Baptist Church (search) in North Carolina on Tuesday after nine members accused him of leading other members to push them out because they didn't agree with his pro-Republican views.

Chandler has denied claims that the nine were voted out because of their political views, but his detractors said they were tired of his politically-flavored sermons and claimed that he was intent on politicizing the church, even calling on members who supported Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election to "repent or resign."

I can't say I'm 100% against this. Setting aside the free speech issue, I think, in the long term, this would work to divide the american church more than anything. Thoughts?

 

[Cleon]

If they want churches to be involved in the political process, fine.

Then let them pay their admission price like everyone else--tax them. Hell, just taxing the Catholic Church on real estate alone would probably balance the budget, pay for the war in Iraq, and save Social Security.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I have no objections to churches getting involved in politics all they want. However, if they are going to become political advocacy groups, they should be treated as political advocacy groups, they should be taxed, subject to campaign finance laws, etc.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Hmmm. If churches get all involved in politics, does that mean they have to stop pushing the teaching of Creationism in public schools, because it would be political indoctrination of the young?

 

[crimresearch]

More likely that it would be used to argue for more church involvement in schools...door partway open and all that..

 

[Kodiak]

If they want churches to be involved in the political process, fine.

Then let them pay their admission price like everyone else--tax them. Hell, just taxing the Catholic Church on real estate alone would probably balance the budget, pay for the war in Iraq, and save Social Security.

Sooooooooo True! The archdiocese of Detroit owns some of metro Detroit's finest land holdings.

 

[kimiko]

I can't say I'm 100% against this. Setting aside the free speech issue, I think, in the long term, this would work to divide the american church more than anything. Thoughts?

It could be a way to test the hypothesis that religious involvement in politics leads to decreased religious involvement within the society.

I agree with Cleon and Nyarlathotep's points.

 

[DaChew]

Sooooooooo True! The archdiocese of Detroit owns some of metro Detroit's finest land holdings.

How about Mariner church right next to the Ren Cen and the tunnel to Canada. What's that got to be worth?

 

[Kodiak]

How about Mariner church right next to the Ren Cen and the tunnel to Canada. What's that got to be worth?

And continues to this day for example...

 

[Luke T.]

Re: Re: Lawmaker Hopes to Open Churches to Political Speech

It could be a way to test the hypothesis that religious involvement in politics leads to decreased religious involvement within the society.

It's already been tested.

I am fully convinced that this extraordinary and incidental cause is the close connection of politics and religion. The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut but the bonds that restrain it, and it will rise once more.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1832

 

[Tony]

Re: Re: Re: Lawmaker Hopes to Open Churches to Political Speech

It's already been tested.





Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1832

Your frequent referencing of that book has convinced me that I should read it.

 

[Luke T.]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawmaker Hopes to Open Churches to Political Speech

Your frequent referencing of that book has convinced me that I should read it.

I think everyone should read it.

Especially Pat Robertson. And every Iraqi.

 

[kimiko]

It's already been tested.

I think it was in a thread here that someone mentioned how we can't be certain the phenomenon in Europe wasn't due to other factors. No one's going to test it on their country for the sake of social science, but if it happens that way here and the results are the same, we'd have established causal validity. Now I'm kind of hoping churches can become politically active...what an interesting experiment!