Money Silences?
According to Peter Kershaw, founder of Heal Our Land Ministries, “Most churches today are legally organized as ‘creatures of the state.’” He calls them “state churches,” and he asserts on his web site, “For all intents and purposes, they can do only what their government masters authorize.”
The web site, features an excerpt from his book, Hushmoney, including a statement attributed to Christian minister D. James Kennedy that during presidential elections, “If you advance the cause of one candidate or impede the cause of the other you can lose your tax exemption. . . . So you are gagged. You cannot do that. The IRS, a branch of our government, has succeeded in gagging Christians (p. 22).”
Kershaw also questions why churches and ministries become 501(c)3 or nonprofit organizations. He says IRS officials secretly “don’t understand why churches wrongly organize themselves as a nonprofit . . . to get tax exemption status, when as a church they already have it!” He further believes that “pastors and ministers have been tricked into believing that they can’t function without the legal blessing of the civil government.”
Kershaw cites ancient Rome as the originator of corporations. “Corporations were the most ubiquitous legal entities in Roman society, used to maintain subservience and government conformance . . . . For the early church to incorporate would have been a public declaration that Caesar was sovereign over Christ — blasphemy! There is virtually no difference between modern corporations and those used by ancient Rome.”
His solution? To break free from government control, buy his books and attend his seminars.
www.hushmoney.org
Canadian Velvet
According to an article in Christianity Today, evangelical Christians in Canada are suffering from what Vancouver civil rights lawyer Iain Benson calls a “velvet oppression.” “Underneath a surface of calm harmony lies an explicitly anti-Christian perspective,” states the article by Toronto journalist Denyse O’Leary. The situation is so desperate that Benson says his strategy in upcoming trials will be to “establish whether religious freedom includes the freedom to live according to traditional religious convictions.”
The article cites several examples of velvet oppression. The Canadian counterpart of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), recently found itself on the side of an evangelical college. The CCLA defended Trinity Western University against a teacher’s union charging that Trinity’s students would be bigoted against homosexuals because of their “traditional Christian teaching. (See the related article “Headed Toward Thought Control” on page 20 of this issue.)
In another dispute, a print shop owner and a mayor were fined ,000 each for violating the rights of homosexuals. Their crimes? Refusing to print stationery “that implied an endorsement of homosexual behavior . . . contrary to [the owner’s] Christian beliefs” and refusing to “declare a Gay Pride Day” for the city.
Also the University of British Columbia Law Review recently “argued that the justices of the Canadian Supreme Court are devaluing the public expression of religion and expanding other civil rights, including those of homosexuals.” A legal expert was quoted as saying, “The view [is] that religion is a private matter, which should not intrude into the public square.” Another said that “religious expression has become so stigmatized that to be publicly identified as a Christian in Canada is a political and social liability.” Stockwell Day, a Canadian Alliance Party member, who ran for prime minister against Liberal Party member Jean Chrétien—and lost—found this to be painfully true. (See “A New Day in Canada” on page 24 of the March/April 2001 issue of Liberty.)
—”A Velvet Oppression,” Christianity Today, Apr. 2, 2001
Conservative Critics
Several conservative leaders have expressed concern about President Bush’s faith-based initiatives. Prominent among them are Christian Coalition leader, televison talk show host, Bush supporter, and erstwhile presidential candidate Pat Robertson. Speaking on his program, The 700 Club, in February, Robertson said, “This thing could be a real Pandora’s box. And what seems to be such a great initiative can rise up to bite the organizations as well as the federal government.”
Robertson’s main concern seemed to center on the groups that might take advantage of the funds.
According to a Washington Post article, Robertson listed the Unification Church, the Hare Krishnas, and the Church of Scientology, “groups outside the religious mainstream,” as problematic. “I hate to find myself on the side of the Anti-Defamation League and others, but this . . . gets to be a real problem,” he said.
Robertson isn’t the only conservative troubled by what could happen. Marvin Olasky, a “longtime Bush advisor on matters of faith”; Michael Horowitz, a Hudson Institute scholar; and Terhence Scanlon, of the Capital Research Center, have publicly expressed concerns.
In response to their concerns, Bush asked John J. DiIulio, Jr., head of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, to address the concerns in a speech before the National Association of Evangelicals convention in Dallas on March 7.
A second article called the objections by conservatives “unexpected.” As a result of the criticisms being raised, the White House is “considering allowing [religious charities unable to separate the religious and secular components] . . . to receive government funds through vouchers . . .[whereby] . . . the funds would be allocated to the person receiving the care, not the organization providing it.”
—Washington Post, Feb. 22 and Mar. 7, 2001
New Religion and Government Center Established
A new study center at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, will focus on religion and government. The Center on Religion and Government will sponsor academic study and symposiums on religious freedom issues and will provide practical training for religious liberty leaders, according to a news item from Adventist News Network. The center, which was established in the last quarter of 2000, will also work closely with the History Department at the university in designing a new master’s program and a certificate program in the field of religion and government relations. Two conferences, one focusing on proselytism, the other on religion in China, are being planned for this year. Andrews University is a liberal arts school operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is also home to the church’s theological seminary.
ANN World News Bulletin
Conference Addresses Intolerance and Discrimination
“Your conference addresses an issue that is close to the heart of the government of Bermuda,” said Bermuda premier Jennifer Smith to a 120-strong delegation at the International Religious Liberty Association’s Bermuda Conference held in Hamilton, March 14-16 of this year. “That issue is discrimination and how to overcome it. For religious liberty is denied where discrimination flourishes. Religious liberty withers where prejudice has taken root. And religious liberty is threatened when small minds close themselves off to the variety of beliefs, traditions, and races that make up many modern multicultural societies.”
United Nations ambassador Joseph Verner Reed also spoke to the delegates, saying that the conference “touched on a burning issue.”
“As you take up at this conference the important issue of ‘Religious Freedom: An Answer to Discrimination and Intolerance’ you touch upon a burning issue in today’s interdependent world, an issue that increasingly defines the framework in which global civilization interacts,” said Ambassador Reed, who is UN under secretary general.
“The conference was a great opportunity to promote issues of religious freedom at the highest level,” commented Liberty magazine editor Lincoln Steed, who attended. “More than ever we need to make sure that these vital subjects are publicized in an increasingly polarized world where religious freedoms are frequently violated.”
The IRLA conference delegates included religious freedom experts from Russia, Spain, France, Korea, Ivory Coast, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The IRLA is a nondenominational organization founded in 1893 to advocate religious freedom and has correspondents and local chapters around the world. For more information visit www.irla.org.
|
TOP LEVEL
Past Issues
Printer-friendly page
Send this page to a friend