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Sept. 29, 2004 Every week, millions of people of faith attend services at churches, synagogues, temples and mosques. Believers go there to commune with God and to seek to become better persons. When you enter these places of worship, you experience a touch of the divine, you feel at one with your deity of choice, and you feel a kinship with your fellow human beings. Then there are the mega-churches, most of them of the evangelical variety, that inspire not faith, but sectarian zealotry and conservative activism. When you enter these auditoriums, you experience a touch of Hollywood, you feel at one with your God-annointed pastor, and you feel a disdain for those who don't share your fundamentalist views. Jerry Falwell is the pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, the Mecca of Christian fundamentalism. Blueprints for the next home of Falwell's church include a 6,000-seat auditorium equipped for large-scale theater productions. This is appropriate because Falwell is a showman who presides over political rallies that are leavened with a little bit of the Old Time Gospel. When you are in Thomas Road Baptist Church, you are not inspired to make a sign of the cross or put your hands together in a sign of prayer -- instead you feel like waving a "Bush/Cheney 2004" placard. In this presidential election year, Falwell is brazenly urging evangelical churches to evade or defy tax law and support Republican candidates. Federal tax law explicitly prohibits this. Under the Internal Revenue Code, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organizations -- including churches -- may not endorse or oppose candidates for political office. Falwell knows darn well that this type of politicking by churches is against the law. His "Old Time Gospel Hour" was found to have engaged in unlawful campaign intervention by the IRS in 1993. The ministry's tax exemption was revoked for 1986 and 1987, and he was required to pay $50,000 in back taxes. Apparently the fine wasn't enough to persuade Falwell not to break the law, this time the IRS should fine him $50 million. Falwell isn't the only evangelical preacher trolling for votes for the Republican party, who has run afoul of the law. In 1998, televangelist Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network lost its tax exemption retroactively for two years and was required to pay a hefty sum in back taxes. Why do televangelists have a penchant for breaking the law? Mergers of church and state are an unholy alliance that always end up besmirching religion. A church can't go wrong preaching Jesus; not everyone agrees on the divinity of Jesus Christ, but everyone concurs that he was a holy, upright, moral, courageous and ethical spiritual leader. Nobody will ever turn up any dirt on Jesus, but a church can end up with egg on its face if the political leader it endorses turns out to be a tax cheat, womanizer or child molester. To remain law-abiding and to maintain their independence, integrity and spiritual viability, America's churches, temples and synagogues must stay out of politics. Churches should eschew politics and preach morality and ethics -- values that transcend partisan politics. It should be Falwell's own congregation, and not this liberal freethinker, advising him to get out of politics. People should enter Thomas Road wishing to learn about Jesus Christ and his ministry of compassion, and not about George W. Bush and his ultra-conservative platform. If Falwell is bored preaching the Gospel, then I suggest that instead of meddling in politics, he lose some weight and become a pitchman for Jenny Craig. The rotund reverend would cause a hell of a lot less harm urging people to lose weight instead of browbeating them to vote for Bush. ------------ About the author Robert Paul Reyes: I am a columnist for the Lynchburg Ledger. Email: rreyes4966@aol.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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