Most Christian churches are registered as 501(c)3 non-profit organizations and receive a tax exempt status by the government. They do not pay taxes but must abstain from devoting a substantial part of their activity to influencing legislation and intervening in or contributing to political campaigns. In addition to this, church leaders may only make partisan comments if they do so as a reflection of their personal opinions and cannot make such comments through church publications or at official church functions.

From time to time Christian churches endanger their tax exempt status by speaking strongly for or against some particular issue that has a partisan bent. Occasionally these allegations are actually investigated though though this usually only happen when Christian churches speak out <em>against</em> the prevailing political or cultural winds. Quite honestly, investigations should probably happen a lot more than they do as I have seen many Christian churches blatantly violate these requirements with no repercussions.

While these issues probably deserve more discussion, these are ultimately moot points to me because I believe all Christian churches should lose their tax exempt status. It is not that believe the IRS should revoke the status 501(c)3 status of Christian churches, it is that I believe it is categorically impossible to take the teachings of Jesus seriously and obey the requirements laid out by the IRS at the same time. While much could be said around this issue there are two primary reasons I believe this.

First, Jesus Christ made absolute claims to Lordship. Numerous statements made by Jesus and other New Testament authors proclaim that Jesus is Lord over <em>everything</em>.  Jesus did not claim some selective or private authority, whereby He was only concerned with or Lord over the personal, spiritual or moral dimensions of His follower's lives.  Jesus claimed to be Lord over everything. If Jesus is taken in any way seriously, no Church can suggest their members <em>only</em> owe Jesus their spiritual affections and their intellectual assent to specific doctrines and that Jesus and His teachings can be safely ignored on all other matters. Either Jesus is seen as the absolute Lord over the entire world and Lord over all aspects of the of the lives of His followers or the followers of Jesus must admit that they are ignoring some of Jesus’ own words and claims made about Him in the Bible.

Second, the claims of Jesus and His teachings had and have social and political implications. Jesus did not just encourage His followers to pursue personal piety but to pursue justice. Jesus did not just teach on morality but also on ethics. Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies, that we are to take care of the poor and the marginalized, and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  While it is true that many of these teachings can be taken seriously at a personal level, with no involvement in politics whatsoever, there are some issues that are primarily or exclusively handled in our contemporary society through politics and legislation.  How could a Church take Jesus' teachings seriously and and not have a strong opinion on things such as  homelessness, economic exploitation in capitalism, environmental injustice, Welfare, Medicaid, universal health care and immigration reform?  In addition to this, some of these issues may require political or legislative reform to address.  For example, volunteering to feed the homeless at a soup kitchen is certainly taking care of the poor, but if you want to end poverty you will need to get involved in local, national and global politics.

In this situation, how could a Christian church ever hope to abide by the requirements laid out by the IRS? How could one expect Christian churches to follow Jesus and not devote time pursuing legislation?  How could one expect Christian leaders , whose job in part entails espousing the teaching and ideals of Jesus, to not speak about partisan issues in an official capacity or at an official function? I am not advocating for the Christian church aligning At the end of the day I do not think a Christian church could obey Jesus and the IRS at the same time without seriously compromising and ignoring much of what Jesus taught and claimed.  I am of the opinion that if a Christian church claims Jesus to be God and the Bible to be authoritative, it should Jesus claims absolute Lordship over everything, not just over the private or spiritual aspects of His follower’s lives.  Jesus claims and teachings have political implications and therefore following Jesus will always be an inherently political endeavor.

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