Tax Exemption is the Sword Held Over the Church
R.C. Sproul on Christians and Politics, Part Five
“During a previous presidential election, one of the candidates, John Kerry, appeared at a Baptist church service along with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The ACLU made an issue of it, which brought into question that particular church’s tax-exempt status. In one sense, I applaud those Baptists who had the courage not to make a deal with the IRS, or to let the government tell them whom they can and cannot endorse or what they can and cannot say from the pulpit, because that profoundly undermines the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Tax exemption is the sword held over the church and other nonprofit organizations to keep them from being critical of the government and the government’s policies. That is not a good thing, and I hope as Christians we would be willing to risk our tax write-off for the sake of righteousness. If the only reason we give our tithes and offerings to the church is that it gives us a tax write-off, I guarantee you, God is not pleased with our gift. We are to give those gifts, whether or not the government gives us any break in terms of our taxes.”
R.C. Sproul, Acts: An Expositional Commentary (Sanford: Ligonier Ministries, 2019), 223-224.
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Christians and Politics: Biblical Insights from R.C. Sproul
The Church Militant Has Become the Church Impotent