Politicking from the Pulpit
Governor Greg Abbott knows what’s wrong with America.
It’s that whole separation of church and state thing.
Greg and Ted Nugent, Christians
In an exclusive interview with The Brody File in Austin, Texas Governor Greg Abbott says America will continue to deteriorate unless pastors get involved in the cultural issues of the day. “The people who attend these congregations or pastor these congregations do not turn out and vote and we are dealing with the consequences by the failure of Christians to go vote.”
Yeah, not enough politicking from the pulpit.
What this country needs are more preachers willing to tell their congregation that Democrats are hell bound infidels who want to give your tax money to little crippled children but you should give it to me instead so I can buy another mansion.
Religious liberty from the Bible is in the issues that Christians believe in have become hostile in the mainstream politics and there is one key reason for it and that’s because the people who attend these congregations or pastor these congregations do not turn out and vote and we are dealing with the consequences by the failure of Christians to go vote.”
Hey Tootles, it got your butt elected.
And, Greg, where does your good buddy, Ted Nugent, fit into all this?
Greg can kiss my big blue butt.
Thanks to Kyle for the heads up.
It’s time to tax the churches
1Pastors should be involved with cultural issues. They should fight against poverty and racism and violence. They do not need to control the government in order to do so.
2I agree with Cheryl–it is time and past time.
There are many churches doing the charitable work that is the reason or excuse for their tax exemption.
But there are as many or more “ministries” that are out and out rackets.
3Hey, if churches were more generous with their political advice, we could reduce the deficit with the taxes we could collect.
4The only church I would go to would be one where the pastor drives a 63 Dodge Dart.
5Oh and by the way that last comment from the pastor that you quoted is a word salad worthy of a golden Palin award award.
One of the stickers on my car’s bumper says “The last time we mixed politics and religion, people got burned at the stake.”
Churches that advocate a political position or tell people how to vote should lose their tax-exempt status NOW. Frankly none of them should be tax-exempt. The government should not be deciding which “churches” are legit, and as John Oliver is demonstrating, it’s easy to scam the government with a fake one.
If I can’t claim a tax exemption for a donation to any organization that seeks to influence the government, neither should they.
6And Loopy Louie was the guest pastor at Green Acres Baptist church this past Sunday in Tyler…sigh…
7Is it possible that Greg Abbot is going to make us long for the salad days of Rick Perry or the wisdom of George W. Bush? Heck, Perry seems like Solomon compared to this guy….
The honest problem with Christians being politically active from the pulpit is that the teachings of the church end up canceling out themselves politically. That’s because Jesus wasn’t a political animal. He said to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Any true Christian would operate independently of the political world.
My parish decided to get involved with politics about 20 years ago. They told us which candidates to vote for. Not coincidentally, those candidates were all anti-abortion. The problem is that the teachings of the church clearly state that we should respect life all the way up the line. That means no death penalty and no wars of choice. No doubt those candidates supported the death penalty and the War in Iraq (the first one). I can’t judge those candidates on being hypocritical because most Pro-choice candidates are anti-death penalty. It just a simple fact that no candidate will line up exactly with the teachings of your church. So, any responsible voter takes their conscience and takes the issues most near and dear to them and go from there.
8Tax them!
9Yes, Cheryl and Rhea! It is truly long past time to tax these so-called religious entities who engage in politics from the pulpit.
10Appraise the Lord!
11Why oh why can’t the Feds enforce the law?
The rampant flaunting of the tax code by these pay to pray drive thru shrines to the greenback has been going on for years and yet no churches have lost their tax exempt status or had their boards tossed into leavenworth for tax fraud.
Clive Bundy draws down on federal officials trying to enforce land use and he gets off free as a bird. Hell the feds don’t even seize his bank accounts or property to pay down his debt.
Election finance laws are just a waste of paper since they are never enforced.
Bush cheney admin made the mafia envious of their criminial audacity and not only are they not in jail but they are still accepted in polite society.
A notion of crimes winked at by those in power who reserve the right to selectively enforce some laws when they choose to punish political foes.
Either erase the laws or enforce them.
Either take down the bundy crime family or declare all federal land open to free exploitation.
Either prosecute criminial churches or religions ( isn’t that redundant since they are all scam artists sucking the blood and money out the gullible, fearful, ignorant and bigoted) or give everybody tax free status.
Either jail jebs operation for flaunting election laws or just eliminate elections and put all the offices up to bid on the auction block.
Either throw the bush administration into a superman or just repeal all laws about bribery ( cheeky halliburton ,Oil) assault ( shooting friend) war oh just start one any where anytime and the dodo’s will gladly march off since they are there only to “obey orders” no matter how fouls or criminal.
12All those Fundys out there gettin’ all warm and fuzzy should wake up. Abbott is Catholic, he really means Priests not Pastors. You done been infiltrated.
13DOJ/IRS needs evidence that politics from the pulpit is being done. So whip out your smartphone and video it while it happens, then forward the file with time, date and location to the IRS. The pastor will get a note in the mail from the IRS revoking his tax exempt status. That will open a few eyes. The politicing pastor won’t be able to blink for a week or more.
14No phones allowed in my church during services. Thats how these guys run the show.
15W.C (Pete), a couple of years ago a bunch of pastors held an endorsathon — they flat out announced ahead of time that they were going to stand in the pulpit that Sunday and tell their followers who to vote for (guess who), and dared the IRS to do jack about it. Sure enough, the IRS did jack about it. So I don’t have a lot of hope that forwarding a video will do any good.
16Republican opposition to abortion is a cynical ploy to get the endorsement of churches, which they do. The priests I have heard preach that we should vote against abortion, which of course means republican. All other considerations are ignored.
17Taxes for churches should be heavy and retroactive from the beginning of time. Call it a sin tax because you know damn well those sinners sinned.
18Pete–
One vid would not get noticed, but 50 might do the trick.
Maggie–
19Google glasses?
I was outraged when the IRS allowed Tea Party groups to side step paying taxes by claiming they were providing a “public service”… hopefully in the future the IRS will have reworked it’s rules regarding this. I recall in the 70’s when I lived in Germany and participated in a large German-American group that raised money for charity: when the earnings reached a set amount, I think it was around $200K, the rest was taxed. Period. This is a very good plan. We should do that, as applied to these bloviated mega churches.
20Dice, now that a hell of an idea!
21Not all churches “seek to influence the government.” The ones that don’t usually do more of the work for the poor, homeless, sick, disabled, imprisoned.
Given that the government where it’s GOP controlled isn’t spending its tax income helping the poor, sick, homeless, disabled, imprisoned because they’re all losers who should just die if they can’t succeed without help…how much good would it do to tax churches and give more money to the GOP?
It would make sense to remove the tax relief from churches that tell members how to vote (mine does not.) It would not make sense to remove tax relief from churches that serve large numbers of those the government doesn’t just fail to serve but deliberately _refuses_ to serve while giving concessions and direct financial support to corporations that are already rich. They would then be unable to help as much as they do, and might disappear from cities entirely. In downtown Austin, the church where I sing has a robust urban ministry (as did the one I attended in San Antonio) providing a variety of services year-round both in the church buildings and off site. If the church were taxed out of existence, another high-rise hotel or high-cost housing tower would go into that space–a building from which the poor would be excluded, and from which no help would come.
22” . . . when the earnings reached a set amount . . . the rest was taxed. Period.”
Thanks for that info Linda. I think that’s a great plan. The little rural churches would be largely unaffected (They’d probably love to see enough money to be taxed.), while the mega churches would pay a decent share. Yup, I like it.
23Elizabeth: ITA. The churches I’ve attended are the same. And any “politicking” is for social justice issues: for the poor, the young, the old, the earth (environment), those on the fringes of society, those oppressed (LGBT, racial minorities), etc. None of the pastors tell us how to vote, nor do they have expensive houses, cars, yachts or jets or paid extravagantly. And members serve their communities in many ways through time and $, and buildings are used for Head Start, food banks, food kitchens, and land for growing food with community folks encouraged to participate, no questions asked.
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