Tax the churches

[wnylib]

21. The Swedish system is laudable.

Now look at the US. We can't even get Congress to agree on saving Social Security. If we had a reliable political system in the US for public social needs, then we might establish a system like Sweden's. But last I looked, we have political parties with extreme opposing views on social well being so that the viability of social programs depends on who is in political control. Already Republicans have blocked the child welfare credits that Biden started for low income families. So the reality is that we live in the US, not Sweden. You speak in theoretics. Meantime, the reality of social needs continues to exist in the US.

It is not a matter of Christians patting themselves on their backs for charity works. It is a matter of living up to what the religion teaches. Most people who criticize and condemn all churches haven't a clue to the extent of services that churches provide because 1) the churches are not bragging about all that they do, and 2) the critics have such contempt for religion that they don't bother to learn what actually goes on in many of the churches that are not part of right wing America.

Your Nazi claim reveals gross ignorance of what went on in Nazi Germany and what goes on in most Christian churches today. When the Nazi party infiltrated German churches to get their own leaders in control of church councils and hierarchy, the Nazis established the nationalist (Nazi) German Christian Church. This caused a split in the churches between those that went along with the Nazi propaganda and those who broke away to establish the "Confessing Church." The Confessing Church opposed Nazism and went underground to ordain their own ministers, teach against Nazi actions and ideas, and form rescue operations for people at risk of Nazi arrest for political views, religious views, Jewish roundups, etc. The two main branches of Christianity that were involved in that breakaway church were the Reformed Churches (Presbyterians and other Calvinists) and the German Evangelical Church (Lutherans). Evangelical in Germany did NOT mean what it does in American churches today. In Germany, it was a broad term for Protestants in general, as opposed to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

Some of those pastors spoke boldly from their pulpits in denouncing Nazism and were sent to concentration camps where they died. A few survived.

I am actively involved in 3 local churches, but am officially a member of just one of them. They have been preaching against the right wing propaganda of race replacement theory. Their members are involved in racial coalition groups and activities. They held Pride services conducted by members of the LGBTQ community and have members, ordained and lay persons, who are from those communities. They take these positions as a matter of faith, not politics, to include all people who want to be part of the church and on behalf of social justice.

But some people have had bad experiences with a church in childhood, so they dedicate their lives to condemning ALL churches based on their personal experience. Others are contemptuous of religion because they do not share the beliefs. They oppose religions that try to force their beliefs onto others, which I (and many other Christians) agree with them about. But then the religion critics become like the people they oppose when they try to impose their view of religion on everyone.

Religions are not and should not be isolated from criticism. But it is intellectually lazy, not to mention dishonest and ignorant, to use sweeping generalizations in claiming that ALL churches are the same in their operations and views about current issues.