Ep. 406: How the U.S. Government Can Stop non-Churches From Being Treated Like Churches

MinistryWatch Podcast

Christian ministries and other non-profit organizations have played a huge, positive role in American culture. If you don’t believe me, just read Benjamin Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Bellah, Rodney Stark, Arthur Brooks…the list goes on. Because of the positive influence in our culture, our laws encourage their work. They are not required to pay taxes on revenue, and donors to them get tax advantages as well. In exchange for these advantages, we ask only a couple of things: First, that they actually do the good work they promise to do, and – secondly – that they disclose enough details about their work so that the donor public can confirm that. That disclosure is a Form 990, which all tax-exempt bodies except churches must file with the federal government.

However, churches are exempt from that requirement. That exemption makes some sense, since most churches are small and all of the donors to a local church were members of the church. Today, however, we live in an era of mega churches that are often the center of an ecosystem of related entities – both profit and non-profit. We also have religious advocacy groups that are claiming to be churches even though they don’t have regular services, don’t ordain clergy, don’t marry or bury their members, don’t do anything that we think of as the normal activity of a church. This state of affairs have led some – including those of us here at MinistryWatch – to believe that we need a new regimen of regulations and laws that update those written in another era.

Sharing some of these views is Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. He and his coauthor Ellen Aprill have written a new paper outlining changes that need to happen to fix – or at least to bring a bit more up to date – the current situation.

Links to articles mentioned in today’s program.

https://ministrywatch.com/law-professor-advocates-changing-irs-definition-of-church-association-of-churches/

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4346286

https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-government-can-stop-churches-from-getting-treated-like-real-churches-by-the-irs-237922

That brings to a close my interview with Dr. Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. We’ll have links to the articles we discussed today in the show notes for today’s program.

The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. I’m your host Warren Smith. Until next time, may God bless you.