Exempting the Churches Part 2

Not satisfied with example, Jesus is quoted as setting forth the principle specifically and unequivocally in plain words. The representatives of Judaism put the question to him plainly. "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" There could be no dodging the issue. They who inquired of him stood for the church of his period, the church which he himself recognized as such. "They were intrusted,"

said Paul, "with the oracles of G.o.d." Jesus himself referred to their temple as the house of G.o.d, and indignantly drove from its precincts the traders who sought to commercialize the sacred enclosure. It was his custom to attend the synagogue, and occasionally to take an active part in the service. If the ministers of sacred things are rightfully exempt from taxation, the Jewish nation, const.i.tuting as a whole a priesthood to G.o.d, as the channel of his revelation to man, might surely, from the standpoint of the faithful Bible believer, claim that exemption. Nor were indications wanting that they themselves felt so, and looked upon it as blasphemy to a.s.sert the contrary. In the hope to fasten a charge of either blasphemy on the one hand, or sedition on the other, on the wandering teacher, they eagerly awaited his answer. When it came, it was unanswerable. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's." Caesar was the lord of the coinage which bore his "image and superscription," G.o.d of the thoughts of their hearts and their private lives. Hence, the former rightfully laid claim to the tribute which enabled the public treasury to carry on not only the work of the coinage, but all other public works of a secular character; while the latter would hold them in the end accountable for their failure to obey his commandments, summed up in the injunction to "love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself."

The difference between the Pharisees, to whom Jesus laid down the law in favor of the payment of honest taxes, and the churches, who are called upon to-day to perform this elementary civic obligation, lies simply in the greater impudence of the latter. The interlocutors of Jesus, says the text, "marveled, and left him, and went away." It is not stated that they proceeded to mend their ways, and to become honest; but they at least had the decency not to attempt to bluff themselves out of a false position. Confronted with the same issue, the churches of our time reject the commands of their alleged lord and master, and consult only their own greed of profit. They will cheat both Caesar and G.o.d out of what is due. That which they themselves hypocritically pretend to adore as the word of G.o.d they spit on in their actual performance, by deliberate disobedience. In spite of the almost unlimited capacity of human nature to deceive itself, it is practically incredible that they can seriously believe in the puerile sophistry by which they seek to conjure up pretexts for stealing the public revenues. The one plain reason is that they want the money, and are not honest enough to do their duty to the state which shelters and fosters them. They know this perfectly well, however glib they may be in trying to persuade the credulous that in cheating the community out of part of its revenues they are actuated only by the highest and holiest motives, and that the fact that they happen to be beneficiaries of the steal is merely an irrelevant coincidence. It is possible that there are still marines, to whom such a tale can be told.

In justice to sincere believers in Christianity, who do not make their piety a cloak for greed and dishonesty, it should be stated that a conscientious minority in the churches has consistently accepted the principle of religious liberty and of equal justice and has steadily protested against every infringement of the secular principle, even when the abuse seemed to favor their own interests.

AMERICA'S FIRST SECULARIST.

The first great voice raised on these sh.o.r.es for the complete separation of church and state was that of the Baptist preacher Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony, which as a state has proved in the latter days one of the worst traitors to the spirit of democratic justice. While the Baptist church as a whole has become no more loyal to religious freedom than any other, and has thus cheaply and basely surrendered its once glorious heritage, it has always embosomed individual members who could not forget that the founders of their sect suffered persecution to the death for proclaiming full freedom of conscience, and for declaring that the state could not lawfully meddle with affairs of religion. The Rev. Dr. Alvah Hovey, for many years head of the famous Newton (Ma.s.s.) Theological Seminary, wrote more than one book in which the principles of Secularism were proclaimed in full measure from the standpoint of orthodox religion, and enforced by numberless arguments drawn from the Bible and from theological lore. The relatively small sect of Seventh Day Adventists is constantly active in fighting for the complete separation of church and state, maintaining with ardor that Christianity stands in no need of patronage from human government. Indeed, it is amazing that any Christian, who is not playing a part, but truly believes in the divine origin of his faith, can come to any other conclusion. If the church is of G.o.d, it will live and conquer, though all men forsake it, and needs not the feeble prop of political favor; if it is of man, and must therefore risk failure unless bolstered up by artificial aid and by state subsidy, there is no reason why anybody not directly interested in its prosperity should wish to preserve it. Whether of G.o.d or of man, it is in no legitimate sense the ward of the state. In recent years, numerous church members are beginning to have some inkling of these truths, and to express their willingness to renounce the adulterous union with the politicians.

At the hearings before the Committee on Taxation of the New York Const.i.tutional Convention, in June, 1915, for example, preachers and laymen, representatives of individual churches and of Men's Christian clubs, appeared in favor of abolishing the exemption from taxation enjoyed by the churches. They did so, not as enemies of the church, but as its most far-sighted friends. Thoroughly believing in its divine mission, they were convinced that it could not afford to make itself dependent on graft for its very life.

THE GENUINE SHOULD BE CONSCIENTIOUS.

From the Christian standpoint, the argument against church exemption is as unanswerable as that from the standpoint of the independent citizen.

A sham Christian, to whom the church is a means of getting ahead in the world, and whose profession of faith is a cloak to cover his greed and egotism, or a means of purchasing popularity and business success at any easy rate, may find it natural to carry over into his religious life the spirit of commercialism with which he gouges his fellowmen every day in his business relations. It is only natural that such a one should be impatient of any attempt to introduce ethical considerations into a question of self-advantage; for to him it is axiomatic that any way of getting money without being arrested is good enough for himself and therefore good enough for the church, honesty being merely a question of keeping out of the clutches of the police. He is so ignorant of the very elements of morality that he does not even know that he is a hypocrite, and that the kind of thing which stands for religion to him is as worthless as the cheap varnish which const.i.tutes his imaginary respectability. To such as he, church exemption is justified by the fact that the church is clever enough to get away with it. A genuine believer in the Christian revelation, however, will wish the church, as its divinely commissioned repository, to "keep itself unspotted from the world." He will insist that, so far from seeking its private advantage by questionable means, which may by casuistry be made to appear defensible, it shall conceive of itself as "a city set on a hill," which "cannot be hid," and shall, in all things and at any sacrifice, let its "light shine before men," that by reason of its good works and spotless character it may prove that it is of G.o.d, and not of men. In case of doubt, he will demand that it refuse to set an example whereby the weakest observer may be caused to stumble.

With a keener jealousy for its purity than that ascribed to the ancient Roman, who declared that "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion," he will insist that it avoid the very appearance of evil. Such a believer will never be found in the halls of legislation, howling for the loaves and fishes, and asking that a secular state stultify itself by stealing money from its individual taxpayers, in order to subsidize the proselytism of the sects. And a church composed of such sincere believers will not give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme by evading its obligations through shallow quibbles about its moral influence in the community, but will prefer to give a practical demonstration of its boasted moral quality by willingly paying its honest debts.

THE CHURCH HARMED BY GRAFT.

Like all false principles, the habit of accepting a subsidy from the state does not fail to bring harm to the church itself, as the intelligent and high-minded among its friends are beginning to realize.

It is not with impunity that an individual or inst.i.tution adopts parasitism as a basic condition of existence. At the New York hearing already referred to the Rev. Charles T. Terry, pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church of New York City, did not hesitate to aver that the removal of the exemption graft would kill many churches. A divinely ordained inst.i.tution is indeed in a parlous state when it has no shame in confessing that it is dependent for its very life on the favor of the politicians, its G.o.d having totally forsaken it. Such an organization is better dead. If the alleged divine head of the church is not able or willing to preserve it, in accordance with his emphatic promise, "even unto the end of the world," it is plain either that his promises are spurious, and hence the whole Christian fabric rests upon imposture and deserves to perish; or that the church which fails for lack of divine aid is a pretender and not the real body of believers whom he is pledged never to forsake. Let those so-called Christians, who cling frantically to the legislature instead of to Christ for the preservation of the agency for preaching his gospel, take which horn of the dilemma they please.

Every form of union with the state has not merely made of the church an instrument of oppression by reason of its preferred position and the artificial power thus conferred on it, but has been poison to the church itself. Its political alliance invariably sullies whatever primitive purity it may be believed to possess. No person having faith in its spiritual mission and anxiety to see it kept "unspotted from the world"

and faithful to its "high calling" can fail to oppose every "entangling alliance" which may tend to corrupt it in even the smallest degree. In theory, the church should be purged of all motives of self-interest, and devoted solely to the good of mankind. Exemption from taxation and the lobbying necessary to maintain this special privilege infallibly defeat its alleged aims. In the scramble for political favors, it learns the tricks of "practical politics" at the expense of the unselfish devotion by which alone it could justify its claims to spiritual leadership.

It gains material wealth at the cost of its own higher purpose. It unconsciously learns to regard money as the chief object of attainment, and to compromise its sterner principles for self-advantage. "_Facilis descensus Averno_" is the motto over its downward path.

ARMING CHURCH OPPONENTS.

Even if the church could, by some miracle which has never yet been vouchsafed to it, retain its purity of character while remaining the recipient of state graft, the crippling of its influence would continue.

If it wishes to win the world to its gospel, it does ill to put the most potent of arguments in the mouths of its enemies. Let Christians make no mistake on this point. So long as the church continues to mulct the taxpayers for its own profit through the exemption of its property from taxation, it will be held by the mult.i.tude to give the lie to its own professions; and it will drive thousands of earnest seekers for truth away from its doors. We do not go to a thief for lessons in the higher morality. If rejection of the Christian message means the loss of immortal souls, their destruction lies on the heads of those representatives of Christianity who prize a few dollars stolen from the people at a higher rate than the privilege of coming forward with clean hands, and being listened to with respect and in a teachable spirit by those whose ears are now sealed against the admission of the gospel message by their unconquerable distrust and contempt for those who come with lessons of moral and spiritual uplift, but whose hands are tainted by the acceptance of graft from politicians who never give without expecting an equivalent in return. In receiving this dishonest money the church is not only guilty of an immoral act, but is legitimately subject to many suspicions of unworthy conduct of which it may be innocent, but which it has debarred itself from being in a position to refute. It has thus tied its own hands with reference to its real work of benefiting the spiritual natures of human beings. Whether the teachings of Christianity are true or false, the adulterous union of church and state creates a reasonable and just bias against them, and prevents them from having a fair hearing. Those who believe that the eternal salvation of mankind hangs on the acceptance of these teachings are, from their own standpoint, incurring a fearful responsibility in placing so huge a stumbling-block in the way of inquiring minds. They have no reply, and can only hang their heads in shame, when we outsiders sharply demand what value a religion can have for mankind if it cannot breed common honesty even in the inst.i.tution which embodies it and which has no other function than to spread its teachings.

CHIEF DEFENSE OF CHURCH SUBSIDIES.

Since no corrupt condition has ever wanted for apologists, it is not surprising that self-interest has prompted many voluble spokesmen for the churches to cast about for plausible arguments in favor of a system by which they fatten on avoidance of responsibility. While most of such attempts to excuse the inexcusable have already been refuted in advance, a brief summary of those currently employed is desirable, as revealing their utter inept.i.tude. In practically every case, it becomes self-evident that they are not the true reasons for church exemption, but worked up by way of afterthought. Having already decided to rob us, on quite other grounds, our plunderers sit down to devise specious phrases which may serve to cajole their victims. In reality, the exemption of church property from taxation is, of course, a survival from the times when it was frankly regarded as the duty of the state to support the church and to enforce the dogmas of religion. This medieval view having pa.s.sed away, so far as the enlightened members of the community are concerned, the subsidizing of the church by the state should have perished with it; but since the churches do not wish to lose their easy money, they have manufactured pretexts for the continuance of the favoritism to which they are self-evidently not ent.i.tled in a land and an age of religious liberty and equality.

The chief defense of church graft is based on the claim that religion is the supreme moral agency of the community. This argument is found in many forms, and is highly elaborated by those who put it forward. Boiled down, it expresses the point of view that the church is a voluntary adjunct of the police power; that it lessens crime, and therefore directly saves expense and trouble to society, for which exemption from taxation is only a reasonable return. In part, this argument has already been tested and found valueless. The church claims a kingdom, which "is not of this world," and its main business is to create subjects for that kingdom. To receive salvation, faith is all-essential, moral character being subsidiary. A single act of penitence may atone for a lifetime of crime. The great work of the church is to develop faith, without which the righteous deeds of the purest and best man on earth are nothing but "filthy rags." The vilest murderer, "converted" under the fear of being presently precipitated into a yawning h.e.l.l, and having no further opportunity to enjoy life on this earth, may pa.s.s directly from the gallows or the electric chair to the bosom of Jesus, while his innocent victim, struck suddenly dead without a chance to reflect on possibilities beyond the grave, has sunk to everlasting perdition in spite of possessing a character above reproach. Is this the form of doctrine calculated to raise the moral tone of the community? Let it not be replied that this is the antiquated theology which the liberal and most of the orthodox churches have long since outgrown. On the contrary, it is the teaching of the entire Roman Catholic church and of the largest section of the Protestant church. In its coa.r.s.est and crudest form, it has in our own day been preached to huge audiences from one end of the country to the other by the spectacular evangelist, Billy Sunday, as the only true Christianity; and this otherwise negligible religious mountebank has received the explicit endors.e.m.e.nt of the princ.i.p.al evangelical organizations and an overwhelming majority of the orthodox preachers in every one of the largest and a mult.i.tude of the lesser cities of our land. The churches in which this repulsive and vicious doctrine is taught receive much the larger share of the benefit from tax exemption.

DOUBLE PRICE FOR SALVATION.

But from a social point of view the case is even more serious. It is not the most intellectual and refined cla.s.ses which even the wildest zealot will claim to stand in special need of religion to restrain them from crime and from all forms of conduct calculated to injure their neighbors in the community, but the most ignorant and crude; and it is precisely these latter types which remain totally impervious to highly developed forms of religious expression, and throng to the Catholic cathedrals and the revival meetings of the Billy Sundays and Gipsy Smiths, where belief is emphasized above integrity of character. Just those persons who may be a.s.sumed to need whatever ethical element is to be found in religion are those who receive the least of it. If, in spreading its gospel of faith and obedience to ecclesiastical superiors, the churches incidentally lead an occasional individual to a more honest and upright social life, this result is simply a by-product of the religious operation, and creates no claim on the state. In reclaiming the down-fallen, the church wins another supporter for itself, and adds a soul to the "kingdom." In seeking a subsidy from the state, it foregoes its higher pretensions, and seeks to be paid double for a work which it undertook on its own account. If it is part of the function of the church to teach morality, so is it part of the function of the home; and in the average decent home there is much more specific, concrete and effective teaching of good morals, brought closely home to the individual, than there is in the best of churches. Yet the home does not claim exemption from taxation because of its moral influence. As has been suggested elsewhere, the argument as to moral influence speedily leads to a _reductio ad absurdum_, implying, as it does, that all taxes should be raised from the vicious and immoral elements in the community--that criminals should be the only taxpayers, or that taxes should be levied on citizens and inst.i.tutions in inverse ratio to the moral character and ethical influence of each! Every legitimate enterprise of any description exercises a wholesome moral influence in the community, and directly benefits society in one way or another; and the church, even taking it at its own valuation, is but one of many inst.i.tutions which, while existing primarily for ends of their own, are incidentally of benefit to society as a whole. Why should it be the only one to demand a favoritism incompatible with self-respect or with justice to its fellows? The question as to the exemption of educational, charitable and certain other inst.i.tutions need not here be raised to confuse the issue. Each of these must be settled on its own merits. It is enough to suggest that where their primary function, like that of the church, is something with which the state is not directly concerned, they fall in the same category, and have no right to any subsidy. Where, however, their entire work is directed toward meeting a recognizedly collective need, which the state finds it less practical or satisfactory to discharge in a more direct manner, exemption from taxation is properly invoked as an indirect means of accomplishing the social end.

The impropriety of exempting any sectarian or partisan inst.i.tution results from the entire argument herein contained. As to non-partisan and non-sectarian inst.i.tutions, the question of propriety is one of fact, to be determined by the best public judgment in accordance with the foregoing principle.

BELIEF AND CRIMINALITY.

While the argument has thus far proceeded on the a.s.sumption that the church, in spite of certain questionable teachings, is to be taken at its own valuation as a moral agency, fidelity to truth demands the plain statement of the fact that such definite particulars as are available fail to bear out the claims so positively put forward. This is especially true of our criminal statistics. Even on the most generous calculations, the church membership of the country embraces considerably less than half of the population. If the church were so powerful a moral factor as its supporters declare it to be, we should expect to find the average criminal a wholly irreligious being, with no contact or sympathy with the doctrines of Christianity. What we actually observe is that of all the criminals in penitentiaries in this country, not less than 75 per cent, are of Christian antecedents and profess a belief in religious dogmas; while the number of Christian preachers convicted of crime is so large as to be almost incredible, in spite of the fact that most cases of minor clerical offenses and some of the more serious ones are systematically hushed up, to avoid public scandal for the church.*

* See "Religion and Roguery," by Franklin Steiner. Price 10 cents. For sale by The Truth Seeker Co. Also "Crimes of Preachers," for sale by the same. Price, 35 cents,

Benefit of clergy, though theoretically as obsolete as it is inexcusable in a secular democracy, is known to all who are on the inside to be a tangible fact in our land today. It is one of the forms of indecent favoritism of which the church and its agents are always eager to avail themselves. In any one of the annual reports of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, the reader may observe that the late Anthony Comstock, though an excessively pious Christian and hater of all forms of unbelief, bears reluctant testimony in tabular form to the overwhelming preponderance of religious offenders among those whose convictions he has secured. For example, the total number of arrests for crimes against the obscenity and lottery laws from March, 1872, to January, 1915, was 3,641. Of these (annual report for 1914) 1078 were Jews, 964 Catholics, 954 Protestants, and 564 of no known religion, leaving only 80 to be distributed among the several cla.s.ses of Freethinkers, Spiritualists and "heathen." The figures speak for themselves. Turning from statistics to scientific criminology, we find abundant confirmation of the close relation between religion and crime.

So far from being a restraint, religious faith of a very intense sort is commonly found closely a.s.sociated with criminal tendencies, and is one of the most marked characteristics of the typical criminal. This conclusion, unpalatable though it is to the defenders of the churches, is irrefutably proven valid by the most competent observers. (See "The Criminal," by Havelock Ellis, fourth edition, pages 185-190, with facts and citations from Ferri, Garofalo, Casanova, et al.) Let it not be thought that the writer is here attempting to prove that religion is a frequent cause of crime. It is enough to show that it is practically inoperative as an inhibition. The many good men and women who are also pious put the cart before the horse in crediting their religion with their moral character. Whatever ethical elements the higher forms of religion contain in theory, it is not these on which the incidence is laid in religious teaching or in the performance of religious ceremonies. Consequently, no matter how much is said in the churches of righteousness, as an observed sociological fact religion has little to do with it, one way or the other. The good man or woman, on becoming religious, remains good; the bad man or woman does not cease to be bad because of possessing a strong religious faith and partic.i.p.ating in religious exercises. Those who have been both virtuous and religious all their lives would have been no less virtuous if they had never heard of religion. Even the tyro in the study of the evolution of religious belief knows that primitive forms of religion are entirely void of ethical content. The moral imperative is a gradual development of the social instinct; while the religious "instinct" is the reaction of the individual to external influences which inspire him, in his ignorance of their real nature and of their subjection to iron laws of cause and effect, with fear and wonder. (Admiration, grat.i.tude for imagined favors, hope for protection and support, and other forms of mental or emotional reaction, come somewhat later, and are efficient in reshaping the primitive phases of religion into more specific conceptions of anthropomorphic deities.) In the course of time, it becomes natural that the worshiper of beings above himself, to whom his supreme reverence is due, should come to endow those beings with the highest qualities he is capable of conceiving, and hence should represent them as authors of the moral law which has become an ingrained part of his personal and social existence. Yet it remains a fact with both the savage and the civilized man that his moral conceptions change from age to age, and that his attribution of any particular ethical mandate to his deity is always an afterthought. In other words, both in general and in detail, morality caused and determined by social needs and the growth of the social spirit precedes morality under a religious sanction, and would persist, even if all forms of religion should be annihilated. The church does not create moral standards for the community, but is at most a register of them. Without the church, it is probable that few individuals would be either more or less moral than with it; they would simply use other terms in which to interpret their moral sentiments to themselves and others. There need then be no fear of the consequences of recalling the churches to the exercise of common honesty. As recipients of graft, they can certainly not claim to exemplify the morality which they profess to teach. Such of them as cannot live without theft from the taxpayers are better dead, since their dependence on dishonesty for existence must more than nullify any conceivable good which they can do the community by the hollow mockery of teaching a morality which they do not practice.

On the other hand, such churches as find it possible to live on an honorable basis, without claiming a subsidy, will stand some chance of being listened to when they seek to preach morality to others.

INSt.i.tUTIONAL WORK NOT MENACED.

It is further claimed that the church is directly engaged in social and philanthropic activities, which would become sorely crippled by a forced diminution of revenue. Advocates of this view have declared that the church is specially fitted for many branches of social service, being able to command invaluable volunteer a.s.sistance, which the state could not hire at any price. Hence they conclude that the elimination of the churches would throw on the state a burden far in excess of the amount now conceded to these inst.i.tutions in exemption from taxation.

It will be seen that the foregoing claim of the church rests entirely on a.s.sumptions of the most gratuitous nature. In the first place, only a minority of the churches are of the "inst.i.tutional" order, and practically engaged in social welfare work; and in the exemption laws no distinction is made between this minority and the large majority of churches which render no such public service. In fact, the law works entirely in favor of the parasitic churches, the mere acc.u.mulators of wealth. The inst.i.tutional churches attract to themselves the support of individuals who wish to see the work done, and who will stand by them to any extent needed; while the other cla.s.s of ecclesiastical bodies, which exist mainly for the promulgation of effete dogmas, lean on the state for a much larger proportion of their total revenue. With state help, they fatten and become rich; while the few socialized churches spend their revenues as fast as they come in. The repeal of exemption laws would not kill any churches which are doing a work felt in the community to be one of public necessity; it is the socially useless churches which would be forced to perish, if they could not win sufficient voluntary support by showing some indication of deserving it. The fallacy that the repeal of exemption laws means the killing of the inst.i.tutional churches or the crippling of their work is a most glaring one.

It is further not true that the supporters of the social work now done through the higher type of churches would lose all interest in it if the church were to disappear from the scene. Such a claim is an insult to human nature and a fatal confession with reference to the quality of the religion which is thus a.s.sumed to teach its followers to labor only for the sake of the church and not for the love of mankind. The desire to minister to social needs, found among the n.o.bler men and women of all forms of faith and of unbelief, would persist in undiminished degree. If the church were gone, it would simply use other channels through which to work. They would likewise be joined by others, who cannot conscientiously a.s.sist in the promulgation of dogmas they consider false and pernicious, even though the doctrinal teaching is subtly interblended with philanthropic work; and by still others, whose earnestly proffered services are rejected by the religious bodies, because, although eager to help in social service, they cannot p.r.o.nounce the doctrinal shibboleths of ecclesiasticism. The spontaneous response of men and women to proven human need has been demonstrated again and again, and never more than during the great world war, in the immense sums of money and quant.i.ties of needful articles eagerly proffered and the vast amount of personal service freely rendered, sometimes at the risk or cost of life itself, to alleviate the sufferings of military and civil victims resident in alien lands and totally unknown to the millions of volunteer helpers. No church activity was needed to stir all this active and uncalculating benevolence into life; and none is required to arouse the higher sentiment in the community to co-operate in combating its poverty, illness and degradation.

THE CHURCH SHOWS ULTERIOR MOTIVES.

Moreover, the church is far from being the best agent for the carrying on of social service. The trouble is that it has its own axe to grind.

Its eye is not single to the relief of human suffering, but it has also to think of converting the sufferers to its creed. It is constantly tempted to play upon the grat.i.tude of those whom it helps, to induce their attendance at its services, if not to dragoon these helpless dependents into an outward expression of belief. Even where it does not discriminate against non-believers in its creed, or seek in any way to abuse its position in order to proselyte them directly, it too often does its alms to be seen of men, and turns its social work into a huge advertising scheme, after the fashion of an ostentatiously philanthropic Rockefeller, who gives with one hand and with the utmost publicity about one-hundredth part of what he extorts from the ma.s.ses with the other hand. At best, its activities are such as to generate a reasonable suspicion that its aims are not wholly pure, nor its work of unmixed quality; and the net result is not a wholesome one.

For the best good of the community, social service needs to be entirely divorced from dogma, whether performed by the state as part of its duty towards its members, or by private individuals or groups as a voluntary effort to lessen the sorrows and evils of humanity. If the church insists on doing a part of this community work, let it, like others engaged in such work, do so at its own cost. If it is sincere in its wish to help mankind, it will not balk at this condition; if not, it betrays the selfishness of its aims. The argument in favor of exempting from taxation organizations doing nothing but philanthropic work, and organized for no other purpose, cannot be honorably stretched to embrace bodies formed to propagate particular creeds, which simply take on philanthropic activities as a side line. If this were otherwise, every factory which introduces a "welfare department" should by a parity of argument immediately have all its property exempted from contribution to the public revenues.

CHURCHES AS ENHANCERS OF REAL ESTATE VALUES.

The curious argument has sometimes been urged that churches raise the value of adjacent property, and should therefore escape taxation. If this be indeed a fact, it proves either nothing to the purpose or a great deal too much for the comfort of those who put it forward. It is difficult to see why the taxpayers of an entire city should reward the church for enriching the few property-owners canny enough to secure land adjoining clerically owned property. By merely increasing the value of certain pieces of property at the expense of land less fortunately located, the community as a whole is not made a substantial gainer.

Even taking the most favorable view, it is certain that the "unearned increment" of the property adjoining the church will never rise so high as to overbalance the total value of the church property withdrawn from taxation; and hence the encouraging of church-building by tax exemption must represent a net financial loss to the community. Moreover, every improvement on land increases the value of neighboring property; hence the argument, if valid at all, warrants the exemption of all improvements from taxation, and the equal taxation of all land values, whether the land is built on by churches or otherwise utilized, or left wholly unimproved.

The fact should also be recognized that to many the existence of churches adjacent to their property is anything but a benefit. So far from regarding the value of their property as increased by the coming of a church, many an owner will resent the intrusion, and sell out at a loss, rather than be exposed to some of the features of church activity in his immediate vicinity. To many, the ringing of church bells is an intolerable nuisance and a positive grievance. The collection of crowds, even of the most decorous nature, is most objectionable to others.

In New York and other cities, property in certain sections is highly restricted by deeds which provide against the erection of churches, no less than of livery stables and other structures considered undesirable in a residential neighborhood. Real estate men do not bear out the claim that the inevitable or even the usual result of the erection of churches is to increase the value of property in the vicinity.

SOPHISTRY AT THE NEW YORK HEARING.

The weakness of the case for the exemption of church property is apparent from the fact that the foregoing easily refuted claims represent substantially the entire case in its favor. At the New York hearing of 1915, and at all other hearings before the various legislative bodies of our land, they have been the only points on which stress was sought to be laid. Incidentally, of course, minor a.s.sertions have been made, such as the alleged fact that the church is a public utility, in the maintenance of which the community has a direct interest. This plea, on which small reliance is usually placed, has been fully disposed of by the a.n.a.lysis on a preceding page of the function of the church. Sometimes attention is called to the apparent preponderance of interest in favor of exemption, as witnessed by the number of speakers who appear in its favor at committee hearings and by the number and size of the organizations which they represent. This is obviously the most transparent sophistry. Principles are not to be gauged by numbers. A country in which the mob may dispose at its lightest whim of the rights and liberties of the individual or of the minority is a land of tyranny, and cannot prosper in the end. Moreover, the alleged preponderance does not even prove that the majority of the citizens are in favor of the special privilege dishonestly demanded by the churches.

It merely furnishes fresh evidence of the well-known fact that parties with special interests to be subserved by cla.s.s legislation will organize more efficiently than those appearing for the general interest of the citizens, but not backed by powerful existing organizations well supplied with funds and having much to gain or lose in a financial way by the pa.s.sage or defeat of the proposed legislation. It is hard to stir up popular interest to the point of action in matters that involve the civic conscience. Nevertheless, the people are slowly awakening to a realization of the iniquity of the manner in which the churches, for their own profit, have played upon the religious emotions of those under their influence; and a day of reckoning is imminent. The sentiment in behalf of the repeal of the dishonest exemption laws is growing continually stronger, and must finally become irresistible.

It has sometimes been a.s.serted that precedent is against the taxing of churches. At the New York hearing, this was gravely put forth by a Presbyterian preacher as a serious argument; and he sought to dismiss the proposition by cavalierly remarking that it was part of the present craze for new taxes of all sorts. His deliverance was echoed by a lawyer hired to represent Grace Episcopal church, the church which showed its moral standards by cheating its architect out of his fee on a contemptible legal technicality. "I am old-fashioned enough," remarked the lawyer, metaphorically patting himself on the back for his astute appeal to religious prejudice, "to believe that the house of G.o.d should not be taxed." In other words, whatever is, is right. No old abuse must ever be abolished, and every new idea must be wrong. Could there be a finer admission that the bent of the churchly trained mind is against all progress, and p.r.o.ne to resist change merely because it is new?

CONFESSED TREASON TO AMERICAN PRINCIPLES.

The defenders of church graft never fail in the end to reveal their real position. At no public hearing has it ever happened that the shrewder representatives of the church were able to restrain their less subtle colleagues from avowing their disbelief in the separation of church and state, and their conviction that the government should consider the support of religion as part of its business. The important hearing so often quoted had several such confessions of treason to American principles. The Rev. Charles T. Terry of the Brick Presbyterian church of New York city, when asked whether he would think it proper for the state to appropriate money directly for the support of the churches, since exemption was but an indirect way of accomplishing the same result, completely missed the object of the question, and instead of attempting to distinguish the two methods in principle calmly a.s.sumed that there could be no question of impropriety in either, and explained that he preferred the exemption method as _more dignified_. If he had been entirely frank, he might have confessed his doubt whether a direct theft from the taxpayers would be tolerated in this enlightened period.

The American churches would be only too glad to adopt the English method of open and unabashed robbery of dissenting citizens for the support of the churches in whose doctrines they do not believe. This, however, has become an impossibility.

In our colonial period we pa.s.sed through the mental condition in which church and state were considered as one, and neglect of religious "duty"

was punished as an offense against the community. In default of a return to those days, so blessed in the view of the enemies of religious liberty, the churches are willing to accept the indirect contribution of the state to their private expenses incurred in the interest of sectarian proselytism. True Americanism, however, finds no logical distinction between the one method and the other. A difference of degree may exist, but not one of kind.

The Rev. Dr. D. C. Potter* of Brooklyn, who attended the hearing, scorned to argue with unbelievers in any way except by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. He fairly screeched his horror of the idea that anybody should propose to "tax the house of G.o.d." The finely-spun fallacies of his colleagues, who talked of the "social services" of the churches and their alleged protection to the community from a flood of vice and crime, went down in the wind before his anguished yells at the thought that religious liberty and the separation of church and state were in danger of becoming complete realities in a democracy nominally pledged to the unwavering support of these great principles. In the same spirit, Herman Metz, a politician and former officeholder, irrelevantly remarked that the plea that non-churchgoers should not be forced to meet the expenses of an inst.i.tution which is of no value to them is like the objection to paying taxes for schools if we happen to have no children, or for the fire department if our house has never been on fire! The utter lack of distinction between the ministering to private wants and the performance of a public function would do discredit to an imbecile. Still worse, because less excusable, was the a.s.sertion of Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, a man of education and formal culture, that a person who did not believe in religion should be taxed to support the churches just as an Anarchist should be taxed to support the government! With greater suavity and shrewdness, but no less indifference to historic fact and democratic principle, William D.

Guthrie, appearing as attorney for the Roman Catholic interests, rejected the easy way out of pretending that the churches subserved some civic function, and defended their claims on the ground that "immemorial practice" sanctioned the exemption graft. In other words, a wrong becomes right, an abuse a virtue, if it is only continued long enough!

Mr. Guthrie went so far as to a.s.sert that Christianity is part of the common law of the land. If this be true, our case even yet is not hopeless, for the "common law" of England, from which American jurisprudence is derived, did not drop down from heaven as a sacred deposit, forever perfect and unchangeable. As a matter of fact, most of it has long since been superseded by the const.i.tutional law of the nation and the states, and by innumerable statutes. From the moment of the adoption of our Federal Const.i.tution, expressly forbidding an "establishment of religion," Christianity, whatever its status under the common law, ceased to form an integral part of the law of the United States, and became simply one of many forms of private belief, the relative number of its adherents being totally immaterial. In the treaty with Tripoli, secured during the administration of George Washington, our first great President placed his signature to the specific statement that the government of this land is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. The forenamed gentlemen, one and all, far from lending strength to their cause by invoking the outworn traditions of the past and by appealing to the brute force of religious bigotry against the equal civic rights of all citizens, have turned state's evidence against their accomplices by the unthinking confession that the case for church exemption rests in the last a.n.a.lysis on treason to the Const.i.tution and to the principle of separation of church and state. When the enemies of religious liberty and the rights of man thus come out in their true colors we know how to meet them. It is the insidious method of seeking to shelter church graft under pretensions of the common weal that is able to deceive the public for a time.

* See "Crimes of Preachers."

CHURCH AND STATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY.