MEADOR: Self-righteousness destroys religion

A word about destroying religion: That's what Erik Stanley says will happen if the government taxes churches.

Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, made his comments last week to explain his organization's sponsorship of Pulpit Initiative Sunday, a nationwide event during which pastors were encouraged to illegally endorse a presidential candidate in their sermon.

Stanley doesn't want to destroy religion. But he does oppose the current system, in which pastors are forbidden to endorse a candidate from the pulpit or else they lose their tax exempt status. He says this is a violation of the First Amendment and a threat against Christianity.

"Churches are exempt from taxation under the principle that there is no surer way to destroy religion than to begin taxing it."

It's an interesting idea, and it certainly comports well with an American capitalist view of the world. The problem for Stanley is that it doesn't seem to comport at all with the Bible's view of the world.

The scriptures that Christians like Stanley and myself quote so often and on which we attempt to build our lives say a lot about what can destroy religion. But taxation is never mentioned.

The Old Testament prophet Amos speaks of the destructive affects of affluence and excessive wealth within the religious group. He goes so far as to call certain women whose lives typify that sort of ugly, withdrawn affluence "cows."

The Torah describes how giving loyalty to anything besides God can destroy religion. It'd be good for Christian Republicans to consider those verses before attending a convention whose motto is "Country first."

Jesus describes how a haughty, self-righteous air can destroy religion. That's why he called the religious leaders of his day "white-washed tombs."

In fact, he went a step further. He told them that when they make one convert they "make him twice the son of hell that you are."

Later on in the New Testament, James warns that showing favoritism to certain groups will destroy religion.

And perhaps most bluntly, Paul says that adding anything besides Jesus to the list of Christian essentials will destroy religion. Actually, he goes further; the exact word he uses to describe that sort of pompous religiosity, in its original Greek, is "shit." The reference is Philippians 3:8, if you're curious.

So when Stanley speaks of destroying religion, there's certainly any number of biblical references he could cite that describe what destroys religion. The problem is none of them mention taxation.

And most of them involve many of American evangelicalism's favorite sins.

Sometimes I'm afraid that American Christianity has become more American than Christian. We're not that different from the religious leaders of Jesus' day, who were so devout they tithed out of their spice rack. They offered flowery, effusive prayers in the sight of everyone, and they made sure everyone knew how much money they gave.

Yet they forgot the most basic commands of the Scriptures: to love all people, even the ones who make you uncomfortable; to fight injustice wherever we find it; and to live constantly acknowledging our own inadequacies and brokenness.

Often I worry we don't do those things as American Christians, and I include myself in this category.

Some days it's easy for me to walk by a homeless person and not even feel anything, let alone do anything to help them like buy them a coffee or a meal. It's easy for me to look at certain injustices, such as abortion, and feel more outrage than I do when looking at other equally appalling injustices, like the ongoing killings of thousands of innocent Iraqi men and women.

It's easy for me to stand upon my soapbox in this space and dish out condemnation without feeling my own guilt in these same areas. And most of the time, the areas in which I most readily condemn others are the areas in which I am most guilty.

But I don't think I'm alone in these struggles. Just look at the millions of dollars American megachurches spend on installing things like escalators, health centers and sound-systems to see our own lapses into materialistic affluence. Or look at how much time we rightly give to the issue of abortion while completely ignoring the absolutely appalling behavior of Americans toward foreigners in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

We've become very good at condemning sin but very bad at repenting of it.

So maybe it's not that taxation will destroy American religion. Maybe our own greed, self-righteousness and lack of compassion has already done it.

Jake meador is a junior English and history major reach him at jakemeador@dailynebraskan.com