Persecution of American Church
Apr 16th, 2008 by Kevin Purcell
The persecuted church in many parts of the word is subjected to imprisonment, torture and sometimes death because of their faith. So far that is not really happening in America. But the American church is facing another kind of persecution.
Case in point is a church in Carlinville,IL. The local WalMart built a super WalMart and needed to sell the old, smaller building. Carlinville Southern Baptist Church was growing and needed extra space. You’d think it was a marriage made in heaven; maybe it was, but hell didn’t get its invitation to the nuptials and doesn’t know about it.
The problem is that like many cities across America as businesses close up or move out the tax base shrinks. As churches grow and need more land they are taking up valuable, formerly taxable, land. So some cities are not allowing them to build or buy property because they are tax exempt and therefore cannot help the city coffers. The may or Carlinville said as much in defending its city in the press. They need the money, so the church an have it but not as a church. They have to pay taxes on it. When church leaders sought to find a fair and equitable solution the city instead filed a lawsuit stopping the church’s renovation. They filed a counter suit to keep the city from violating a law Illinois has to protect churches in such situations.
Now why do I call this persecution? Because it is unique to churches. Few other organizations need the space that a growing congregation does for worship, teaching, and administration. And as churches grow they need more land. But as cities grow they need more taxes. Instead of finding ways to do things more efficiently thus allowing the taxes they already collect to last longer, they are targeting churches and disallowing them from expanding in order to protect the common good. What they fail to see is that the greater influence of a church usually results in better citizens who are less taxing on the city in other areas like crime prevention and tax evasion.
This is going on all over the country and I predict that unless we as a church stand up and work harder at influencing the public square, then we will see our freedoms dissipate starting with our tax exempt status.
NOTE: facts from this post come from a Baptist Press article.
