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 multitude 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 institution 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 ineptitude. 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 passed 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 entitled 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 hell, and having no further opportunity to enjoy life on this earth, may pass 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 coarsest 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 endorsement of the principal evangelical organizations and an overwhelming majority of the orthodox preachers in every one of the largest and a multitude 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 classes 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 assumed 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 institutions 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 institutions 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 institutions 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 institution results from the entire argument herein contained. As to non-partisan and non-sectarian institutions, 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 assumption 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.*