Exempting the Churches / An Argument for the Abolition of This Unjust and Unconstitutional Practice

by James F. Morton

ABUSE OF ECONOMIC POWER.

In a land of democracy, even these last remnants of the scourge of medievalism are wiped out. We look with indignation and disgust at the priest-ridden countries where a slavish population submits to the lash of bigoted despots, and rejoice that our lot is cast under a freeer heaven. Such religious persecution as may still be found among us finds no warrant in law. It consists of the abuse by individuals of their economic power over others. In any community where human beings are found vile enough to wish to destroy what they can of the happiness of all who do not pronounce their shibboleth, they can only resort to private activity in the way of ostracism, boycott, blacklisting and other weapons of cowardly malignance; and the state gives them no countenance in their criminal enterprises. It is our proud boast that in this land of freedom the state protects every person in the full exercise of his right to choose his own religion, and to abstain from recognition of any other.

What a pity that words are not always equivalent to deeds! So curiously compounded is the human mind that few are capable of carrying a principle to its logical conclusion. In some matters, a middle ground is possible; but there can be no compromise in cases where the slightest concession vitiates the entire contention of one side or the other. In matters of policy or of tactics, it is often feasible and just that each of the contending parties should recede somewhat from its extreme demands, in order to break a deadlock, or to promote good feeling; and refusal to yield a non-essential point may be justly condemned as obstinacy. Even in matters of principle, there is no sacrifice of one's own sacred convictions in manifesting respect for the convictions of others. But between manifesting respect for the views of an opponent and surrendering one's own conscience to him, there is a great gulf fixed. We may agree that truth needs no artificial props, and that nothing can be safer than to allow even the most flagrant error full liberty of expression. This, however, is something very different from ourselves furnishing the medium of expression for that which we believe to be false and pernicious, and giving it the unmerited advantage of our moral sanction. When we realize that exemption from taxation is as palpable a subsidy as direct appropriation of funds for the propagation of the doctrines of the exempted institution, and that every taxpayer must not only bear a heavier burden in consequence of such exemption, but must also, with or against his will, be counted as part of the organic social whole which officially pronounces in favor of the merits of such doctrines, we immediately perceive that the wrong done to the citizens is not to be measured in dollars and cents. Standing at the parting of the ways, the state deliberately chooses to follow the path which leads in the direction of ecclesiastical domination of the protesting individual. It denies the sacred and blood-bought principle of full religious liberty. It asserts that the private conscience of the individual is the property of the community. This is the theory of the Spanish Inquisition, and is diametrically hostile to democracy. If the state has the right to decree that its citizens, regardless of their desires and convictions, shall be forced to contribute to the support of the church, it has an equal right to declare that they shall give their time as well as their money to its upbuilding; that they shall attend its services and give it the benefit of their membership; that they shall refrain from any word or deed, public or private, which may tend to weaken its influence; that they shall submit all their affairs to its guidance, and shall obey its ministers in all things. There is no logical stopping-point short of this consistent application of the doctrine that religion is a matter of public concern. If this doctrine be true, every step away from the Middle Ages has been a ghastly mistake; and we should return in all reverence and humility to the ideas and efforts of Torquemada and Simon de Montfort. No person has a logical right to condemn medievalism, who does not fully and consistently accept the democratic principle that religion is a strictly private affair and that it is in no way the business of the state to concern itself with the question whether the church is to live or to die. From the democratic standpoint, the church is simply a voluntary group of individuals, who hold certain beliefs and aims in common, and who have the same right as all similar groups to associate for the carrying out of such aims, provided that they do not involve lawlessness of any kind, and to use their own means in propagating their ideas among such men and women as choose to lend a hearing to them. Like all other groups of law-abiding men and women, it is entitled to protection against lawless interference with its peaceful and lawful activities, whether the majority of the community may approve or disapprove of its specific doctrines; and it is bound, in its turn, to refrain from interfering with the equal freedom of other groups or individuals. In case of a dispute, the state is the proper umpire, not with reference to the truth or the wholesomeness of the doctrines professed by the church or by its opponents, but solely with reference to the question whether the civil rights of either faction have been infringed by representatives of the contrary party. There is no room here for the favoritism inherent in tax exemption. This measure cannot satisfy the claims of either democracy or medievalism. It gives to priestcraft either too much or too little.

THE ENEMY IN DISGUISE.

If the church is entitled to put its hands in the pockets of individuals to further its own purposes, tax exemption is a cowardly subterfuge; and the honorable way would be to announce openly the abrogation of religious liberty and democracy, as proven incompatible with the higher truth, and to require every individual, as a lawful tributary of the church, to contribute directly to its support. If the church has rightful authority over us all, the sooner we know it the better. Let us then cease to prate of freedom, and bow our necks meekly to the yoke. Let it be distinctly recognized that the priests are absolute masters, and that we of the common herd have no human rights but the duty simply of passive submission. In such a reversion to the Dark Ages, there would at least be the merit that we should at last have done with the miserable hypocrisy which pays lip-service to democracy, while insidiously making the state the tool of ecclesiastical influences. We should know the worst, and could choose whether to submit or to raise the banner of open revolt against an undisguised enemy and usurping despot.

As this happens to be the twentieth century, and as the pet dream of the Vatican that in some way the world may be brought to return to the degradation and servitude of the tenth century is one fortunately doomed to disappointment, few beyond an occasional Spanish Jesuit or an irresponsible Billy Sunday will regard the foregoing program as possible or desirable of realization. No matter how untrue we may be to our democratic ideals, we know in our inmost minds and hearts that the progress and well-being of humanity depend on their realization. We do not propose to take a single step backward into the darkness of the past, or to forfeit any of the liberties already won through centuries of struggle. It is too late in the world's history to dispute the right of private conscience. All that is necessary is to realize how far that right actually extends, and not to be cheated by a remnant of reactionary tradition. This being true, tax exemption is at once doomed in the court of enlightened morality, since we unite in rejecting its logical implications. If priesthood has no lawful power over our private actions, it has no right to claim a subsidy at our expense. What it may not do directly, it has no right to do indirectly. If we may not be compelled to a full support of the church, it is nothing short of larceny to require us to render even a partial assistance to its propaganda. We ask no discrimination against it, but simply that it be required to exercise its functions at its own cost, supported by the voluntary contributions of those, and those only, who believe in its doctrines and its methods, and who desire to help it. This is simply common honesty, to which the church, as the professed exponent of the higher ethics, should be the first to give its enthusiastic adhesion.

PAYING TRIBUTE TO POSITIVE EVILS.

The sin against private conscience becomes the more glaring, when it is considered that in the eyes of many individual citizens the creeds and conduct of certain at least of the churches represent not merely error, but positive evil. It is irrelevant to assert that these citizens are wholly mistaken. None of us being infallible, their opinion is entitled to the same consideration as that of anybody else. The exemption of church property from taxation forces them, as citizens of a secular state, to pay tribute to what their consciences condemn as organized vice. The teachings of the Mormon church are anathema to many, so much so that in more than one otherwise law-abiding community missionaries of this faith are even denied a hearing and are subject to persecution, which naturally strengthens them in the conviction that they are suffering for righteousness' sake. Yet the Mormon church is a beneficiary of tax exemption, no less than any other Christian sect; and every citizen must pay a higher tax, in order to put money into the treasury of this gigantic fraud and to enable it to carry on its propaganda more fruitfully. The Roman Catholic confessional, its celibate priesthood, its non-producing and parasitical monks and nuns, are held in holy horror by many conscientious Protestants, who look upon these features as conducive to vice and as reeking with immorality. Every one of these Protestants, however, is forced by the state to present the Roman Catholic church with a portion of his earnings, and thus to provide it with the means of increasing its power for evil. In like manner, the zealous Catholic, who is certain that Protestantism is dragging millions of souls to hell, and who earnestly believes that married pastors sin against God and lead others away on the road to perdition, must help pay for the perpetuation of this ministry of Satan. The liberal sects, which thunder against the villainy of creeds that drive human beings mad with despair by visions of an imaginary hell and fiery devils, cannot protect their adherents from being compelled to enrich the purveyors of these hateful and injurious dogmas. Nor can the orthodox denominations, on the other hand, escape from the outrageous condition which requires their members to pay for the circulation of Unitarian and Universalist teachings, which they regard as the most hideous and soul-destroying blasphemy. In the logrolling attempt to give every hog a chance at the trough, the only result is that nobody's conscience is free from violation.

TOUCHING THE POCKET NERVE.

As for the vast number of the unchurched, they might as well have no civic rights whatever, for all the attention that is paid to their sincere convictions. In defiance of the elementary right of religious liberty, so sedulously professed by politician and priest, millions of our citizens are informed that if they are not members of some church, and so getting their share of access to the swag, it is their own fault; and that they have no right to complain of the robbery of which they are victims. Since it is impossible to apply direct force, in order to make every individual become a churchman, the next best ecclesiastical scheme is to soak him in the pocketbook for not doing so. In other words, the state is used as a tool to force men and women into the church on the ground of pecuniary self-interest. The proposition is a brutally plain one. If they join the church, they get something for the money stolen from them in the shape of increased taxation; if they remain outside, the added tax is a dead loss. The idea is worthy of corrupt political hirelings of a degenerate church, which is out for nothing but profit. If this is modern Christianity, it is fit only for persons dead to all sense of honor and of shame.