Posted on 08/17/2016 7:47:15 PM PDT by Olog-hai
While it’s perfectly okay for people to have different opinions about what churches should say from the pulpit, especially with regard to politics, what’s not okay is for the federal government—rather than congregations themselves—to be in charge of what is said. And it won’t do to dangle the threat of taxing the church if it won’t comply. That’s why the Johnson Amendment has to go.
The Tax Code’s restriction on political speech by non-profit organizations is popularly known as the Johnson Amendment, named after its sponsor, Lyndon Johnson, who maneuvered the levers of senatorial power to insert the provision into a massive tax overhaul bill in 1954. Congress passed that bill without any thought about its impact on the constitutionally protected freedoms of churches, and Johnson wasn’t targeting them either. It was a rank incumbent-protection measure specifically designed to silence two nonprofit organizations opposing Johnson’s Senate run because they thought he was soft on communism. …
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Encourage your pastor to participate on PULPIT FREEDOM SUNDAY.
https://www.adflegal.org/issues/religious-freedom/church/key-issues/pulpit-freedom-sunday
I never saw much point to pushing any candidate from the pulpit. If my people don’t know who to vote for and who not to vote for I just haven’t done my job. I’ll tell people privately what I think, but from the pulpit I just tell them to carefully study the candidates and make up their own minds.
[I never saw much point to pushing any candidate from the pulpit.]
My pastor says he can’t tell them how to vote, but he can tell them about the candidates.
If the churches really cared they would just pay taxes and then they could say anything they want.
If that really worked for Christian churches, how does that work for the mosques, who also don’t pay taxes?
Note that a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, regulating the pulpit not only not listed among those powers, but also expressly prohibited by the 1st Amendment.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
And it’s no surprised that the late President Johnson had talked the post-17th Amendment ratification Senate into passing the unconstitutional tax overhaul bill of 1954.
So speaking of tax overhaul, the states need to amend the Gibbons excerpt above to the Constitution so that corrupt lawmakers and presidents cannot ignore it.
Remember in November !
Patriots need to support Trump / Pence by also electing a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will not only work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support Trump’s vision for making America great again for everybody, but will put a stop to unconstitutonal federal taxes and likewise unconstitutional inteference in state affairs.
Note that such a Congress will also probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.
I think Donald J. Trump wants to get rid of the Johnson rule.
If churches want to endorse candidates, it is simple -- either give up 501(c)(3) status or reincorporate as a 501(c)(4), a PAC, or a similar entity.
So, a question for any and all Judeo-Christian clerics who speak from a podium:
Which is it? The government-sanctioned congregation - and the permission to become tax-free, i.e., 503c;
or,
The annointed congregation, free of any government sanctions??
When we lived in the KSA my one of my husband's jobs was to hire Saudi companies to do work for ARAMCO. Bribery was a VERY strong possibility there so the company decided that the ONLY "gift" an ARAMCO employee could receive from a potential Saudi company was a Koran.
So he got a Koran. I still have it on the bookshelf.
THAT's how I know that it's a knock-off of our Bible. It's VERY evident. Same stories, same truths, same laws of God. Nothing new or different.
It's not difficult. One only has to check out ONE of the party's values, that is, abortion. That sort of says it all, doesn't it? [Rhetorical]
I’ve read the Koran, and there is absolutely no commonality between it and the Old Testament. There is some stuff “ripped off” from parts of the Talmud, but it’s heavily distorted and mixed with Arab mysticism. There is exactly one Bible verse quoted in its pages, but it doesn’t immediately come to mind.
There are not the “same laws of God” in the Koran’s pages whatsoever. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you can marry four wives and divorce them twice, for example; nor does it give sanction to have sex with all the slaves “that your right hand possesses”.
The Koranic Jesus is a completely different character, to boot. Not only is it denied that he is the Son of God in several verses (one of them having Jesus personally deny this), but it also denies that the crucifixion happened, saying that Allah “made it appear” that Jesus was crucified only. There are also Koranic verses that specifically attack the Trinity, decrying the notion that “Allah is one of three” and claiming that Christians said “take (Jesus) and (his) mother as gods beside Allah” et al.
The themes seem TO ME to be similar.
I randomly opened the Koran just now and the "Surah LXXII" that people were ascribing righteousness to Jinns instead of to Allah. To me that sounds like "no false gods."
Another, at random, Surah XXXIX: "If ye are thankless, yet Allah is Independent of you, though He is not pleased with thanklessness for His bondmen; if ye are thankful He is pleased therewith for you."
That seems to me that folks must be grateful to God.
Another: Surah XVII The Children of Israel: "We gave unto Moses the Scripture and We appointed it a guidance for the Children of Israel, saying: Choose no guardian beside Me."
Sounds biblical to me as well.
But, this WAS written in the 7th century and their way of expression may not be what you are used to. Understandable.
The New Testament was written in the first century, and the Old in the BC centuries spanning several millennia.
The word translated “guardian” in Surah 17:2 is Arabic “Wakil”, which does not mean “god” but “protector” or “deputy”; therefore it does not mean the same as Exodus 20:3 or Deuteronomy 5:7, where “gods” is translated from Hebrew “elohim”.
Also, Surah 39:7 seems to have an awkward translation in the Pickthall version; the first word “thankless” is actually translated from Arabic “takfuru”, which means to disbelieve. Plus, “tashkuru” (grateful) is not the same as the Hebrew word translated “thanks” towards God (yadah), which implies praise and expression with the hands.
The word translated “guardian” in Surah 17:2 is Arabic “Wakil”, which does not mean “god” but “protector” or “deputy”; therefore it does not mean the same as Exodus 20:3 or Deuteronomy 5:7, where “gods” is translated from Hebrew “elohim”.
So, what's that got to do with my point...that the Koran lifted much from the Bible? I said it was a knock-off NOT a duplicate.
Also, Surah 39:7 seems to have an awkward translation in the Pickthall version; the first word “thankless” is actually translated from Arabic “takfuru”, which means to disbelieve. Plus, “tashkuru” (grateful) is not the same as the Hebrew word translated “thanks” towards God (yadah), which implies praise and expression with the hands.
Ditto to my last comment.
FReegards.
I’m saying the Koran “lifted” about as “much from the Bible” as the Vedas did. There is no commonality whatsoever.
That depends to a large extent on who is in the pulpit.
I don’t think “former” Muslim Jeremiah Wright came to anyone’s mind when it came to writing this.
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