Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Liberal Churches Get Ready for IRS Goosestepping

If you are a church or TV religious leader, you can tell people who to vote for, as long as the candidate is a GOPer. In fact you can even excommunicate Dems from your church. But if you, as Pope JPII did when the Iraq War was launched, dare to only take a stance of being for peace instead of war (as Jesus did) then you will have the wrath of the IRS fall upon you and threaten your tax-exempt status. LA Times: "The IRS has warned one of CA's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon 2days before the '04 pres election. Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church's former rector, the Rev George Regas, on 10/31/04, had prompted a letter from the IRS. In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates Bush and Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support. But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster." It is the Religious Fright's theocratic strong arming in churches (now via the IRS) like this that has lead me to avoid attending mass. I do however, go in after hrs and pray and light a novena in complete peace and good conscience. It is a fine deal that God and I have worked out... and it suits us both just fine, thank you.
Posted by Tina :: 12:18 AM :: 4 Comments:

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