Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.

Imagine you’re caught breaking out a window with a baseball bat at the local grocery store.  You’ve done this before, both by accident and on purpose, depending on the day and your mood, and yet again, you’ve been caught. Bat in hand, you look up sheepishly as, rounding the corner you catch the gaze of your neighbor and their kids, the local grocer and proprietor, and worst of all, the local magistrate.

You’ve been busted. Again.

The group demands you explain yourself, astonished that you’d take a bat to a store window for as far as they can tell, no good reason. The property damage, the disturbance of the peace, and the threatening behavior have the now gathering townsfolk on edge and looking at you with suspicious. Now, you’ve been in this jam before, and you have an idea. It’s bold, but it is crazy enough that it just might work.

“Friends, I understand that we have rules against property damage and threatening behavior, but you see, not only should I not be punished for this, but I also shouldn’t really have to pay for these damages”

The crowd gasps, the magistrate herself has her eyes bulging and covering her mouth at such an incredulous claim. The jaws of the townsfolk clench and the children shuffle closer to see what the adults are going to do to this person so obviously in the wrong.

You continue: “For you see, this was an act of faith. My religious convictions demand that I be able to act freely, and it really isn’t proper for our government,” you nod to the magistrate, “to interfere in matters of faith. Surely we can see that this was an exercise of my precious freedoms and I ought not be compelled to mingle religious funds or actions with the public treasury.”

All tension is immediately gone. The magistrate claps you on the back and smiles wide, making comments about the sanctity of freedom of speech. The proprietor smiles sadly and shakes his head as he begins sweeping up the glass, muttering about acts of god and his insurance policy. The children look at each other with excited grins, having discovered a new way to get out of trouble if they are ever caught in a similar predicament.

This scenario sounds ridiculous, as if it’s some kind of dystopian set up in an anti-religious novel or a skit to show the incredulity of religious people. It would be ridiculous and funny, if it were not like what is happening in the United States right now. In matters of tax policy, sexual assault cases, and even the deaths of people withholding medical care, perpetrators increasingly use their religious beliefs as a shield from the law that impacts everyone else. Even if it means blocking investigation and disclosure of sexual assault (which they purport to dislike), churches have a long history of using faith to dodge public accountability.

In a July 7 court filing, the Internal Revenue Service in effect ended the enforcement of the Johnson Amendment with respect to churches. Named after former President Lyndon Johnson, who introduced the measure as a U.S. senator, the law forbids nonprofits from endorsing candidates or political parties. It had long been interpreted to ban churches and pastors from making political endorsements from the pulpit. 

Granted, the IRS rarely enforced this law against churches, even when pastors defied the ban on political endorsements. But the mask of secular governance is slipping more and more every day under Republican leadership. The new IRS interpretation means churches can take money totally tax-free, never have to report who it came from or where it goes, and now use that money alongside their speech to endorse specific candidates or parties.

As if the dark money issue with churches as a pass-through wasn’t bad enough, now it’s not even going to be a secret. They can just take donations and use it for campaigning!

The entire concept of tax-exempt organizations was that they were operating in the interest of the public good and thus weren’t engaging in political speech or commerce. Yet, churches are explicitly not founded on the welfare of the public, but rather on the welfare and sustenance of their own existence. 

Setting aside belief in God, could you imagine any secular nonprofit, such as the Animal Rescue League, Conservation Clubs, or even a group like Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers, soliciting funds for a cause, and then using that money solely for fundraisers and donations to their favored candidates? And barring anyone from inquiring about where these funds go and whether they are fulfilling the group’s stated mission?

Absolutely not. Why should political speech become tax free and hidden simply because of the name on the sign outside the building? Yet, somehow, a supernatural legal shield is placed over churches when it comes to following the rules or being held accountable.

Freedom of speech and freedom of religion also mean freedom from religion. Allowing churches to operate tax-free while influencing partisan policy for their own narrow goals is essentially subsidizing churches in the public square. This should absolutely end.

If churches wish to influence policy in the way they have continually done for decades, then they should lose their tax-free status, just like any other organization that violated the tax-free guidelines of a 501(c)3. There should be transparency and accountability for influencing political and partisan behavior and just like any secular group, they should have to file the same forms and follow the same protocols as any everyone else.

Otherwise, like in the window breaking story above, their reach will grow ever more broad and be ever more pernicious. Claims of faith would be seen as equal to claims on reality, something that is extremely dangerous. Political parties will simply set up a church to hide their activism and donors, and there wouldn’t be any way for the public to hold policy makers accountable.

If faith claims are seen as equal to deeds in the eyes of the law, then the law ceases to be useful as an arbiter of justice or a basis for a social contract. Faith claims would act as a shield even more than they already do for following the rules that everyone else has to, something that truly would spell the end of democracy and the rule of law.

This more and more seems to be the point of injecting faith into secular governance, does it not?

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Top image of a pastor leading a congregation is by Tom Robertson, available via Shutterstock.