Is a Church Good for a Community?
Is a church a good thing in a community?—“Yes,” say some of our religious contemporaries, “and therefore it ought to be exempt from taxation.” But really all will not admit the affirmative of this. The unreligious, the time-server, the liberally religious, the unthinking man, will admit it as a general proposition, but will the Catholic admit that a Protestant church is a good thing? Will a Protestant admit that a Catholic Church is a good thing? Will two Protestant churches in a small village, with seating capacity for the whole town, admit that a third Protestant church would be a good thing? Would the tax-paying infidel and citizen admit it? Really, it depends greatly on what church and whose, doesn’t it? But, even tho a church is a good thing, ought every good thing to be exempt from taxation? A true Christian is a good man in a community—“the salt of the earth,” Jesus says— doing good at all times to all around him; but should he therefore be exempt from taxation? Was it Christ’s promise that the State should be with His church to the end of the age, or that He would? If the church is a real benefit, ought she not to be willing to wait to be recognized voluntarily by the community instead of forcing the public to do it?