A Call for Civil Disobedience: Remove “God”

Some atheist friends and I had a ritual that we followed when we met for dinner. We defaced our money.

On the back of U.S. paper money (technically, Federal Reserve notes) are the words “In God We Trust.” But I don’t trust in a god that I don’t believe exists; why should I be forced to promote a concept I don’t accept to conduct commerce? Does the American government have no obligation to its citizens who are atheists, agnostics, or religious non-Christians who feel excluded by this?

Consider the second beast from Revelation 13:16–18 that forced all people “to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.” Would the Christians eager for the imposition of “In God We Trust” as a national motto be just as happy if the money were printed with the Beast’s 666? Or what if it instead professed trust in Shiva or Allah or Xenu?

Civil disobedience

Our dinner ritual is to practice a little civil disobedience and change the slogan. Some cross out the entire motto, some cross out just “God,” and some change “God” to “FSM” (Flying Spaghetti Monster). You could replace it with E Pluribus Unum or the beginning of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Let’s take a closeup of the middle anarchist. I’m pretty sure that’s a blue “RELIGION: Together we can find a cure” t-shirt. Oh—and a defaced $20 Federal Reserve Note.

Give it a try at your next gathering of freethinkers or advocates for the separation of church and state.

But is it illegal?

What’s illegal is a national motto that spits on the First Amendment. Even if we ignore the unconstitutionality, it should’ve been a crime to replace the motto E Pluribus Unum—“Out of many, one,” which is the story of an America built by immigrants working together—with a colorless motto that could just as easily fit fifty countries.

Title 18 of the U.S. Code has several relevant sections about changes to currency.

  • Section 333 says that mutilating or defacing a Federal Reserve note is illegal, but only if done “with intent to render such [note] unfit to be reissued.”
  • Section 471 says you can’t alter money with intent to defraud.
  • Section 472 says you can’t possess or pass on money with intent to defraud.
  • Section 475 says you can’t put advertisements on money. (This got the Where’s George? bank note tracking project into trouble.)

It’s clear that this project is legal, but if you like, imagine a cloud of doubt to make it more exciting.

Add some spice. Cross out “God” in front of who you’re paying, or replace the slogan with “Atheist Money.” Get your Christian friends to join in—government meddling in religion can’t be good for them, either.

And ask yourself how weak the Christian argument is if its proponents must try to steal the prestige of the U.S. government to bolster it.

668—the neighbor of the beast.

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/12/15.)

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What Do Churches Have to Hide? The Solution Is Simple.

Nonprofit organizations in the U.S. make a contract: society allows donations to be tax deductible, and in return those organizations make their financial records public to show that they used that income wisely. Every nonprofit fills out an annual IRS 990 form to make its cash flow public—every nonprofit, that is, except churches.

Not only is this exemption unfair, it makes churches look like they have something to hide. Given past financial scandals, some do, but this secrecy makes most churches look undeservedly bad. Christians should demand that this exemption be removed. This change would improve the reputation of American churches at a time when a little reputation polishing would be welcome.

This article has four sections: a brief overview of the problem enabled by the exemption, arguments against removing the exemption, arguments for removing it, and a conclusion.

Church scandals

This isn’t an indictment of all churches, just the bad actors hiding behind the good ones.

One problem enabled by secrecy is fraud. “In 2000, an estimated $7 billion was embezzled by leaders of churches and religious organizations in the United States. Several other studies have suggested that about fifteen percent of all individual churches will suffer embezzlement.”[1] Worldwide, the estimate of fraud is $35 billion annually.[2][3]

Scandals of various sorts have brought down famous church leaders—Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Mark Driscoll, and others.[4] James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel is just the most recent.[5] Even sex scandals sometimes have a financial component, such as the hush money paid by Jim Bakker.[6]

Secret finances have sheltered outlandish salaries, like Jim Bakker’s $1.6 million more than thirty years ago.[7] While that salary wasn’t illegal, it was embarrassing. It’s only fair that the people who are ultimately paying know how their money is spent.

Church finances can be hidden even from church leadership. In James MacDonald’s church, “one elder resigned over this, after asking to see the finances and being overruled by the rest of the board.”[8]

Of course, the presence of a few bad actors doesn’t mean that churches don’t do good work, that Christians are bad people, and so on, but that’s precisely the point. When good and bad churches blend together into an indistinguishable gray mass, public financial disclosure would let the good churches be seen for what they are.

Contrast the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse lawsuits, paid using church funds,[9] with conventional nonprofits. Yes, there have been scandals with them—excessive CEO compensation with United Way in 1992 and the Smithsonian Institution in 2007, for example[10]—but all evidence argues that financial transparency has prevented far worse. Churches would benefit from following their lead.

The status quo is broken. It’s ridiculous to imagine that all church financial scandals are behind us. Fortunately, we have a simple solution: the IRS 990 form has been around for 75 years, it’s tuned for large and small nonprofits, and filing one annually should be mandatory for all of them.

Let’s move on to consider arguments pro and con mandatory filing of 990s. First, the arguments against.

CON #1: Churches are trustworthy

The assumption that churches are inherently trustworthy was the reason churches were given the exemption in the first place in 1943,[11] but the summary above shows that that assumption fails. Churches are run by imperfect people, and people sometimes do bad things. The Bible says, “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin,”[12] but if church leaders aren’t sinning, they’re certainly doing something questionable. Daystar spent half a million dollars sponsoring a Christian NASCAR driver, Ken and Gloria Copeland live tax-free in a $6.3 million “parsonage,”[13] and Mark Driscoll spent $210,000 of church funds to buy his way onto the New York Times bestseller list.[14]

When outlandish expenses are made public, credibility can be lost. Pastors Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, and Ken Copeland publicly asked for extra donations for new business jets costing tens of millions of dollars, and the public responded with ridicule. One commenter asked, “Can a business jet pass through the eye of a needle?”[15]

CON #2: Let disclosure be at the churches’ option

This argument wants to let church leaders decide to open the books or not, as they choose, but in practice they choose secrecy. In one list of America’s biggest evangelists, seven are religious nonprofits, and they all file 990s as required. The remaining 23 are churches (“televangelists” might be more accurate), and none file 990s.[16] Of the 250,000 churches registered with the IRS, only two percent file 990s.[17]

CON #3: This violates the First Amendment

Would requiring the filing of a 990 form be a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

It would not. The rules of tax-exempt status have nothing to do with religion. To encourage nonprofit organizations that do good for society (including churches), the IRS created the 501(c)(3) category. Donors can give to these organizations tax free. In return, the organizations make public their finances by filing annual 990 forms.

This demand for transparency is no special burden on churches. In fact, the reverse is true: giving an exemption unfairly benefits religion and so violates the First Amendment’s requirement that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Removing the exemption is no violation of rights when it shouldn’t have been given in the first place, especially when churches have shown that they can’t self-govern.

Churches aren’t a law unto themselves, and they must obey laws just like any other organization—laws about building codes, public safety, protection of copyright, liability, and so on. Financial transparency is just one more obligation of nonprofit organizations that are good citizens within society.

CON #4: Filing a 990 is too burdensome

We don’t hear church leaders arguing that it’s too big a burden for the 1.5 million nonprofits who now must fill them out; rather, they’re just saying that it’s too much of a burden for them. No, if other nonprofits can fill out a form, churches can too.

The 990 has evolved in the 75 years that it’s been around, so any church’s worries about the form have been raised long ago. There is a four-page 990-EZ version for organizations with less than $200,000 in annual revenue, and a 990-N for organizations with less than $50,000 in revenue. The 990-N takes minutes to complete, so the fear of overburdening a church with a tiny congregation is unfounded.

Completed 990s were first made public in 1950, organizations were obliged to mail one to anyone who asked by 1996, and they began to be put online in 1998.[18] Today, a researcher can use sites like Foundation Center, Charity Navigator, or the IRS itself to bring up financial data on any nonprofit in seconds. For example, the 990 for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network is here. Income, expenses, assets, and the salaries of key employees—it’s all there. In 2016, it had $308 million in revenue and $143 million in assets, and Pat Robertson’s salary was $478,299.

What if the church doesn’t keep good financial records so that filling out the form is difficult? (The stereotypical example might be the disorganized small business owner dropping a shoebox stuffed with last year’s receipts onto the accountant’s desk.) Putting good financial management practices into place might be difficult, but they would be their own reward. “We’re too disorganized” is no reason for an exemption. Good financial management is proper stewardship of the money the congregation has entrusted to the church.

Five years after removing the exemption, once the 990 becomes assumed and churches are comfortable with the process, I predict that almost no one would advocate for going back to secret finances.

CON #5: It’s unnecessary, because we provide information to our members

Many churches share financial information with their members (though not all do), but this is not enough. Tax-exempt status is a financial bonus to nonprofit organizations, but the lost tax revenue must come from somewhere. Less tax on nonprofits means more tax on ordinary citizens. Since they’re footing the bill, they deserve to know, whether or not they’re members of a particular church.

Even when members can technically access financial information, this can be a difficult route. Asking a pastor to see the books might imply criticism and could harm a parishioner’s standing within the church. By contrast, access to a 990 is anonymous.

CON #6: We already have a solution—the ECFA

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability was created in 1979 in response to public pressure from mainline churches against televangelists. Member organizations make a limited financial disclosure to the ECFA (not to the public), and ECFA membership provides a public seal of approval.

But why invent something new when the 990 had been in place for decades? Christian leaders were trying to complete the awkward sentence, “Churches need secrecy and can self-regulate because ___,” and they opted for transparency with training wheels. Yet again, this suggests their members have something to hide.

We’ve had forty years with the ECFA, and church scandals continue. Self-regulation relies on the consent of the regulated, and bad actors can simply not bother to join. The ECFA has 1700 members, of which only 150 are churches[19] (out of 330,000 churches in the U.S.), so it is no satisfactory alternative to true financial transparency.

CON #7: It’s not the government’s job to judge churches’ conduct

“Government should not be determining if a minister is living too lavishly. It’s not for the government to determine if someone really needs an airplane for their ministry. That’s just not something government should be getting into.”[20]

That’s a fair point, but that’s not the goal of mandatory 990s. With anonymous access to financial information, parishioners (not government) can decide if their church is using their donations wisely. If they disapprove, they can find a better fit by looking into other churches.

This is one of the advantages of the 990—it’s already being collected from other nonprofits, and adding churches to the list doesn’t increase the IRS bureaucracy. Checking on churches’ financial stewardship can be crowdsourced, a nice application of the “sunlight is the best disinfectant” principle.

CON #8: Disclosure would embarrass some churches

This is not an argument any church leader would admit to, but it’s likely the real reason. U.S. churches don’t want public critique of how they spend their $34 billion in annual income.[21]

Conventional nonprofits file 990s, and publicly traded corporations file disclosures mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Their disclosures may invite uncomfortable questions, but they muddle through. If a few churches need to scramble to clean up their acts before their finances become public, that’s a good thing.

Let’s now consider the pro arguments, those in favor of mandatory 990 filing for churches.

PRO #1: The status quo embarrasses all churches

This is the dual of the previous argument, and it may be the most powerful. Church scandals tar all churches. You can argue that your church is above reproach, but that’s just what the bad church was saying before its scandal became public. Make finances public, let them speak for themselves, and the churches that can be proud of their financial stewardship will separate from the rest.

PRO #2: If God knows, why can’t we all know?

From the Christian standpoint, any human disapproval is inconsequential compared to God’s. God knows everything, including how church leaders spend the money entrusted to them. If God is satisfied with the finances, how could a church be embarrassed to open its books to society? Said the other way around, if they’re embarrassed to show society, they’ve got some serious explaining to do before God.

Those church leaders who hesitate to open their books to the public place man before God as an authority. One wonders if they believe their own story.

PRO #3: The Bible encourages financial openness

It shouldn’t be necessary to argue that financial transparency is a cornerstone of good church management, but the Bible supports this principle.

We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man. (2 Corinthians 8:20–21)

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:12)

PRO #4: Transparency discourages impropriety

Open financial records mean that church members can monitor church operations. 990s aren’t the same as on-demand access to the church’s financial spreadsheet, but they can be read anonymously and are far better than the status quo.

Anyone who can spend the church’s money would know that it’s more than just God looking over their shoulder, which should reduce the temptation toward both embezzlement and unjustifiable expenses. Any financial scandals that are still possible might be caught earlier when they are smaller and less embarrassing.

This principle that openness encourages honesty pushed Billy Graham and some associates in 1948 to write the Modesto Manifesto, a set of guidelines for avoiding scandals that were a problem among Christian leaders even then. His organization published annual financial audits, and it summarized the financial results of revival meetings in local newspapers.[22]

Knowing that self-imposed rules could be broken, Graham constrained himself with these external rules. According to his biographer, “He has never thought that he was beyond temptation or that anything he wanted to do was all right.”[23]

PRO #5: Transparency is honest to taxpayers

The subsidy that American society gives religion because of its tax-exempt status is estimated at $83 billion per year.[24] The 990 would be the way for churches to say to the American taxpayers who are picking up the slack, “Thank you, and here’s how we’re spending the money you gave us.” Removing the exemption would also be fair to the other nonprofits who must fill out the 990.

Christians might defer to church leadership on spiritual matters, but it doesn’t follow that taxpayers should defer to church leadership on financial matters.

PRO #6: We find transparency in other contracts

Anyone who gets a patent receives legal protection for the invention in return for revealing the secrets of the invention. And any organization that gets 501(c)(3) status receives tax-free donations in return for opening its books.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said, “Having tax-exempt status is a great privilege, and in exchange for that privilege, all other groups must file a detailed report annually to the IRS and the public on how we spend donations. . . . Why should churches be exempt from basic financial reporting requirements? Equally important, why would churches not wish to be accountable?”[25]

PRO #7: Transparency is honest to church members

American taxpayers are subsidizing religion, but it’s the members themselves who are directly footing the bill. Not only must churches open their books to be fair to those members, but polls show that members want more transparency.

Financial secrecy helped keep the Catholic sexual abuse scandals hidden for so long, and Catholics are pushing back by demanding more financial transparency.

A 2002 Gallup poll found that sixty-five percent of Catholics agreed that the church should be more accountable for its finances, and seventy-nine percent wanted bishops to give a complete account of the financial impact of sexual abuse victim settlements. A study conducted by the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management found that a majority of Catholics wanted “full financial disclosure” from the church [emphasis added].[26]

That certainly seems fair, given that their donations fund the settlements.

Another case is Daystar, a Christian television network with over $200 million in assets and which takes in donations of $35 million annually. As a church, its books are secret, but records made available due to a lawsuit show that far less of the donations are given away as charity than promised. One experienced nonprofit analyst said, “Daystar needs to tell people that only about 5 percent of their contributions are going toward hospitals, churches, needy individuals.”[27]

Is 5 percent a lot or a little? Does it match what Daystar has promised on air or not? That’s not for me to judge, but it is for the donors to judge. Covert finances are not honest.

PRO #8: What cults are hiding behind this IRS loophole?

Scientology filed thousands of nuisance lawsuits against the IRS to protest its loss of church status. It finally dropped its lawsuits in return for nonprofit status.[28] What churches would you like to see the finances of? Hare Krishna? The Unification Church (“the Moonies”)? Nxivm? You may think that your church is operating ethically, but what about the other guys?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation argues that financial secretiveness allowed Jim Jones to hide the early signs of his church’s meltdown that led to the 1978 massacre of almost a thousand church members in Jonestown.[29]

And it would be good to get the IRS out of the church-defining business. While the IRS never reviews or assesses religious doctrine,[30] it does have a 14-point checklist[31] to decide if an organization is a “church.” The IRS says, “Because beliefs and practices vary so widely, there is no single definition of the word church for tax purposes. The IRS considers the facts and circumstances of each organization applying for church status.”[32]

With no 990 loophole, the IRS wouldn’t have to decide who is and who isn’t a church.

PRO #9: There is no argument for secrecy

Fill in the blank: “In our church/denomination, we want to maintain financial secrecy because ___.” Do you want to stand before the congregation and justify the explanation?

Or imagine it from the other direction. Suppose churches have been using the 990 for years, and everyone is accustomed to the transparency. Now someone proposes that the IRS provide a loophole to exempt churches from that requirement, and you need to make the argument. How would you argue for financial secrecy in the future?

Churches should be more financially transparent than the Mafia.

PRO #10: The 990 makes church governance easier

Church scandals often center around charismatic leaders who bully others in church leadership to get their way. Someone on the church board might suggest more financial transparency to the membership. Perhaps it’s criticism of an extravagant expense or a suggestion to apply the financial checks and balances used in business. They’re all shot down by the charismatic leader. Board members could push harder, but they risk their position on the board and their reputation within the church. Let’s make it easier on these church leaders who try to do the right thing by resolving this debate for them.

Here’s one take on the difficult position of these church leaders.

Those who confront pastors . . . may be told that they are “unsubmissive” or “disloyal”. . . . Churches, as they currently exist, actually foster and shelter malfeasance. The dynamics of religious leadership discourage laypeople from pressing for financial accountability even in more democratic polities, suggesting that it is imperative for the government to apply the same laws to churches that mandate transparency for other nonprofits.[33]

Mandatory 990s are like round thermostats. In the 1950s, industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss noticed that rectangular thermostats were often mounted on the wall slightly crooked. He designed the popular Honeywell round thermostat that couldn’t be mounted on the wall crooked. The opportunity to mount it wrong was gone. 990s are like that—the debate about how open to be and who is allowed to see what information is gone. Constraints can be freeing.

The risk to board members with a potentially bullying pastor is also reduced. The hands of the board are tied—churches must be financially transparent; the debate is over; next issue. The IRS becomes the hero in this story, because they took the burden from the board.

PRO #11: More transparency might mean more revenue

Is the IRS 990 bitter medicine, or is it the route to greater church income?

Financial transparency helps revenue in two ways. First, it gives members more confidence that their money is being spent wisely. Second, it reduces the chance that one church scandal will contaminate the entire community. Members can state that their church isn’t like the one with the scandal and back that up with data.

One study found that “giving rates within the Catholic Church varied in proportion to transparency and accountability” and almost half of respondents to another said they’d be more generous “if [they] understood better what the church does with its money.”[34]

At a time when churches nationwide are scrambling for members, wise financial stewardship is a nice selling feature. Your church might be more generous in helping the less fortunate than other churches in your neighborhood, but without universal 990s, how would anyone know?

Conclusion

Our situation is a little like that of the food industry in the U.S. in the late 1800s. Milk was sometimes diluted with water infused with chalk or plaster to cut costs. Pepper was sometimes diluted with charred rope or dirt. Formaldehyde and borax were food preservatives. Some food dyes contained lead or arsenic, and so on.[35] The food industry was constrained by few laws, and they encouraged politicians to keep it that way.

The food industry was in bed with politicians in the late 1800s, and church leaders are in bed with politicians today. Filing 990s might be embarrassing, so politicians removed that little problem for their friends. Churches and politicians (with some exceptions) like the status quo.

The food industry liked the status quo, too, but with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, there was a new sheriff in town. Adulterating or mislabeling food and drugs had become a crime. The food industry and politicians, who would theoretically be responsible for identifying and solving the problem, were actually part of the problem. The industry couldn’t be trusted to police itself. Change came after citizens woke to the problem and demanded change. Press about the science behind the problem plus exposés like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1904) made the difference.

That’s the lesson for financial transparency today. Trusting churches to police themselves doesn’t work, and change apparently won’t come through church leadership, who have assured politicians that the exemption is a political third rail. Maybe they can eventually be cajoled to do the right thing, but they won’t be leading the charge. Change will come after citizens see the problem and demand change. Better: Christians, we need you to see the problem and demand change.

There are many beneficiaries from financial transparency. Not only are typical Christians the biggest winners from this change—by opening church finances that had looked suspicious—they’re the ones with the power. Politicians will listen to them.

At the turn of the twentieth century, we needed new science to build the case for food safety. Today, we don’t need anything new to make the case for financial transparency, since the case is obvious to anyone interested enough to look for it. What we need is a critical mass of Christians demanding change.

My Christian friends, raise this topic with others in your congregation. Forward them this article. Write a letter to the editor. Complain to your congressperson. Do something to make this an important topic of conversation.

Don’t look to church leadership to do it for you. This is your fight, and you’ll be the beneficiary.

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants;
electric light the most efficient policeman.
— Future SCOTUS Justice Louis Brandeis

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Acknowledgement: I found a law journal article particular helpful, both for the authority of its comments on constitutionality and its extensive research: “The Law and Financial Transparency in Churches: Reconsidering the Form 990 Exemption” by John Montague.

[1] John Montague, “The Law and Financial Transparency in Churches: Reconsidering the Form 990 Exemption,” Cardozo Law Review 35, no. 203 (2013): 232.

[2] Veronica Dagher, “Trust in the Lord…But Check Out the Church,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2012.

[3]Status of Global Mission, 2014,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 38, no. 1, see item 56 (Ecclesiastical crime).

[4] Montague, 236.

[5] Libby Anne, “The Harvest Bible Chapel Scandal in a Nutshell (And Why You Should Care),” Love, Joy, Feminism blog, February 20, 2019.

[6] Montague, 218.

[7] Montague, 218.

[8] Libby Anne.

[9] Montague, 238.

[10] Montague, 222–3.

[11] Montague, 230.

[12] 1 John 5:18; see also 1 John 3:6–9.

[13] John Burnett, “Can A Television Network Be A Church? The IRS Says Yes,” NPR, April 1, 2014.

[14] Husna Haq, “Pastor reportedly buys his way onto New York Times bestseller list,” The Christian Science Monitor, March 7, 2014.

[15] Washington Post, “Televangelist wants his followers to pay for a $54-million private jet. It would be his fourth plane,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2018.

[16]Thirty Leading Religious Broadcasters,” NPR, April 1, 2014.

[17] Leonardo Blair, “Growing Fraud Sucks Billions From Churches Annually; This IRS Fix Could Help, Expert Says,” The Christian Post, August 12, 2018.

[18] Montague, 213, 224, and 229.

[19] Montague, 256.

[20] John Burnett.

[21] Montague, 206.

[22] Montague, 254–5.

[23] Montague, 255.

[24] Dylan Matthews, “You give religions more than $82.5 billion a year,” The Washington Post, August 22, 2013.

[25] Freedom From Religion Foundation, “FFRF sues IRS over preferential treatment of churches,” Freethought Today, Jan/Feb 2013.

[26] Montague, 252.

[27] John Burnett.

[28]Scientology and law,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

[29] Annie Laurie Gaylor, “To avoid another Jonestown, reform IRS church reporting policy,” Freethought Now!, November 19, 2018.

[30]Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations,” IRS Publication 1828, 2015.

[31]‘Churches’ Defined,” IRS.

[32]Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization,” IRS publication 557, 2018.

[33] Montague, 243–4.

[34] Montague, 247–8.

[35] Ari Shapiro, “How A 19th Century Chemist Took On The Food Industry With A Grisly Experiment,” NPR, October 8, 2018.

Atheist Monument Critique: Ten Commandments and Ten Punishments

Read part 1 of this series on an American Atheist monument installed on public property in Florida as a protest against a Ten Commandments monument. This post will conclude my response to criticism of the monument.

The right side of the monument lists Old Testament punishments for breaking any of the Ten Commandments. A law is only a law if there are consequences for breaking it—otherwise it’s just a suggestion. Let’s see what the punishments are.

The punishments

For breaking the “have no other gods before me” commandment:

Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 13:10)

For breaking the “no blasphemy” commandment:

Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. (Leviticus 24:16)

For breaking the “keep the Sabbath day holy” commandment:

Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death. (Exodus 31:15)

And so on (the full list is here). Though not true for every commandment, death is the go-to punishment. Death for killing. Death for adultery. Death for sassing your parents.

The other Ten Commandments

I know what you’re thinking, because I had the same reaction. What kind of nutty list of Ten Commandments is this? Whoever heard of “no blasphemy” in the Ten Commandments? Don’t be rude to your parents? No adultery? Good rules or not, these aren’t in the Ten Commandments.

Let’s review the story. Moses gets the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20, but the anxious Israelites make a golden calf during his long absence. When Moses sees this, he’s furious and smashes the tablets of the law. He gets a new set in Exodus 34. At the conclusion of this list, we read:

And [Moses] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:28).

This is the first time the phrase “Ten Commandments” is used in the Bible, and this version of the law was placed in the Ark of the Covenant. It couldn’t be the other set, since it was destroyed. But this law bears only a vague similarity to the set popularly portrayed as the Ten Commandments: make no covenants with the Canaanites (#1), God gets all firstborn (#5), never boil a young goat in its mother’s milk (#10). Read them yourself.

Critique of the American Atheist monument

Let’s get back to the critique of the monument by Benjamin Wiker. About American Atheists’ use of the punishments to show the brutality of Old Testament Law, he says,

Again, we have monumental ignorance, or at least confusion.

Ouch! Looks like someone is about to get disciplined.

First, these come from the Old Testament Law that is directed at the ancient Israelites themselves.

So the Old Testament is irrelevant today? I’m surprised that we’ve so quickly found a point of agreement. But dismissing unpleasant bits of the Old Testament as applying only to the ancient Israelites won’t work.

God said, “If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5–6). In other words, the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law—all of it—is directed at the Israelites. If Christians put up a monument to Ten Commandments that applied only to ancient Israelites, then it’s just as reasonable for American Atheists to put up a monument highlighting the punishments for breaking those irrelevant commandments. (h/t commenter UWIR)

Second, and related, the atheists make no allowance for the moral and theological development that took place from the Old to the New Testament. Jesus Christ transforms the Law by mercy, even while he intensifies and purifies its moral demands.

Moral development? The Law is transformed? What kind of evolving Law is this?

I’d have thought that the omniscient creator of the universe would get the law right the first time. Or does moral action change with time?

Apparently we’re to believe that the Old Testament law was actually version 0.5 because, I dunno, the ancient Israelites were too stupid or barbaric to handle the real thing. And for centuries, the priests just handed out warnings until the Israelites could mature as a culture to handle the message of Jesus.

Nope—Moses came down with the new law, and it took effect immediately. There were no warnings and no slaps on the wrist. The punishment for many transgressions was death, starting immediately. Jesus says this about the Old Testament:

Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled (Matthew 5:18)

Sounds pretty unchangeable.

Back to Wiker:

Third, while the American Atheists may disagree with the actual punishments, are they then also rejecting the moral foundation of all of the Ten Commandments? Is the prohibition against murder a bad thing? Against adultery? Against stealing? Against providing false testimony in court?

The moral foundation on which at least some of the Ten Commandments rest is good; just don’t pretend that the Ten Commandments gave those morals to society.

The Ten Commandments are religious and so are inappropriate for the state-supported public square. There, the U.S. Constitution rules, not the Bible.

And even more difficult for [atheists] to answer, in what way does atheism provide a moral foundation for these prohibitions? Atheism is almost invariably grounded on materialism, and that means that it’s not all that clear about why anyone should or shouldn’t do anything.

You don’t know where moral customs, taboos, and law come from? You can’t imagine a natural source? Take a civics class to learn where laws come from. Read an anthropology textbook to learn about morality. They don’t come from God.

To take one obvious instance, purely non-theistic evolution has one rule: nature works by the survival of the fittest, survival by any means.

It sounds like Wiker is twisting “Survival by any means” into “survival by few means: just the nasty ones.” It’s refreshing to debate a Christian who’s well-versed in what he’s attacking, but unfortunately, that’s not what we have here. “Survival of the fittest” (not a term coined by Charles Darwin, by the way) refers to how well suited an organism is to its environment. It’s the fit of a puzzle piece, not an athlete.

Sure, sometimes savagery is a good survival strategy. Grizzly bears are in the take-no-prisoners camp. And sometimes cooperation works best. Bonobos are in the make-love-not-war camp. That’s two different mammals shaped by evolution to use two different survival strategies.

Fourth, as atheists tend to do, the American Atheists are simply lumping all religions indiscriminately together. But a moment’s thought about this would be a real wake-up call for them. It’s not among present-day Jews or Christians that you’ll be seeing calls for death for idolatry or blasphemy, but among Islamists.

Thank God most Christians are not faithful to their Old Testament.

I don’t think beliefs should be hereditary.
— Gregorio Smith (director of “Truth Be Told,”
a documentary film about leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses)

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/18/13.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

 

Atheist Monument Critique: Founding Father Freethinkers

Read part 1 of this series on an American Atheist monument installed on public property in Florida as a protest against a Ten Commandments monument.

The back of the monument contains quotes by some founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Wiker (the Christian whose article I’ve been critiquing) responds:

The problem with the American Atheists using these quotes is that, while Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin were certainly Americans, they were certainly not atheists.

That’s debatable, but let’s let that go. Wiker continues:

They warmly approved of the moral doctrines that arose from Christianity. These moral doctrines were understood, by all three, to be essential to forming the character of the citizens for free government.

What moral doctrines are exclusively from Christianity? Good principles like “don’t murder” or “don’t steal” are hardly unique to Christianity or even to religion. (Admittedly, neither are stupid principles like Christianity’s support for slavery or genocide.) And basic principles that today we think are obvious like no slavery, no torture, non-coercive marriage, freedom from religion, democracy, and others that are listed in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are not from the Bible (more here).

Moral principles come from people and society. We don’t need to imagine the supernatural to explain them.

Thomas Jefferson

Here’s the first quote:

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
— Thomas Jefferson

Wiker tries to handwave a response:

The first quote shows a confidence by Jefferson that the foundation of belief in God is rational, not that reason leads to atheism.

Wrong again. Why would Jefferson demand that we question the existence of God if he meant that belief in God is rational? How stupid does Wiker hope we are?

John Adams

He has no rebuttal to the Adams quote:

“It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [writing the Constitution] had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven.”
— John Adams

Benjamin Franklin

Here’s the final atheist quote:

“When religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
— Benjamin Franklin

Wiker responds:

[This] is spoken against having an established church (as England had its own established church).

I’d say, “Nice try” except that this is quite a pathetic try. No, that’s not what Franklin is saying. He’s saying that any god so ephemeral that he won’t support his own religion isn’t much of a god.

But that does not prove that secular atheism invented the separation of church and state. . . . The separation of church and state is (like hospitals and universities) the invention of Christianity.

The Church must’ve forgotten its embrace of church/state separation during the period when the Pope had his own country, ordered Crusades, crowned emperors, and in general meddled in the political affairs of Europe. Or when kings imagined a divine right to rule. Or when Henry VIII took the role of head of the Church of England. The church was up to its well-appointed elbows in politics. (And Wiker claims too much when he declares that Christianity invented universities and hospitals.)

True, “atheism” didn’t invent separation of church and state, but let’s not pretend that Christianity did, either. Martin Luther’s doctrine of two kingdoms, for example, is hardly the First Amendment.

But focus on the positive. Wiker is so adamant that church/state separation a good thing that he wants to take credit for it. His claim of invention is wrong, but let’s instead focus on his celebration of church/state separation.

Not only are we on the same page, we’ve come full circle. The initial news story was of a county in Florida giving exclusive use of their property for a Christian message. Wiker’s support for church/state separation makes clear he would stand alongside American Atheists in demanding either no religious messages or free access for all.

Concluded here.

We do not err because truth is difficult to see.
It is visible at a glance.
We err because this is more comfortable.
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/16/13.)

Image credit: Dave Muscato, CC

 

Religion in Public Schools: What Does the First Amendment Allow?

separation of church and stateAs a follow-up to my recent post about prayer in public schools, let’s look at what of religion is allowed in U.S. public schools and what isn’t. As an authority, I’ve used chapter 4 of Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools from the First Amendment Center.
For brevity, this summary must avoid the nuance and make some gray areas appear black and white, and it only focuses on religious freedom in schools. Remember also that this topic is in flux. It was only in 1940 that the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that religious free exercise should be included in the liberties granted to all citizens by the 14th Amendment (1868).
The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty in the U.S. Constitution has two clauses.
First Amendment Establishment Clause

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

The Lemon test, from a 1971 Supreme Court case, tests this clause. A negative answer to any of the three questions below means that the law is unconstitutional.

  1. Does the law have a bona fide secular or civic purpose? The purpose of schools is education, so if the only purpose for a school activity is to celebrate a religious holiday (for example), it’s unconstitutional. On the other hand, allowing students religious exemptions from attending sex-education classes is constitutional. Accommodating a student’s religion is valid, but promoting it is not. Permitting a student essay with a religious theme is valid, but requiring it is not.
  2. Is the law neutral? That is, does the primary effect neither advance nor inhibit religion? Allowing students to be released from school to attend religious instruction elsewhere is valid, but promoting such classes is not. Religious groups must be allowed to use school facilities like any other group. Allowing a church to use a school building does advance religion, but an equal-access policy wouldn’t have advancing religion as itsprimary effect.
  3. Does the law avoid excessive government entanglement with religion? The Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman, from which this test comes, found that a state law reimbursing nonpublic schools (mostly Catholic) for secular classes was an excessive government entanglement with religion.

First Amendment Free Exercise Clause

Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]

For this clause, the Sherbert test is applied. First, the student who claims that their Free Exercise rights were violated must meet both tests below.

  1. The student’s actions must have been motivated by sincere religious belief. Religious beliefs are judged only by the student. From the standpoint of a teacher or any other observer, they don’t have to be popular, rational, or sensible; they only have to be sincere. For the purposes of this test, the belief system must “[function] like a religion in the life of the individual,” which would include secular humanism.
  2. The student’s actions have been substantially burdened by the government. The focus is on substantial. Coercion would be substantial; incidental burdens would not be. Forbidding students from handing out religious tracts to classmates might be a substantial burden, but requiring that they do it at a reasonable time and place would not be.

If the student has a valid claim (both 1 and 2 are met), we move to on to see if the government has a compelling reason to impose that burden. The government will win its case if it meets both tests below.

  1. The government must be acting to further a compelling state interest. A compelling state interest might be public health and safety, but “compelling” has limits. Compulsory-attendance laws are a compelling interest, but Amish families successfully argued that it wasn’t compelling enough after eighth grade. Teaching children how to prevent the spread of HIV through sex-education classes is a compelling interest, but this may not be compelling enough if parents object on religious grounds.
  2. The government must have pursued that interest in a manner least burdensome to religion. The school should burden a student’s religious beliefs as little as necessary. If a student objects to an assignment on religious grounds, the school might be required to find an alternative, though one student’s religion can’t determine the curriculum for the rest of the class.

These First Amendment clauses are not in tension
It’s wrong to see one clause favoring religion and the other opposed to it. According to Finding Common Ground, “Both clauses secure the rights of believers and nonbelievers alike to be free from government involvement in matters of conscience.”



See also: Movie Review: “God’s Still Not Dead: You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”


The bottom line
Let’s consider the court’s stand on typical questions.

  • Prayer, Bible reading, and expressing religious viewpoints are allowed if they’re done by the student. School-sponsored versions are not.
  • Teachers and outside adults do not have the right to pray with students. Students are the ones obliged to be there, and it’s their rights that are protected.
  • Moments of silence are okay, but not if they are used to promote prayer.
  • Religious clubs should be treated like other clubs, though religious groups are prohibited in primary schools because of the risk of younger students being unable to distinguish student speech from government speech.
  • Religious community groups that want to use school facilities after hours should be treated like other groups.
  • Outside adults may not pray at graduation or other school events, though the law is less clear about student-led prayer. The better approach is a privately sponsored voluntary baccalaureate event, separate from graduation.
  • Rules for students handing out literature must be even handed and not favor or discriminate against religious literature. Restrictions are allowed, but schools probably can’t ban all such distribution. Teachers and outside adults, on the other hand, have no right to distribute literature of any kind in schools.

If we are just a bunch of bitter old church people, grumpy at the world, 
yelling at non-believers to get off our proverbial moral lawn, 
that does not show forth light and preserve as salt.
— Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research at 2013 SBC

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 6/19/13.)
Photo credit: Kim Sacha, flickr, CC
 

Bring Back Our Motto! (Speech at Rally in Olympia, WA)

This is a speech that I will give in Olympia, Washington on the capitol grounds, along with other excellent speakers as part of a Bring Back Our Motto rally on June 29 at 11 am.
Patriotism US motto In God We TrustDo we really trust God?
In God We Trust: this motto has been imposed on us, but ask yourself if it’s really true. Do we really trust God?
One might pray to God for comfort when things are bad, but who would pray instead of using evidence? Who would trust God for safe passage across a busy street rather than looking and using good judgment? Or trust God for a good grade rather than studying? Or trust God for food rather than earning money to buy it?
And when someone does actually trust God—like reject medical treatment and instead pray for their child to be made well—the state rejects that. It steps in and insists on proper medical care. No, trusting in God might sound nice, but when it comes to something important, we take the approach that works.
Like government. We the people work together to build roads, educate our children, and defend our country. It’s not perfect, but we do a pretty good job. We have a trustworthy government, which is why it’s ridiculous to have that government declare that it’s actually God that we trust. Remember the words of the Declaration of Independence: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The buck stops with us.
What’s good about “In God We Trust”?
Let’s consider this from another angle. What’s the point of this motto? How is God supposed to react? Does it make him happy? Does it tell him anything new? Does it remind him that we care, just in case he’s sad? Is it a magic charm or a spell? Are we sweet-talking God so that he does nice things for America?
Now, let me apologize if I offended anyone, because that might’ve been a bit rude, but it’s not me who’s offensive—it’s this motto and those who are behind it. Naturally, Christians take very seriously their relationship with God, but how shallow do politicians think Christians’ faith is, when they put this motto on money, on buildings? If they must steal the prestige of the U.S. government to bolster Christians’ faith?
Maybe this motto has nothing to do with heaven but is firmly grounded here on earth. I say that it’s just a gift given by politicians to their Christian supporters, the solution to an invented problem and a subversion of the First Amendment.
Ceremonial deism
To see how shallow the motivation behind this motto is, consider a similar problem, the “under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance. Think about how that part of the Pledge goes: “one nation, under God … indivisible!” Right before the word “indivisible” was inserted the very divisive phrase “under God.”
In court challenges, those in favor of these religious phrases have tipped their hand. “Oh, c’mon—this isn’t an imposition of Christianity! These tired phrases have been used so much that they amount to nothing more than ‘ceremonial deism.’” That’s the retreat that advocates for these godly phrases have taken—they dismiss them as merely “ceremonial deism.” They see the problem, so they say that “In God We Trust” is just something you say, without any real meaning, like “How do you do?”
What kind of world are we living in? Those who want “In God We Trust” say that it has only a ceremonial meaning, while others must point out the very obvious Christian claim in this divisive phrase. But if this is a relatively meaningless phrase with no Christian content, then drop it!
“In God We Trust” in Clark County
Along with others here, last year I attended a public meeting in Vancouver, Washington, the county seat of Clark County. The Clark County Board of Councilors had decided that, among their many pressing matters of business, they should spend most of a day deciding if “In God We Trust” should go up on the wall in their public hearing room.
For hours, the councilors heard comments, first in favor of the slogan and then against it. Each was given applause by partisans of that viewpoint. Anyone who thought this was not a divisive issue left that meeting with no doubt.
Since I live near Seattle, you might say that it wasn’t my business to challenge the wishes of the good people of Clark County, but that’s not who was pushing for this. There was no groundswell of public demand. Instead, an organization from California is pushing local governments nationwide to put “In God We Trust” on the walls in government buildings.
Imagine attending a council meeting as a non-Christian and seeing “In God We Trust” glaring down at you. How welcome would that citizen feel? Imagine instead it was a Muslim slogan in Arabic. Or a Hindu slogan in Sanskrit. Or a Satanic slogan or 666. If “Allahu Akbar” is offensive on the wall, if it violates the First Amendment, why is “In God We Trust” appropriate?
We’ve been here before
This should sound familiar, because we see this in our annual celebration of the War on Christmas. You’ll have a city hall that puts up a manger display every year. Then a freethought group says that this is fine on private property but not city property; please take it down. So the next year, the city allows all groups to have holiday displays, and you get Festivus poles, freethought slogans, and celebrations of Roman Saturnalia or Norse Yule. Predictably, Christian groups complain, and the next year you have nothing.
Why is this always so hard? Why not admit that the government elevating Christianity over other religions is against the rules and just stay out of religion? Can elected officials not just do the right thing the first time? And, to the point at hand, why is it not obvious that with “In God We Trust,” government is unfairly benefitting Christianity?
What’s the solution?
Let me close by drawing your attention to the motto that we discarded, E Pluribus Unum, which means, “Out of Many, One.” This has been the motto on the Great Seal since 1782. America is composed of people who came from all over the world to pull in the same direction to make one great country. “Out of Many, One” was tailor-made for the United States, but we flushed it down the toilet in favor of “In God We Trust,” a baggy one-size-fits-all suit that could be worn by a hundred countries.
Politicians often seem deaf to reason, and this issue can seem like an uphill battle, but let me suggest one small bit of civil disobedience: cross out the “God” on your money. Let people see you do it. Tell them why if they ask.
“In God We Trust” is divisive, but that’s what some politicians live for. They invent problems that they can solve. “God will be annoyed unless we tell him how much we love him, so vote for me so I can support a godly motto!”
Or, we could respect the First Amendment, the friend of every citizen, Christian and non-Christian.
In this election year, we see up close the problems with divisive politics. “In God We Trust” is ceremonial and meaningless, and it’s divisive. It’s the solution to no problem.
Bring back our motto. Let’s return to E Pluribus Unum, a motto for all.

If you don’t have a seat at the table,
you are probably on the menu.
— Congressman Barney Frank

Image credit: Bob Shepard, flickr, CC