Russell Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which takes issue with a pending tax on certain employee benefits.
A little-noticed provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 now looms over faith communities in America, raising serious questions about religious freedom and the First Amendment. While this provision is a relatively small piece of the overall package, the effect of the policy it created will be felt by the faithful around the country.
This change is a new policy to tax nonprofit organizations—including houses of worship, like the Southern Baptist churches I serve—for the cost of parking and transit benefits provided to employees. This effectively creates an income tax on churches.
The legislation does not impose a tax on churches; it taxes certain benefits now enjoyed tax-free by church employess.
Nor does the provision offend religious freedom. Dr. Moore can remain a Southern Baptist. He may continue to embarrass himself by insisting the Bible is inerrant. He may continue to burden his children with the teaching that they were born no damn good. He may continue to get dressed-up on Sunday morning and draw a crowd if there are people so foolish as to find his claims agreeable. Nobody is going to take his Bible away.
It is my religious freedom that is infringed upon, because he wants to continue to exact from me a compulsory subsidy for his employees — who offend reason and common decency every single day.
If the prevailing tax status of churches were honorable, it wouldn’t be necessary for Holy Men to misrepresent it.