During Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump announced the formation of a task force to combat “anti-Christian bias.” My colleague Andrew Seidel did a great job debunking a story Trump told about an anti-abortion activist who was supposedly imprisoned for peacefully praying outside an abortion clinic.
But let’s take a step back and look at these claims of anti-Christian bias with a wider lens. When we do that, we quickly see that far from persecuted, religion in America (especially Christianity) enjoys a position of great privilege.
Eleven years ago, I researched this question when I was writing my book Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You The Right To Tell Other People What To Do, Here are some interesting things I learned about how our laws and customs favor religious groups:
Tax policy: Secular non-profits must apply for tax exemption from the Internal Revenue Service. There’s a lot of paperwork, and if the IRS concludes that you haven’t made the case, tax exemption can be denied (or revoked from a group that already has it if that group runs afoul of a regulation – of which there are many). By contrast, houses of worship are assumed to be tax-exempt as soon as they are formed. They don’t have to fill out any paperwork.
Financial oversight: Secular non-profits with annual budgets over $50,000 must every year fill out a detailed financial statement called Form 990 and file it with the IRS. This form, which contains information about the top salaries at non-profits and how money is spent, must be made available to the public. Religious groups are exempt from this.
Under IRS rules, the following entities are exempt from filing Form 990: a church, an interchurch organization of local units of a church; a convention or association of churches; an integrated auxiliary of a church; a church-affiliated organization that is exclusively engaged in managing funds or maintaining retirement programs; a school below college level affiliated with a church or operated by a religious order; church-affiliated mission societies if more than half of their activities are conducted in, or are directed at persons in, foreign countries; an exclusively religious activity of any religious order.
People sometimes ask us here at Americans United how much money certain churches have. The answer is that no one knows because they aren’t required to tell anyone.
Auditing procedures: The IRS has the power to audit individuals, corporations and secular non-profits if they suspect wrongdoing. But Congress passed a special law governing the audits of houses of worship that requires the IRS to demonstrate heightened scrutiny and go through cumbersome special procedures before a church can be audited. The result is that church audits rarely happen.
Exemptions from secular laws and special breaks: Houses of worship are routinely exempted from laws that every other group has to follow. Their employees have limited protection from firing. Some states don’t require houses of worship to abide by laws designed to protect basic health, safety and welfare. Some states, for example, exempt all church-based child day care centers from oversight and inspections – even though a compelling case can be made that regulations protect children from harm.
In 2006, The New York Times reported that far from being hostile to religion, America’s legislators often give houses of worship special breaks. Religious organizations, reported The Times, “enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly.”
Asserted the newspaper, “An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.”
Lobbying rules: Secular groups are limited in the amount of lobbying they can do on Capitol Hill and must file regular reports to prove that they are operating within the limits. Religious groups are exempt from this requirement. No one knows how much money powerful religious groups are spending to influence our national laws because they don’t have to tell anyone.
This list just scratches the surface. Yet it’s clear from reading it that religious groups in America occupy a place of privilege, not persecution.
So, what’s really going on here? It’s simple: Christian Nationalists want to run your life. They want to tell you who you can love. They want to redefine gender according to their interpretation of books they deem holy. They want to take away your reproductive rights. They want to stop you from reading books they dislike. They want to force their narrow version of Christianity into the public schools.
When courts, legislators or the people stop them from doing these things, Christian Nationalists scream persecution. They are currently aided by a president who has a big mouth and only a passing relationship with the truth, but merely yelling something over and over again doesn’t make it so. The facts show that the myth of Christian persecution in America remains exactly that – a myth.
