Codependent Charity

Today's Los Angeles Times featured an opinion piece from a Jesuit professor and community organizer who made the case that one of the best ways to douse the raging federal budget conflagration is to tax charities.

As it is non-profits may register with the federal government to acquire a measure of legitimacy, and in return they are afforded tax-exempt status. The author of the piece makes his case, and closes by simply stating that everyone needs to make sacrifices, and he is willing to be the first to step up and lay on the altar.

In the brief author bio at the end of the piece is a statement that rarely shows up: "The views expressed here are his own." I have a feeling these words were added in this instance because of the volatile nature of his argument.

"Tax a non-profit?! That's just wrong."

And I further surmise that one reason it is considered so wrong is that the religious institutional infrastructure of this country would be the most violently averse to such an idea.

What so many don't get is that the Jesuit infrastructure is always shaping and molding people's thinking as we rage and seethe about such supposed folly. They are always working with the Iagoan boast in mind: "It doesn't matter what happens, either way I will win."

If the writer can be successful in disseminating his idea -- and he certainly has help as a major metro paper is publishing it, closing disclaimer not withstanding -- then he is putting the wedge in the door for more federal control over charitable activity. In this case finding a gold mine (non-profits) to pay for it, and let's be honest, most of federal government activity (Social Security, Medicare, Fannie and Freddie housing subsidies, etc etc) is quasi-charitable activity. Dutiful Americanists have succumbed to much worse.

If the writer is sufficiently reviled, then he has succeeded in fomenting enough outrage to scuttle the idea and move the boastfully resolute non-profit stakeholders -- the millions of them across the landscape -- to proudly slither back in to their 501c3 tax-exempt incorporated conditions doing the bidding of...

The federal government.

There is one thing the law is good for. Really. If you are someone who actually reads Jesus' words and pays some heed to them, look at the first letter of Paul to Timothy. Look there in verse nine, that the law is made for lawbreakers and rebels, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and religious, and for a few other not-so-nice kinds of people.

Signed on as a wholesome tax-exempt non-profit of some stripe? That is perfectly reasonable. The World is a cesspool of codependent interactions, everyone fearfully paying big bucks to keep other lawbreakers and rebels out of their way. The law is the cruelest taskmaster and perfectly suited for such an environment.

But do you say you belong to Christ?

Then there are only two options. One is the belief on one of the many, many Catholicist concoctions of Jesus -- a good number of them designed for an individual's particular codependent needs to be met. Those with some substantial say in a non-profit in any form even if it is the most wholesome 501c3 Christian-oriented church are firmly entrenched in the World System that governs the affairs of liars, thieves, and murderers.

Or you could actually be listening to Him, doing the things He said to do, and be living and worshipping in an assembly with others worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth. You could be regularly committed to building the highest skyscraper, composing the most beautiful sonata, or sweeping the floor of the back break room at the factory.

You are following a very cleverly disguised Cain, or you are following Christ.

And if you're following Christ, then the Jesuit professor's words cannot affect you. They mean nothing to the one who truly does live, and love, by the words and power of Christ. A completely free assembly doesn't require taxation one way or the other. It instead uses the entirety of its congregants' wealth to do something only Kingdom people know about...

Love others.

Doing the real charity, not the codependent kind the World slogs about trying to do.
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My latest home page piece gets a bit into the monolithic nature of the World System. It is brutally monolithic, no matter how many boffo storefronts it has. The Kingdom leads to One, Logos, Salvation is His very name, and from Him you may have everything. You may also visit my page on church non-profits.

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