Many Churches in America are aiding the demise of our religious liberty by their willingness to incorporate themselves under IRS/Government control. The IRS is using this connection between church and state to unduly control sermon content by threatening to remove tax exempt status to those that will not follow the rules they set up. Under IRS rules the preacher cannot mention, in a sermon, their opposition or support for any political candidate. There are also rumblings of the IRS dictating what a preacher can and cannot say about immoral habits such as sodomy; labeling such preaching as hate speech. This is clearly an intrusion by the civil authorities into the churches authority to preach the word of God and is voiding the separation of church and state we hear so much about.

This alarming trend has been brought on in part by the unscriptural practices of many of Americas churches, including many Baptist churches. Unscriptural practices such as: Paying pastors large salaries, Churches being run as entertainment centers, and the many benevolent societies which are foreign to the New Testament church Christ set up. These unscriptural practices all require large sums of money, which is the catalyst for government intervention. Some ministers are even asking their followers to help pay for a personal Jet aircraft in order to accomplish the so-called great Commission. The early church had no need for large sums of money because they had no entertainment organizations, nor high paid salaried ministers; neither did they believe the church was commissioned to raise money for the purpose of evangelizing the world. They believed that the command "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15) was given directly to the Apostles and not to the church.

The emphasis on money naturally leads to the operation of the church as a business and eventually leads to incorporation of the churches in order to maintain a tax-exempt status. How did our churches become so money oriented and thus unrecognizable as the church of Christ? Surely it was the introduction of false doctrine and practices, which require money to implement. Many of Gods children have followed ministers whose good words and fair speeches deceived them into believing a lie. In fact many of todays Ministers are extortionist, cleverly extorting money from many of Gods children, preying on their conscience, erroneously teaching them that they should send their money to help God evangelize the world. Many of these Ministers gain monetarily, some even living lavish life styles, exhibiting their love of money which the Apostle Paul says is the root of all evil "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred form the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (I Timothy 6:10)

Our Baptist forefathers generally opposed the incorporation of their churches, believing the church should be completely subject to Christ and his commandments and not mingled with civil law to govern the church. In 1794, Baptist Minister, Elder John Leland wrote in The Yankee Spy: "If any number of real saints are incorporated by human law, they cannot be a church of Christ, by virtue of that formation, but a creature of state." As sure as a church incorporates under the IRS rules, they have lost their independence and there is no longer a separation of church and state. Not only did our Baptist forefathers oppose church incorporation but some of our countrys founding fathers also did on the grounds that church incorporation would lead to undue influence by religious groups in civil affairs. Their intent was that neither religious nor civil laws should have dominant rule in either society. Because of the stands by both our Baptist and founding fathers, we have enjoyed many years of freedom from government intervention. But today well-known Baptists are aiding in reversing the separation of Church and State. Below is a link to a website which tells of a lawsuit Jerry Falwell filed against the city of Lynchburg VA Since 1787 at the urging of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson the restriction to church incorporation was adopted and has been the law in Virginia until 2002 when Mr. Falwell, joined by the ACLU, won his lawsuit. See the following websites in support of that lawsuit.

http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLiberty.cfm?ID=10147&c=142

http://www.lc.org/radiotv/nlj/nlj0602.htm

The church I try to Pastor recently faced the issue of church Incorporation. We were the recipients of a small piece of land that a brother, who regularly attended, willed to the Church. The lawyer handling the probating of his will demanded that the church must incorporate before we could even own property (including the church building we already owned). I knew from history that he was wrong but I wondered if a law had been passed that we knew nothing about. The Church voted in conference to not incorporate regardless as to whether we got the property or not. Our reasons were that the laws of Christ govern us and as Elder Isaac Backus stated in the quote below:" it [church incorporation] binds the church and world together, and tends to hinder the church from being governed wholly by the laws of Christ." Any intermingling of the two would be detrimental to the freedom of conscience we have enjoyed in this nation. It turns out that the lawyer either was ignorant of the law or intentionally misled us; a different lawyer, his partner, conveyed the land to us in a prompt manner. The Church only had to appoint trustees for the Church to handle the matter. This experience showed us that the day is fast approaching that we may be faced with over bearing governmental control of our Churches if we do not speak up.

Below is an excerpt from Elder Isaac Backuss diary concerning the issue of church Incorporation.

Diary 1795 Volume III page 1388-89 Elder Isaac Backus

"Our Lord Jesus Christ hath made laws enough to incorporate and support his churches and ministers and a law of this state, made in 1768, empowers the deacons of every church to receive and hold estates or donations which were given for religious purposes, and to manage the same at the direction and for the good of the church; and we conceive this to be all that can be safely done in that respect. For if some who are of the church, and some who are not, are incorporated together to manage estates to support religious ministers, it binds the church and world together, and tends to hinder the church from being governed wholly by the laws of Christ, which is essentially necessary for her acting as a chaste virgin to him…all compulsion by secular power hath ever been hurtful to the souls of men, and hath filled the world with strife and envy and other evil works"

Below are two Internet links (as of August 2005) that give some thought provoking information concerning incorporation of churches.

http://www.thewordsofeternallife.com/state_church.html

http://www.synergos.net/incorp.html

The Baptists in America should prayer fully consider the seriousness of incorporating their Churches under IRS control, which inevitable will lead to the lost of our religious freedom. May we, as our Baptist forefathers did, oppose all worldly intervention in the kingdom of Christ?

May God have mercy on America?

Elder Claude Mckee