Oct 19 2006
Watch out the NY Times is after Christians…
Here is the sub-title to the 4 part series the NY Times wrote about Christian ministries.
Articles in this four-part series examine how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government.
Don’t think for a minute that the secular world wants to hurt Christians. The series is here.
Look at the titles for these articles:
Part 1: Favors for the Faithful
Part 2: Limiting Workers’ Rights
Part 3: Giving Exemptions
Part 4: The Personal Exemptions
After reading these articles it made me realize how “ABOVE REPROACH” that we as ministers and followers of Jesus need to be.  I always keep up with my receipts for conferences and any time I spend the church’s money. Not all ministries require that but they should. We as churches and ministries should be giving back to the community rather than asking for hand outs!
What do you think?
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4 responses so far
We MUST be above reproach. IN every area…finances, morality, integrity, community, and ethics.
And every Christ-follower should strive to be not only above reproach, but also blameless.
As a former Christian school administrator, I found the article in Part 2 about limiting worker’s rights quite interesting. At all three Christian schools where I worked, employees were basically at the mercy of the board and administration. One of the schools I worked at did not offer health benefits and one of our younger teachers and coaches had a son who, at age 3, needed to have his appendix removed. His wife had to go back to work so that they could pay the outrageous hospital bill they were charged because they didn’t have insurance and had to pay a non-negotiated rate for the surgery and room. This at a school where the median income of parents who sent their kids there was well into six figures. We could not extend contracts to our experienced, qualified, dedicated teaching staff until after the enrollment figures came in at the first of April, and then only if the enrollment supported the number. Twice, in two years, I had to tell someone in mid-April that the budget wouldn’t permit me to offer them a contract and that if they wanted to do so, they could wait until August to see if anything more came in before finding out they had a job. I hated that task. On top of that, here in Texas, we have an “at-will” employment law which I am extremely opposed to. I tried to convince our board that we needed to have more integrity than the law required.
When I first got into the field, I looked at it as an excellent chance for ministry. I realized, as time went on, that as tuition increased, and the students came from increasingly prosperous families, the number of church-related families decreased, the arrogance of the students and parents increased exponentially, and the griping about the costs increased dramatically. I finally realized that all I was doing was babysitting spoiled rich kids and subsidizing the private school education of people who were far wealthier than I was.
We should not take for granted the blessings of living in America. They may not always remain the same. And, there are many who would take advantage of them. it will be interesting to see if this subject gets more media attention because it could cause political waves over the exemptions.
Should ministers who are highly paid get the same exemptions? That’s an interesting question.
It seems quite a few church-state scholars took issue with Dianna Henriques’ 4-part NYTimes series on so-called accommodations of religion (exempt from taxes, discrimination laws, etc..). I know I did.
Syndicated columnist Terry Mattingly of Get Religion and Don Byrd of BJC’s Blog From The Capital offered their criticisms HERE
Secular media often does a lousy job of reporting religion. This is just one example. Many of us on the left and right know that Dianna Henrique’s does not understand religion….at all.