"Christian" Web Site Filled With Anti-Vaccine Stories
I kind of stumbled onto a site called Christianity Daily, which I know nothing about and have never looked at.
One of the news feeds I look at linked to a story that caught my eye and so I went to Christianity Daily. What immediately caught my eye was that the majority of the featured news stories were about vaccine mandates and vaccine resistance.
All these articles and more (about vaccines) appear on this web sites featured articles for today.
Twitter Censors American Heart Association Over Research Linking mRNA Vaccines To Heart Inflammation
Israeli Immunologist Says Omicron Variant Could Be Sign The Pandemic Is Nearing Its End
New York Physician Assistant Reveals Administrative Orders To Stop Reporting COVID Vaccine Injuries
States With Mask Mandates Report More COVID Cases Than No-Mask Florida
Those stories (and none others) are listed as "Most Read"
The "Other Headlines" section includes stories about abortion , Kayleigh McEnany and the Jan 6 Committee.
What is "Christian" about ginning up anti-vaccine sentiment among "Christians" ?
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Every "news" story on this so called Christian web site was political in nature taking the anti-vaccine, pro Trump pro Republican position.
US : Christianity Daily
Separation of church and state ? lol.
The church/state separation is a limitation on the state, not the church. It only extends to the church insofar as the IRS’s requirements for maintaining non-taxable status. Beyond that, churches are free to be as political as they want.
If the churches want to play in politics with political opinions and endorsements then they should be taxed.
It limits both to keep the actions of the state absolutely neutral and secular. We cannot all have equal religious rights to believe or not to believe if the state is enforcing religious belief over nonbelief or supporting one religion or sect over the other.
I bet that taxing churches would be met with criticism. there is a reason we don't tax them.
Who cares if it is met with criticism? That wouldn't stop me from taxing them. They are playing in politics and were should draw a hard line. Stay out of political discussions or pay the taxes.
That’s an impossibly vague standard, though. What constitutes a political opinion? What constitutes an endorsement? And isn’t a church political by its very nature? If a church feeds the homeless, isn’t that political? If a pastor prays for or sermonizes on behalf of the environment, isn’t that political? HEck, isn’t just praying for Peace political?
The actual IRS rule is more specific but still leaves a lot of wiggle room. A 501(c)(3) church is one . . .
So, while the IRS does have rules about this kind of thing, they are rarely enforced against churches - in no small part because it’s kind of vague, but also because there are many ways to be political that don’t involve printing pamphlets that say “Vote for Biden!”
And even with that standard, you will see candidates for office speaking at church services. Both Gavin Newsome and Larry Elder did so in the recent California governor recall election.
Government is also hesitant to act on this rule because only the most egregious example requiring enforcement of the standard would get around the 1st Amendment. This is because government is required to be neutral toward religion. That means not only is it not supposed to endorse a religion, but it has to be very careful about how it punishes a religious organization.
Typically politicians are interested in what their constituents care about. It gets them elected. That’s sort of how the system works.
That’s fine, but you’re not the king.
Absolutely. There are IRS guidelines for when churches incur taxation. However, given the potential resulting firestorm of taxing them, it's unlikely the IRS would enforce said guidelines.
As George Carlin once said: "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
The politicians who set tax laws do.
May not stop you, but we weren't talking about YOU doing it.
Do you honestly believe that Democrats would ever go along with such a plan, and risk incurring the wrath of one of their largest voting blocs?
The USA is predominantly religious. There is no way that such a change would take place today ... maybe in a generation or two. The question is really if it makes sense to deny tax exemption status to organizations that are not strictly religious and how that determination would be made (if it could be made).
Assuming that a clear line could be drawn, I am in favor of tightening the definition of religious organization so that people do not use the privileges provided to religious organizations to engage in partisan politics and/or scams such as Kenneth Copeland, et. al.
I don't see Republicans or Democrats ever fully supporting taxing churches, and I don't know if that would cross the line between separation of church and state.
Political parties aren't keen about alienating millions of voters.
Of course not, that it the essence of the point I just made. Today the voters are predominantly religious and, as such, would be against acts on 'churches' (even the worst) for fear that this will ultimately affect their own churches.
Thus, this would take generations to occur (if ever). The people would need to evolve to a predominantly irreligious society and also the religious organizations would need to be doing things that are clearly beyond the concept of 'religious organization'. Then it might happen.
The question is: should it? Should organizations that abuse the 'religious' designation be allowed to do that. For example, con-artists like the Copeland Ministries that not only lie and cheat, but blatantly engage in politics.
That is a completely different demand than taxing all churches.
Yes, I am not in favor of taxing legitimate churches. I am talking about a future move to tax organizations abusing the privilege.
Tricky slope I hope we never go down.
Yeah, well that is what allows the Kenneth Copeland's of the world to abuse the privileges provided to legitimate religious organizations and, in so doing, harm the image of churches in general.
Calls for taxing all churches based on abuses by a relative handful seems stupid to me.
Do you think that is what I have been writing???
No, nor did I say you did.
Not everything is personal, you know.
If that isn't what you stated (and it isn't, clearly), then my comment doesn't apply to YOU.
When someone replies to a comment, the reply is taken to be in context of what the individual has written.
For example, if I replied to you with:
”I for one would not defend allowing the Kenneth Copelands of the world to take advantage of privileges provided to legitimate churches.”
That implies that you are defending these con-artists.
You are always free to interpret comments however you choose, even when you are wrong.
Basic English discourse, Texan.
The usual condescension, noted.
SOSDD
No, Texan, that is not condescension. It is stating a fact.
Condescension.
be careful, reading that thumper bullshit causes brain damage.
Sounds like you're confused about what separation church and state means.
This story is true.
Why would a "Christian" web site have story after story after story about vaccine resistance?
What the hell does that have to do with Jesus Christ ?
Not a damn thing.
Aren't Christians, along with Muslims, Jews, and all religious people, allowed to express political views?
Every one of the websites "Most Read" stories is anti-vaccine. That doesnt strike you as strange on a "Christian" website?
Do you think Jesus would have opposed covid vaccinations?
I would hope not. I hope that Dad sends every anti vaxer that caused the death(s) of innocent people right where they belong in an express elevator that only goes down.
Not much, really. If anything, I would argue that Jesus’s commandment that we love one another would tend to encourage people to get vaccinated so as to limit the spread of the disease. I see Jesus as pro-vax.
Do you have a source for this claim or is it a matter of your faith? I'm sensing about half of the truth being told and a case of correlation not being causation. The vaccine does not cause Covid19 infections.
John provided the source in his article and even linked to it above.
Anybody who believes in mythological beings shouldn't dabble in politics.
Those states are also highly populated, so COVID19 is more easily spread, plus Thanksgiving superspreader events. It has nothing to do with the vaccine's effectiveness.
Bullshit!
Does that include Muslims and Native Americans?
His faith centers on his orange god.
BECAUSE OF THE UNVACCINATED GENIUS!
Do you interpret this to mean that it is better to not be vaccinated??
Are these surges of infections predominantly among the unvaccinated or the vaccinated? See if you found data that shows that it is the vaccinated who are surging then that would be interesting (and shocking). If it is the unvaccinated who are surging with infections then this does not really mean anything other than point out the need to get vaccinated.
Protestants used to embrace the Johnson amendment that they essentially wrote and passed because they feared the Catholic Church using its influence over a massive voting block to effectively seize power and run the country from the Vatican. They did not want the leaders of the Church, the priests and bishops and Pope telling their members who to vote for or what political laws or bills to support. At the time it was passed it was uncontroversial.
It had nothing to do with individual people of faith expressing their political opinions, of course they are free to do so, it only would punish Churches/Religions that use their elevated platform to be a political operative pushing their members to support specific political parties, laws and bills. When they do this they are violating the law and should lose their tax exempt status and register as a political lobby group which is what they become when they bastardize their religion and start getting involved in politics.
Now of course, many protestant groups demand their right to use their religious platform to "inform" aka manipulate their members into supporting one political party over another and push their political views on their followers effectively telling them that they're not good Christians if they don't lean a certain way politically. That is of course because they are massive monumental hypocrites.
If you're religious and you don't want other faiths like Islam, Judaism, Catholicism or Hindu religions telling their followers to vote against your preferred candidates, laws or political party and believe a separation between those religions and the State should exist, but don't see any problem with your own Church leaders preaching politics from the podium, then you're a disgusting vile piece of hypocritical filth and should be ashamed of yourself.