Chapter review: God's Strongman

Meadows believed that as a congressman, he was locked in a “spiritual battle” with dark forces, and that prayer took place more frequently in his Capitol Hill office than those of other lawmakers because he understands the nature of the enemy and “the attacks are real.” -- Sarah Posner, Chapter 3, Unholy, commenting on Mark Meadows’ (former chief of staff for the former president) view of America’s unholy situation as revealed in a core evangelical lie that Christians in America are under a severe, sustained secular attack intended to make Christianity illegal or to convert Christians to atheists by force, a/k/a/, the Christian persecution myth

God’s Strongman is chapter 2 of Sarah Posner’s 2020 book Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump. Chapter 2 shows how secular democracy and governance weakened and failed over a period of decades. Now secularism is a fading shadow of what it used to be. White Evangelical Christians (WECs) love it. Most Americans appear to be mostly or completely unaware of what is happening in slow motion.

Chapter 2 describes an incident where the federal government rightfully tried to correct abuses by elite WECs. That effort not only failed, it caved in and deal a major blow to secular government and church-state separation. This incident included the rapacious televangelist Paula White, who later came to be the ex-president’s top spiritual advisor, as oxymoronic as that may sound. Posner writes:

“Like Trump’s businesses, White’s had come under scrutiny, and like Trump, she evaded transparency and accountability. In 2007, Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who was the then ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, launched an inquiry into whether White and five other televangelists .... had abused their tax-exempt status by using donations to their ministries for their personal gain. .... At first Grassley seemed determined to find answers, but some of the six, including White, resisted providing full documentation that would aid the investigation. 

Unlike secular non-profits, churches are not required by law to make their tax returns public, so the finances of these televangelists remain hidden from public view. The public effectively subsidizes them because donations to them are not taxed, and the donor receives a tax deduction. Three years after launching the investigation, Grassley, under pressure from religious rights groups protesting that it was infringing on their religious liberty, shut it down without making any recommendations for greater transparency or accountability.”

The investigation was also hampered by the Senate being unable to talk to staffers, who are routinely required to sign confidentiality agreements. The staffers feared their churches would sue them. 

Senate investigators just gave up in and gently suggested “self-reform” to fix whatever problems there might have been. So the spineless Senate put the Fox in charge of the hen house.

Despite the televangelist’s opacity and refusal to cooperate, Grassley not only caved in, he turned around and actually attacked one of the few means of restraint on tax-subsidized religious operations. He recommended either eliminating or weakening the 1954 Johnson Amendment. That law conditioned non-profit tax exempt status on not using tax-exempt dollars for electioneering. That was the quid pro quo for the privilege of having tax exempt status based on taxpayer generosity to religious organizations. Posner comments on how the ex-president took the initiative a couple of years later in 2015 and 2016:

“Trump would go to make repeal of the Johnson Amendment--which would open churches up to limitless electioneering and the possible flow of unaccountable cash through their coffers-- a centerpiece of his outreach to the Christian right. .... Falwell [Jerry Jr., the president of Liberty University] said Trump spoke to him about ‘how it needed to be repealed, and how it pretty much silenced people of faith because it scares pastors and leaders of non-profit organizations like Liberty University and others from taking a political position because they’re afraid of losing their tax exempt status.’ This characterization was not true; The Johnson Amendment does not prohibit pastors or non-profits from taking positions on political issues, only from  using tax-exempt resources to endorse a candidate in an election. 

Once in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the IRS to stop enforcing the Johnson Amendment. .... Trump’s hard line message was precisely what many white evangelicals had been waiting to hear.”

Posner goes on to detail the deceit and blatant lies the WEC political movement routinely engages in. Both the public and the rank and file are to be deceived and manipulated into giving the Christian elites what they want, including fixing what is broken. 

What do they want? Wealth and power, especially their precious tax-exempt status. 

What is broken and bad in America? Evil things like secularism, feminism, abortion, gender ideology and the “dark movement forcing anti-LGBTQ Christians to accept a radical, fringe set of norms about gender and sexuality, in violation of their religious freedom.” 

That most Americans support the LGBTQ community and rights makes no difference. Also of no concern is that allowing the LGBTQ community to have civil rights does not amount to the severe persecution of and direct threats to the loving, innocent Christians that the WEC movement constantly complains bitterly of. WEC lies and deceits are shameless, endless, blatant and undeniable.  

Questions: 

1. Is it fair or even democratic to allow religious (and/or political) groups to enjoy the privilege of tax-exempt status and use of tax-free money to support candidates and campaigns, while most everyone else has to pay their taxes?  

2. Annual tax exemption benefits for religion in America is worth tens of billions annually, but is it worth it, especially in view of the kind of bigoted, anti-democratic, anti-civil liberties politics the WEC movement fights hard and dirty for?

3. Should it be legal for a president to tell a federal agency to stop enforcing a valid law, e.g., the Johnson Amendment?