Union of Church and State in America: Incorporation and 501(c)(3) Tax Exemption of Churches

Jerald Finney
© October, 2009
*All prior articles on this blog are listed and linked at the bottom and all articles from this blog may be accessed from the following link:
http://churchandstatelaw.com/gpage8.html

Persecuted Christians down through the last two thousand years, including untold millions in the world today, have understood the biblical principles of separation of church and state and have refused, even under the penalty of torutre, imprisonment, and/or death to submit the church and spiritual matters to the ungodly – to the state-religion combination or to civil government.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as state constitutional provisions and laws allow churches in America to operate totally free from civil government without persecution. Nonetheless, American churches line up to incorporate, become unincorporated associations, corporations sole, charitable trusts and get their 501(c)(3) tax exemptions, thereby violating the biblical principle of separation of church and state. When they do that, they grieve our Lord who is the Bridegroom, Husband, and Head of His churches.

The audio players below first briefly teach on spiritual versus legal entities – this subject is covered in much more detail in section II, chapters 1-3 and section III, chapter 4 of  God Betrayed/Separation of Church and State: The Biblical Principles and the American Application and also in the audio teachings coving those portions of God Betrayed which are on this blog (http://jeraldfinney.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/the-biblical-doctrine-of-the-church/reveals and http://jeraldfinney.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/the-biblical-doctrine-of-separation-of-church-and-state/). These audios also reveal the truth about church incorporation and 501(c)(3) by explaining the law concerning and the nature of these devices in light of biblical principles.

To go to any point in time in a teaching, position the point of the cursor at the end of the advancing bar, left click and drag the bar to the point desired or just point the cursor at a position and left click.

1. Introduction (Song and prayer is 4 min. 34 sec. Total is 6 min. 13 sec.):

2. Spiritual versus legal entities (7 min. 22 sec.):

3. Incorporation of churches (30 min. 7 sec.):

4. Federal government control of churches through 501(c)(3) tax exemption (19 min. 46 sec.):

5. The incorporation-501(c)(3) control scheme (3 min. 37 sec.):

6. Spurious rationale for incorporating: limited liability (13 min. 58 sec.):

7. Spurious rationale for incorporating: to hold property (42 min. 10 sec.):

8. Spurious rationale for corporate-501(c)(3) status: tax exemption and tax deduction for contributions (17 min. 52 sec.):

9. Conclusion (6 min. 42 sec.):

END

For His Glory,
Jerald Finney
Christian and practicing attorney
churchandstatelaw.com
For a complete outline of all articles on this blog click the following link: http://www.churchandstatelaw.com/gpage8.html. On that page, you will find an audio series that covers all that one needs to understand concerning separation of church and state (the biblical principles and the American application).