I managed and played for a baseball team several years ago. The name of my team was the "Mad Dogs". If you saw my teammates you would understand why I chose that name. They were great guys, but they were like the Hanson Brothers in the movie, "Slap Shot", except unlike the movie, I had twelve of them on my team. I lost count of all the bench-emptying brawls they were involved in. When you combine booze and adrenaline it is a very explosive cocktail.
We were a great team and often won league titles and we also played in many state tournaments. But one year I went to a city facility to sign my team up for the next season. But just as I got to the window I was told the league was full. I noticed another window still open and accepting teams and asked what that line of people was. They told me that was for the church league. I immediately went to that line and when I got to the front desk I told them I wanted my team to play in the church league. They asked me what the name of my church was and I told them the "Universal Life Church". I also told them I was the minister of the church, which was true. I pulled a card showing I was a minister from my wallet and showed it to them. The city accepted my application and my team was admitted into the church league.
I didn't deceive anyone to get into the church league. A couple of years earlier my dad talked me into becoming a minister in the Universal Life Church, a 'church' where anyone can become an ordained minister for three bucks. My church was as legitimate as all the other churches in the league. There were Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and even a couple of really fundamentalist churches. The 'mother church' for the Universal Life Church was in Modesto, California. It was our 'Vatican'. Oh yeah, as soon as I became a reverend, my Dad was rewarded by the church by being elevated to the title of 'Bishop'. He was so proud to progress so far up in the church.
When the season began and we played our first game the opponents from other churches would ask where our church was. I already met with my team to prepare them to play in the church league and how to respond to any questions they might face. I told them if anyone asked where our church was I told them to answer, "Wherever two or more of us are gathered". Hey, that's right out of the Bible so I thought what was good enough for Jesus, was good enough for our 'church'.
You should have seen the reactions from our opponent churches when I quoted Jesus' interpretation of a 'church'. They became very arrogant, aloof and confrontational because they believed churches should all be brick and mortar buildings, even though my team's 'church' was everywhere, just as Jesus envisioned. They also looked at us as lesser human beings because we didn't have a location where we performed our 'services'. But we were a very flexible flock because we held our services in topless bars, hockey games and rock concerts.
But I did have lots of parties at my house which all my team members came to. I jokingly told them that every time we met it was a church service and often thought I could legitimately get my house exempted from paying property taxes by claiming it as a place of worship. But I never took that step, but it would have been as legitimate as any other church.
Although I often demanded the respect of a 'man of the cloth' as their minister, my teammates usually just gave me another beer. A humorous side note: I had twelve people on my team, not including myself. I used to jokingly call them my disciples, but instead of "Mark", "Luke", "Matthew" or "John", I had "Moose", "Rick the Stick", "Stan the Man", "Clark the Spark" and "Rocky".
I mention the above true story because everyone on my team payed taxes and all the city fields were paid for using our taxes. Not one dime came from any of the churches in our league. I didn't think that was fair, so that's why I signed up to play in the church league to play on fields paid for by tax dollars. Not a dime of the tithing money from church members were used to build the fields we played on. I thought if they wanted to play in a league, they should use their own church fields, and not my city, tax funded fields.
I don't believe churches should be tax exempt. Most are for-profit organizations anyway. And every time I drive by one I think about the enormous costs to build all the grandiose structures. In my opinion, if a church is going to be built it should be very plain, just four walls and a roof. I find it hypocritical how Christians want to congregate in a huge, gaudy buildings costing millions, when all of that money should be used to feed and clothe the members of the churches who are poor and needy. I think it's sad how so many church members seem so eager to entrap themselves in extravagance, rather than have their focus on the true teachings of Jesus.
My baseball team was full of guys who drank and some even smoked pot before the games, but at least they were more honest than the people we played against. And not once did any of my team members talk down to any of our church team opponents, but we were constantly attacked by so-called 'Christians'.
There are hundreds of churches in the medium-size town I live in. Every time I drive by a church their parking lots are almost empty. But even so, new churches keep getting built. I believe no new church should be built until they can fill the ones they already have. Just maybe if they lost their tax exempt status they would begin to be more frugal and start to think about the important things in life, rather than the pomp and circumstance associated with their churches and their services.
One more thing: If we can't take away the tax exempt status of churches, we should at least force them to give a specific portion of their proceeds to the poor, the needy and the sick. The new health care reform bill requires insurance companies to use 80-85% of the money they take in to actually go toward the healing of human beings. Why is it so low? Why just 85%? Why not 100%? If we eliminated the middle men look how many more resources could be used to help those who truly need help? And I consider most churches to be like middle men, taking at least 10% from people, and giving back very little. I believe anything a church spends on extravagant items to entice people into their churches should be taxed at 100% to stop the misuse of funds they get from well meaning members.
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