[lbo-talk] evangelical antipathy to taxes / governemtn

[Wojtek S]

I do not think it is about money.  It is about service delivery.
Churches see themselves as the "proper" venue of delivering human
services (education, health, social assistance) and resent government
competition (see for example the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism) ) Protestant
churches adhere to the same principle e.g. in the Netherlands or in
Switzerland.

Since taxes fund public service delivery, this makes churches
redundant.  Case in point, countries with the most generous public
welfare system (i.e one delivered by state agencies rather than by
private providers who are reimbursed by state) tend to have low church
attendance rates (cf. France or Scandinavia.)

Wojtek

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:22 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> awhile back, we discussed some research analyzing evangelical literature
> (e.g., xtian mags like Awake! and the like) which showed that there was a
> concerted effort to stir up antipathy to government and taxes. Reasoning was
> that, by reducing the tax burden, churches could expect to fill their
> coffers with the monies that might otherwise have been paid to taxes.
>
> Ring a bell with anyone? It was, granted, a brief discussion.
>
> shag
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."