The church cannot be heard to claim that it is a public or a
quasi-public institution. It exercises no public function of any
description which should warrant granting it immunity from the general
laws binding on all members of the community. Its mission is to preach
something which it calls the gospel. By its own insistent declaration,
it derives its authority to teach solely from the being whom it worships
as its deity.* It is not in any sense commissioned by the state or by
the people, and asks no permission of either to carry out its purposes.
Its members are held together by a body of doctrine accepted by them
all; and they maintain a form of worship which they count pleasing in
the sight of their God. If they are mistaken, it is labor and
devotion thrown away; if they are right, they will be individually and
collectively rewarded by heaven, either in this life or in some other.
All this is strictly their own business and that of their deity. It does
not concern the state in any way whatever. The state has no means of
knowing whether they are right or wrong, and is not being served in any
way by their ceremonials. Its work and theirs do not lie parallel in a
single respect. The further function of the church, _as a church_, is
simply to seek to convert others to the body of dogma which it puts
forward as the message of God to man and the revelation of the divine
will. Here, again, the state is in no way concerned, provided the
alleged divine will is not an incitement to any form of lawlessness or
crime. If the attempt at proselytism fails, the community is in no way
affected; and if it succeeds, the state receives no possible benefit,
and owes the church nothing for the putting forth of its activities. As
God is the only possible beneficiary of the church's efforts, it is for
him to pay its taxes*, if it is itself unable to do so. The state is
under no moral compulsion to discharge his obligations. If he does
not see fit to come to the rescue of his needy representatives, their
conclusion must logically be that he expects them to pay their own
bills. The church, like every other organized or unorganized group of
human beings, receives certain definite and regular services from the
state, which cost money to render, and which create a debt just as
palpable as the debt to the carpenter who builds the meeting house or
the coalman who furnishes fuel to keep it warm. If the church had any
adequate conception of common honesty, it would pay its taxes without
a whimper and as a matter of course*, just as it pays its gas bills or
settles any of its accounts with individuals. It does not inform its
private creditors that it should be exempt from payment for services
rendered, just because it is a religious body; and it would be given
small shrift by any court, should it attempt to evade such claims on
such a ground. As little has it a moral right to take from the public
without returning an equivalent in material remuneration.
* Even by a miracle if necessary. It is recorded that when
Jesus was called upon to pay taxes in Capernaum (Matt, xvii)
he made no argument for exemption, but straightway
dispatched his disciple Peter after the didrachma, with
which, it is assumed, the debt to the community was
discharged.