From the Christian standpoint, the argument against church exemption is
as unanswerable as that from the standpoint of the independent citizen.
A sham Christian, to whom the church is a means of getting ahead in the
world, and whose profession of faith is a cloak to cover his greed and
egotism, or a means of purchasing popularity and business success at any
easy rate, may find it natural to carry over into his religious life the
spirit of commercialism with which he gouges his fellowmen every day
in his business relations. It is only natural that such a one should
be impatient of any attempt to introduce ethical considerations into a
question of self-advantage; for to him it is axiomatic that any way
of getting money without being arrested is good enough for himself and
therefore good enough for the church, honesty being merely a question of
keeping out of the clutches of the police. He is so ignorant of the very
elements of morality that he does not even know that he is a hypocrite,
and that the kind of thing which stands for religion to him is
as worthless as the cheap varnish which constitutes his imaginary
respectability. To such as he, church exemption is justified by the fact
that the church is clever enough to get away with it. A genuine believer
in the Christian revelation, however, will wish the church, as its
divinely commissioned repository, to "keep itself unspotted from the
world." He will insist that, so far from seeking its private advantage
by questionable means, which may by casuistry be made to appear
defensible, it shall conceive of itself as "a city set on a hill," which
"cannot be hid," and shall, in all things and at any sacrifice, let its
"light shine before men," that by reason of its good works and spotless
character it may prove that it is of God, and not of men. In case of
doubt, he will demand that it refuse to set an example whereby the
weakest observer may be caused to stumble.
With a keener jealousy for its purity than that ascribed to the ancient
Roman, who declared that "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion," he
will insist that it avoid the very appearance of evil. Such a believer
will never be found in the halls of legislation, howling for the loaves
and fishes, and asking that a secular state stultify itself by
stealing money from its individual taxpayers, in order to subsidize
the proselytism of the sects. And a church composed of such sincere
believers will not give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme by evading
its obligations through shallow quibbles about its moral influence in
the community, but will prefer to give a practical demonstration of its
boasted moral quality by willingly paying its honest debts.