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Azr431 t1_irb4hyr wrote

That’s genius on their part. They get some rube pastors in their pockets and they get free advertising to large groups of people.

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kidneycat t1_irbo68j wrote

Free illegal advertising. Churches can lose their tax exempt status by being openly political.

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WinterWontStopComing t1_ireio5o wrote

Seriously. Is there a united group in the states that help destroy the exemptions of politicized churches? Like we need a network for this if it doesn’t exist already.

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kidneycat t1_irenz37 wrote

Not that I know of, in fact, I didn’t know it existed until earlier this year, but tbh, I think it would make an awesome YouTube series or better yet a documentary. It could really have a huge impact on America. So many people rely on church as their source of truth.

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WinterWontStopComing t1_ireog1w wrote

No we need a connected coalition to stop this directly at the pulpits, utilizing things like youtube and social media I suppose. Capture every act of inciting violence, every act of hate and every fucking political thing that comes out of their frothing, politically antichristian mouths.

Out every last one

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Avaisraging439 t1_ire5apc wrote

....and other jokes we tell people. Seriously though, nothing will happen to a church especially if it's in a majority conservative place. We can't expect conservative cities, counties, and state supreme court's to actually have integrity.

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kidneycat t1_ire78jy wrote

They get reported to the IRS, not locally. You just need proof of something explicitly political - them asking you to vote for someone or whatever.

I’m not going to be naïve and say it’s that simple, but yeah, this flyer is definitely leaning on pastors breaking this law and thereby potentially losing their tax exempt status. Good riddance.

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Avaisraging439 t1_ire7imp wrote

We'll see if this actually happens though come tax season. A church in Central PA hosted a movie about Doug Mastriano since it got dropped by another movie theater for too much negative press. It was massive too like thousands of people from all over the state.

That would certainly be an example but they'll just argue religious freedom since the overlap of politics and religion is deep and hard to fight IMO

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kidneycat t1_ire855y wrote

If it’s a separate group renting the church, I think it’s safe unfortunately, but if the pastor were to say anything explicitly endorsing mastriano, they would potentially have issues if someone recorded and reported. I don’t find myself in churches, but I could see it happening if I knew something like this was going on. In fact, it would make for a really interesting documentary. Most people aren’t aware you can (and should) report churches for doing this.

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Avaisraging439 t1_ire8pkb wrote

My exact point, hosting him is a clear endorsement, churches are places of worship and not movie theaters, the movie was not a reenactment of religious texts either (to my knowledge).

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Professional_Fish250 t1_ircy66h wrote

Yeah but I feel like that never happens, my uncles church is extremely open politically, they would not stop talking about trump during my uncle’s renewing wedding vows, and had anti democratic pamphlets in the back, they’ve even booked tours to DC for anti abortion protests

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