Is Christianity charitable?

[FredPuli43]

Kenneth Dibble, head of legal services in the Charity Commission, wrote "There is no principle that religion generally, or at any specific level, is for the public benefit, even in the case of Christianity or the Church of England" This was in a letter to the Plymouth Brethren, following a decision that one of their churches was not 'charitable'.[Sunday Times] 'Charity' has been redefined since 2006; the requirement is now that the organisation must be for the public benefit if it is to qualify for charitable status. This runs counter to long established law, dating to at least the C16, whereby the furtherance of religion is one of the 'charitable purposes' without more. Then 'religion' de facto meant Christianity and the churches provided education and did other work for the good of the public.

Is this an attack on Christianity? Does it reflect modern life and thinking, when the people no longer attend church as they did in the past and the Church's former work in education etc has been taken up by the state?

[naomi24]

From what I understand from your post this is to become a requirement of all religions, so it’s not an attack solely on Christianity. I don’t think ‘the furtherance of religion’ without more can be considered charitable in any way, so re-definition is appropriate. Having said that, many churches do a lot of valuable work, but if their charitable status is to be retained, they should be required to demonstrate that their work benefits not only their own members, but the community as a whole. Currently the acquisition of charitable status is far too easily obtained.

[Gromit]

The reason they want charity status for their fund raising is to avoid paying tax.
Religions of all credes are private members clubs run their activities as such. They are not run for the public which includes many athiests and other religions, they are run to promote their own organisations.

If churches denied chairable status want to be charitable, the can fund raise for Christian Aid who are a charity. Likewise Muslim Aid and Jewish Aid.

I do hot see why the taxpayer should subsidise any religions.

[tamborine]

Christian church schools abroad are a given choice for learning english. For that educational purpose it falls into the charity basket. China is being converted to Christianity mainly for the language advantage.

[anotheoldgit]

It is only an attack by those who are always ready to attack the Christian Church, because they themselves do not believe in it, which is normal on this site

The Church of England do much unpaid charitable work throughout the country, and the Christian Church as a whole, do exceptional work all over the world especially in Africa.

Yet others???????

http://abcnews.go.com...6/08/islamic_charity/

But who will criticise and condemn them?

[tamborine]

Malaysia is islamic & becoming arab fundamentals with mosques blaring out streets 5x daily when muslims stop work (& drivng taxis) for 15mins. Inconvenient if u need to catch a plane; n.b. use a chinese taxi :)

[jno]

Eton College is one of the biggest charities in the UK. I've never been able to see why organisations that are in effect private clubs should have charitable status. It costs £15 to visit St Paul's and you can't get into Eton at all (unless you're in the cabinet). In what way are these doing the pblic good?

If say there was always one church in a neighbourhood open, like a chemist, you could argue that they stood ready to provide spiritual solace to anyone who sought it; the tax breaks could be said to pay the people who kept them open. But this isn't the case.

[naomi24]

AOG, from your link. //"We are working with law enforcement agencies to get to the bottom of allegations of possible terrorist abuse by the Crescent Relief funds," said Kenneth Dibble, director of legal and charity services at the Charity Commission. "The allegations made are very serious, and we are taking this action to protect the charity’s funds while the investigation is underway."//

The charity's funds have been frozen, so the problem isn't being ignored, as you appear to be suggesting.

[Gromit]

List of exempt churches, and how other should apply.

http://www.charitycom...gister/regreq.aspx#b2

[Gromit]

AOG

You missed the point of the question. Which is, -

"Is promoting Christianity (or other religion) itself a valid reason for tax exemption?"

We all know that Christians, Muslims, Jews etc do a lot of charity work and many have exempt tax status for doing so. The Charity Commission refused the Plymouth Brethen Church such status because it could see no charity work other than promoting its own cause.

[LazyGun]

Far too many organisations shelter behind charitable status. Independant schools like Eton shelter revenue; cults like Scientology masquerading as religion fiercely defend their charitable status, protecting the revenue from the hapless congregation. A review of the qualification status for charities is long overdue. The Health Lottery, Richard Desmonds money making machine, has elements protected by charitable status.

The taxpayer should not be subsidising evangelical missions either.All too often such charities use religious belief as a means of discrimination.The Scouting Association is a charity, but practices discrimination against atheists, requiring a belief in some deity for membership.

In the US, a requirement of charitable status is that they refrain from involvement in secular politics - but this does not stop one Catholic Bishop from sending letters to his congregation telling them that for example homosexual marriage is intrinsically evil, and not to vote for any candidate advocating equality.

All organisations that have charitable status should be reviewed to ensure they still qualify. It is also past time when the qualifying factors for charitable status are also reviewed and amended, and to require charitable institutions to demonstrate some "public good" is a good step.



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[FredPuli43]

Eton College is charitable because it is for the furtherance of education, another of the charitable purposes listed in the 1601 Statute of Elizabeth. which was the basis of decisions ever after, though the act itself was repealed in the C19.

Scientology tried to get charitable status here, but was refused by the Commissioners and the court, which said that it could not see a 'religion' wherein adherents were required to pay ever increasing sums of money to progress was charitable in its nature!

The 2006 Act, which is what redefined 'charitable' could, theoretically, mean that any religious organisation could be declared not to be charitable. Quite right too. Hard to see why the income of any should be granted a tax benefit. Equally schools should not be seen as charitable. Private schools which charge for their services do not exist to the good of the public any more than Waitrose or Tesco do in providing food to the public; all are businesses, run for profit, and charge people to that end.

[jno]

all schools are for the furtherance of education, as are BBC4 and Dorling Kindersley books. I don't know what's special about Eton, or St Paul's, that qualifies them for charitable status.

[LazyGun]

@Fred - Oops, yes ,you are right re Scientology in the UK. My error - conflated what was happening in the US with the UK.However, Wiki does state the following;

"In 2000, however, the Church of Scientology scored an important victory when it was exempted from UK value added tax on the basis that it is a not-for-profit body.[12] As a result of the decision, Revenue and Customs reportedly had to return several million pounds' worth of past VAT payments to the Church.[12]

Although the Church of Scientology itself does not have charitable status, several of its related organisations do, including Greenfields School and Narconon.[14]"

I just think that some organisations shelter revenue behind their status as charities. We should review that status and amend where appopriate.