The loss of advancement of religion as a charitable purpose is getting some traction in media. It should. Not only would implementation be extremely challenging (disentangling and separating out not-for-profit religious work from charitable service work – such as education or poverty relief), but it would also cripple the charitable sector.
The key problem is the question of whether proselytization constitutes a public benefit, because from their inception, religions like Christianity have followed a simple pattern begun by their founder: do good works for the purpose of preaching good news.
Though perhaps a shocking pronouncement to contemporary readers, it is nonetheless unmistakable from accounts of Jesus’ ministry and reports of his words that he performed miracles to validate his teaching. He fed five thousand so they could stay and hear him preach about the kingdom of God. He called people over and over to follow him. Now this is not exclusively the case; his mom nudged him into making some wine, and he sometimes healed with a request it not be broadcast. But the main note sounded throughout the four gospels was that his power to heal was a sign of his authority to forgive sin.
This is the message Christians proclaim. And in their effort to proclaim it, they have pursued many good endeavours that benefit individuals and the public. Hospitals. Schools. Relief of the sick and impoverished.
Remember Emperor Julian (The Apostate) who hated Christians? He notes: αἰσχρὸν γάρ, εἰ τῶν μὲν Ἰουδαίων οὐδεὶς μεταιτεῖ, τρέφουσι δὲ οἱ δυσσεβεῖς Γαλιλαῖοι πρὸς τοῖς ἑαυτῶν καὶ τοὺς ἡμετέρους, οἱ δὲ ἡμέτεροι τῆς παρ᾿ ἡμῶν ἐπικουρίας ἐνδεεῖς φαίνονται [For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.].
It is a pretty famous quote, but there is a part right after that I found timely given our present discussion about advancement of religion:
δίδασκε δὲ καὶ συνεισφέρειν τοὺς Ἑλληνιστὰς εἰς τὰς τοιαύτας λειτουργίας καὶ τὰς Ἑλληνικὰς κώμας ἀπάρχεσθαι τοῖς θεοῖς [Teach those of the Hellenic faith to contribute to public service of this sort, and the Hellenic villages to offer their first fruits to the gods.].
For Julian, the Greeks and Romans had not really done enough teaching about the need for public service. In his mind, if they were only reminded that the Greeks practiced acts of service as a core identity [διδάσκων αὐτούς, ὡς τοῦτο πάλαι ἦν ἡμέτερον ἔργον], those pesky Christians wouldn’t be getting credit for pursuing the public good and helping everyone.
Christianity, from its inception – due to its founder – tied together the care of others with the faithful transmission of religious belief. Proselytizing – persuading someone to join your faith or way of thinking – is itself a public good because this behaviour underwrites and motivates the pursuit of the other three pillars of charitable purpose under the Income Tax Act.
Christians start camps primarily to transmit religious faith – it is at the centre of camp activity. Likewise, Christian education pursues the same goal. Christians start initiatives like food banks and addiction centres in order to generate a space or platform to share the core elements of their faith. They do it because they believe faith is a public benefit. And who can really argue with people who want you to conform your life to be like the guy who gave up his life to save enemies? Self-sacrificial love; generosity; long-suffering; kindness; self-control; gentleness; goodness; faithfulness. These are public goods. And their opposite are public ills: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
The irony for me in this whole debate is that Julian was upset those early Christians were out-doing the Greeks in serving others. He was so upset he called the Christians atheists (because they did not honour the gods) or “Galileans” as a mockery of Jesus’ moniker.
None of this of course touches on the financial contribution of Christianity to the charitable sector in Canada (the returns are something like 9 or 10 times the input), or the chaos of governance and compliance issues prompted by a pivot to new purposes.
At its heart, taxes are a way for the public to say to itself, “let’s set aside money to do good to all.” The mechanism of tax receipts for charities is the government’s proclamation that, “from our perspective, you are doing good far more efficiently than we can. Keep it up!” When people donate, it is a dollar they would have otherwise sent to the government to produce that public good in another mode.
If you say to religious groups, “do it without the benefit of tax relief,” what you are ultimately saying is that Jesus himself does not contribute to the public good. But without Jesus (and his peculiar mode of doing good works in order to evangelize) – or God more generally, you undercut charitable purpose itself. For as the good book says, God is ἀγάπη or, as the Romans put it, Caritas.
Todd Edward Anderson 