The Pulpit vs. the Tax Assessor: Seattle Pastor Fights a Bill to Tax Church Property

Rev. Clark Davis, of the First Methodist Protestant church, preached an interesting sermon last evening on church taxation. He said:

'I am informed by the press that there is a bill now before the state legislature which proposes to make all church property, whether used exclusively for religious worship or not, subject to taxation. The present law makes all church property taxable except that used for worship exclusively, limiting the space to 300 feet square. That property also is not to be rented for revenue and the pews are to be free. All churches renting at any time their houses for lectures or entertainments with a view to raising money are liable to taxation. Also all churches whose pews are not free. The law as it now stands seems to me to be a just and fair one. No state in the Union, with possibly one exception, taxes the place where her people meet to worship God on the Lord's day. This is and has always been the established policy of the people of this government.

'I do not believe we can afford to show our hostility to religion or our indifference to the good constantly done by these religious organizations by placing an additional burden upon them.

'Who is it that demands that the church should be taxed? First—the unbelievers and enemies of the church. Ingersoll is a representative of this class. He is noted for three things: 1. Blasphemer of our God. 2. Defender of star route thieves. 3. Defender of Bennette, of New York, who was imprisoned for sending corrupt literature through the United States mails. That class is not very numerous. They make a great deal of noise (we have an illustration at home in our city council), but when it comes to a muster they do not materialize. They themselves are the recipients of thousands of blessings purchased for them by the church at the cost of treasures of blood and gold.

'Second—the saloon element. They are naturally opposed to the church because they recognize in the church their most powerful enemy. It is a compliment to be opposed by such people. The free church of America stands as a check upon the greed and avarice of men who are too lazy to work for bread and who are willing to make of the weakness of men a source of revenue.

'Third—a moral class who look with alarm upon the acquisition of valuable properties for various purposes in all our cities and towns by the Roman Catholic church. They imagine that a general tax on all church property would check this accumulation. Yet they do not stop to think how unjust such a law would be to those churches struggling to do legitimate church work. My contention is simply this: All churches used exclusively for religious worship should be exempt. All other property held by church organizations should be taxed.

'My reasons: First—the church is an educational institution. No state can afford to lay a tax upon such institutions. The public schools and colleges are exempt, and properly so. We must have intelligence or we can have no state. We must have morality, too. The Bible has been excluded from our public schools. Very well. I shall not object. I do not send my child to the public school for the purpose of having him taught religion. If we are allowed to do so, the home and the church are the places for this sort of education. The Sunday schools and pulpits are the places where the word of God is taught, and the word of God is the source and only source of all true morality. The church through its pulpits and Sunday schools is doing the state a service it cannot get along without. Then why tax it?

'Second—These churches are built and maintained by the free gifts of the rich and poor of our land who already bear their share of the expenses of government. Is it right to put upon them a third burden of taxation?

'Many of the great reforms of this age are carried on by the church almost without help. 1. Temperance reform; 2. social reforms. The high standard is maintained.

'Note the part being taken now in municipal reform. The great wave of municipal reform that has swept from the Atlantic to the Pacific had its origin in a Presbyterian church in New York. It has already succeeded in burying the great Tammany of that city, and the tide is not yet. Note the benevolence of these church societies. It feeds the poor, not our poor, but the world's poor, the heathen's poor, everybody's poor. No, no; the legislature of Washington cannot afford to add an additional burden to the already overburdened churches of this state. I do not believe they will do it. Notwithstanding all that is claimed to the contrary, this is a Christian country.

'The Pilgrim Fathers were Christians. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a Christian man. So were the Oglethorpe of Georgia, and we have not lost their spirit.

'I do not believe nor advocate union of church and state. We do not ask the state to pay our bills, but do say if state will fix us the same chance we have had in the past we will continue to reduce her bill of expense by holding to check the vicious tendencies of men; by educating her children in morality and by feeding and caring for her poor.'