A Modest Proposal
When
Bill Maher calls for a tax on religion he could be right, just not how he
believes he’s right.
The
host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher
closed a recent show declaring, “If we levy taxes – sin taxes, they call them –
on things that are bad to get people to stop doing them, why in heaven’s name
don’t we tax religion?”
Maher,
who is almost as well known for his outspoken atheism as he is for his comedic
chops, went on to say, “You want to raise the tax on tobacco so kids don’t get
cancer? Okay, but let’s put one on Sunday school so they don’t get stupid.”
If
you take him at his word, Maher is out to protect society’s innocent victims
from the violence, intolerance, and ignorance of religious beliefs. To be sure,
both history books and contemporary media are filled with horrific stories of
the victims of religious violence and intolerance. From Christian pogroms of
the Middle Ages to the terror attacks of ISIS this year, from the church’s
treatment of women throughout history to the church-driven law’s treatment of
transgender persons in North Carolina and Mississippi last month, it’s
all-too-easy to mock religion for the sake of an easy, albeit uncomfortable
laugh, and to use that laugh track as the backdrop for a call to tax religions.
But
that’s not why societies should tax religions. Beyond taxes imposed across the
board to pay for common infrastructure, taxes can be used to discourage activities
that threaten the common good. Carbon taxes are one example.
But
even in the examples Maher cites or alludes to, religions aren’t a threat to
the social order. More often they are and have been, in fact, a supporter. After
all, in the Middle Ages the church and state marched hand-in-hand to persecute
Jews. ISIS claims that it wants to set up a state power. The misogyny of
religious groups throughout history has served patriarchal social orders quite
well, and there’s a direct line from the bathroom to the voting booth tying
together conservative evangelicals and many Republican politicians these days.
Those
deep ties between religion and state are no reason, from the point of view of
the state, to impose taxes on religions. Religions founded on what might be
called a theology of respectability nurture obedient adherents to the status
quo of the society of which they are a part. It’s easy to understand why the
state supports them with tax advantages.
Sure,
the adherents of such religious convictions might believe silly things about
the origin of species, but that’s not taking a bite out of the bottom line of
the corporate state. They might even have tendencies toward violent repression
of minorities, but as long as those minorities continue to serve the economic
and political interests of the powerful then a little controlled violence is
just the cost of keeping order. Religions that preach personal piety and
encourage respectable behavior don’t threaten the social order. In fact, they
support it.
But
that’s not the only theology available to the church or mosque or
synagogue. As Brittney Cooper notes in a
recent issue of Christian Century focused on the Black Lives Matter movement, “the movement has issued a clarion call to the church […] to
affirm a theology of resistance rather than a theology of respectability. This
movement demands reckoning with who Jesus is. Is Jesus only a savior come to
deliver us from punishment for personal sin? Or is Jesus a savior who joins
with us in the work to end racism, patriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia?”[1]
A
theology of resistance threatens power and stability. Societies should tax
religions not to protect members of the society, but to protect the existing
social order. Using the power of the IRS, the government could weaken the grip
that prophets have on the imaginations of people who might be inspired to
embrace a vision of a future otherwise.
Preachers
following the Revised Common Lectionary through this Eastertide are in the
midst of a brief sojourn through Revelation. The Roman emperor did not confine
John of Patmos to that Greek island because he feared that the gospel would
make children stupid. He exiled John because he feared that the gospel would
make Christians rebel against the authority of Rome.
Likewise,
J. Edgar Hoover did not spy on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because the
FBI director feared that King’s proclamation of the gospel would make black
folks ignorant. Hoover harassed King because he feared that the gospel
proclamation would make black folks rebel against white supremacy and call the
capitalist order into question.
That’s
a sin against the state. That’s cause for taxation. Maybe Maher was completely
right after all. Sin taxes all around!
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