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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

This is just one example of a much bigger issue, which is religious institutions quietly taking over secular businesses without anyone realizing it. It is so pervasive and so stealthy that it is hard to even talk about it without sounding like a crackpot. It has become a little more evident recently with the emergence of evangelical Christian activism in politics, but it runs much, much deeper than that. The LDS Church, for example (a.k.a. Mormons) has vast business holdings, all of which funnel tax-free money back to the Church. Downtown Menlo Park is largely owned by the Presbyterian Church. I could go on and on.

All of this is driven by the fact that churches are not taxed in the U.S. They are legal tax havens, and they are very much used as such by oligarchs of all stripes.

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> It is so pervasive and so stealthy that it is hard to even talk about it without sounding like a crackpot

You're sitting in the intersection of 'it's pervasive', 'nobody is noticing it', and not listing the evidence for it. So yeah, it sounds crackpotty.

> It has become a little more evident recently with the emergence of evangelical Christian activism in politics

Christians, evangelical or otherwise, have been generally active in politics for as long as Christianity has existed. To say this is an 'emerging' problem as though America started from a position of mainstream secularism seems entirely ahistorical. If anything, the generational trend has been the decline of superstition in all aspects of American society. 60 years ago it was common for public schools to make children recite christian prayers, but that's almost unheard of now. The trend is obviously towards secularization, and while that trend may not be happening fast enough to suit some of us, it's wildly disingenuous to suggest the trend is in the reverse direction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_prayer_in_the_United_St...

Yep, I get that. I did give two examples, but no supporting evidence. In the case of Menlo Park being owned by the Presbyterian Church, I'm not sure how I would support that short of pulling up dozens of Menlo Park property records. I don't know of any journalism about this.

With regards to the LDS church, this is well-known and well-documented. Here's just one easily-found link:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2012-07-12/the-m...

Here are some links about the more general problem:

https://www.businessinsider.com/18-extremely-religious-big-a...

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/religion-bigger-busin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_as_a_business

The Business Insider article is I think a clear demonstration of what concerns me about this kind of analysis. The author seems to see strict secularism as the only "normal" way to run a business, declining to recognize a distinction between businesses owned by a religion and businesses whose owners happen to be devout followers of a religion. When simply printing the text "John 3:16" on the bottom of your soda cups is enough to be considered an extremely religious company, I hear "Downtown Menlo Park is largely owned by the Presbyterian Church" and question how much of that ownership is simply by people who happen to be leaders in their congregation. (In particular, Presbyterians aren't a single corporate structure like the Mormons are, so it's not clear which specific organization the claim should be understood to refer to.)

Bible verses on cups is one thing but Hobby lobby went to court to avoid paying women's insurance. Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays and fights for the right to discriminate against groups it marginalizes for religious reasons. These practices are bad for profit, bad for customers, bad for society, and only good for the religious leaders who take from the earnings without even being a part of the business.

It's also good for religious followers! This is really the lack of understanding I'm getting at. Many religious people genuinely believe that following their religion is more important than profit or customers and inherently good for society.

I'm not saying you have to agree with our beliefs, of course, but it's not right to think of religion affecting the secular world as some kind of weird practice that has to be explained by corrupt leaders. Most religions and basically all Christian churches teach that you should consider religious factors in your business and personal lives.

oh nooo, it closes on Sunday.

It'd be helpful if you could provide further information, because I haven't heard of this before. Extraordinary claims and all that...

>It has become a little more evident recently with the emergence of evangelical Christian activism in politics

I thought evangelicalism has been strong on and off since America was founded; the rise now is closer to a return to the field after they were routed some time around 2008 (when they were getting a lot of press by losing debates about evolution and whether it should be taught in schools).

Evangelicism has been strong since the founding, but it is more brazenly political now than it has been historically. There is actually a legal requirement for churches to stay out of politics in order to maintain their tax-exempt status. The enforcement of that has gotten more lax over the last few decades.

With regards to information about entanglements between religion and business, start with the LDS church, whose business entanglements are well documented.

But the journalism about the more general problem is is not very comprehensive, probably because it is a very fraught topic.

> There is actually a legal requirement for churches to stay out of politics in order to maintain their tax-exempt status.

Churches and charities can get involved in politics, including ballot issues and legislation. They just can't get involved in campaigns for specific candidates. In practice, the IRS is terrified of touching religious orgs so "anything goes" as long as the church isn't a straight up criminal enterprise.

IMO the actually important thing about churches is that they don't have to file a Form 990. I don't actually have much of an issue with churches getting involved in politics -- it happens on both sides and frankly the idea of religion being divorced from politics is a fairy tale anyways -- but I do wish every church had to file a Form 990 so the public (and congregants!) can see how this tax-free money is spent.

I know about the LDS (they have always wielded a lot of power), but Presbyterians?

Yeah, that came as a surprise to me too. And I have not verified this, but it came to me from a source that I consider reliable (a local real estate agent).

Are you sure about your assertions? I thought all LDS Church child businesses (such as KSL, Bonneville International, etc.) and land holdings were taxed. I was under the impression only the charitable arm of the church was not taxed (i.e. donations). IANATL though, so maybe there is some loophole being exploited I'm not aware of.

LDS tax evasion is well documented. e.g.:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/18/us/latter-day-saints-charity-...

Weren't the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) up until recently owned by the LDS?

No, the LDS never owned BSA. However they were the largest sponsor of BSA for about a century, until a few years ago.

Ah. I knew they were integrated somehow.

They're not integrated. BSA where I grew up, on the South Side of Chicago, was (for instance) extremely Catholic. "Duty to God" is (or was?) a tenet of the organization, dating back to its founding. In the formative years of the BSA, that wasn't strange at all; what would have been unusual would have been members that weren't in some way affiliated with a religion. In fact, Boy Scouts is how I first learned about a bunch of religions --- Hinduism and Islam, in particular --- because they had different religious badges.

Eh. Bad choice of words I guess. The implication is that the BSA and LDS were tight. Apparently to the point that 1 in every 5 scout was also a Mormon. Which is weird when Mormons account for only about 2 percent of the population at large.

I think that's in large part because Scouting was almost obligatory for LDS kids (it isn't any longer, since the LDS church cut ties with the BSA) --- nobody pressured us Catholic school kids to join the Boy Scouts, and most didn't. The troop, meanwhile, met in the basement of my local parish. What I'd just want to call out is that even in the 1980s, the Boy Scouts were openly and emphatically multi-faith. Not just ecumenical, but also going out of its way to teach Scouts that they were going to encounter other Scouts from totally different faith traditions.

The BSA may have been problematic for other reasons! I haven't thought that much about them since I dropped out (I only made it to Scout First Class). It was a sort of inherently conservative organization, as you'd expect just from hearing the Scout Oath. You can see where the Scouting ethos would mesh pretty perfectly with LDS culture.

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