Awwww. What'd Pauley do? Hehehe. d;^)
Posted on 09/22/2016 7:16:39 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
A playground in Missouri is becoming a political minefield. "Only one religious freedom case is currently before the Supreme Court this upcoming term: Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley," the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) notes. "Trinity Lutheran is a case about a religious preschool that was rejected from a state program that provides reimbursement grants to purchase rubberized surface material (tire scraps) for children’s playgrounds."
"The preschool was ultimately denied the grant for its playground solely because the playground belongs to a religious organization." The ADF is a national network of lawyers who undertake religious liberty cases.
The playground is attached to the Child Learning Center day care at the church but open to the entire community, David Cortman, senior counsel of the ADF, pointed out in a symposium that the group held on Friday, September 16, 2016. Indeed, he noted that 95% of the children who use the playground do not attend the church.
At the conference, C. Kevin Marshall, who is working with Cortman on the case, noted that the church was told that they were ranked fifth out of 44 applicants in the state by the state agency. Daniel Mach, of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argued that the government has never given direct subsidies to a church.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia (AIA)
Excellent Point
Government money leads to government control.
But The church has to pay for birth control and abortions.
FYI, it’s an LCMS church; you can make book that if it were ELCA there would be no issue.
I can understand why this group would pursue a legal case here, but I've always maintained that a religious organization that needs help from Caesar to pay its bills isn't really religious anymore.
Whatever the legal ramification in Caesar’s court, it does look like we have a wisdom question for the church. The church should take a dim view of redistributing OPM that wasn’t gladly donated, in vast preference to outright Christian charity. I’d advise them give it up (even if the case wins) and post a sign by the playground “These facilities donated totally by the congregation of Such and Such Church.”
One of the legal arguments against the organization -- which was accepted by the court -- was that it failed to meet any objective test as a "religious organization" on a number of grounds. One of the biggest ones was that more than 60% of its revenue came from government sources.
I couldn't argue with that logic. Render unto Caesar what it Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's. But any religious organization that renders unto Caesar what is God's should no longer exist.
Some Missouri churches are getting a mite touchy-feely, to the point where one that I briefly looked at (right now I am a redneck in baptist clothing) got me asking... well fine, but where’s the scripture here?
I mean not like there’s something wrong with being touchy-feely in a genuinely Christian way, but it has to be within scriptural parameters of promises and expectations or else we get generic liberal-talk. The next frontier of split within the Lutheran house may well be in LCMS.
Awwww. What'd Pauley do? Hehehe. d;^)
I bet a mosque run preschool would get the grant in a heartbeat
I would say you don't understand the situation the Day Care/Church is in.
Day Care uses an old parking lot for a playground. Playground lot needs repair.
Government states that any Day Care or School that repairs their playground must use the new rubberized material.
It isn't cheap. Mainly because the government forces Day Care/Schools to use it, and the contractors charge MORE for it because they know that the Day Care/Schools usually get FUNDS from the government to do so.
In this case, the government is refusing to FUND the repairs, and the DAY CARE / Church is STUCK with footing the entire bill.
For that matter, religious organizations existed in the U.S. for more than two hundred years without any day care centers, period.
The way I see it, a modern day care center has no connection to religion. Any religious organization that decides it needs Caesar's money to keep one of those things open should either get out of the day care business or get out of the religion business ... because if they don't get out of the day care business, you can be damn sure that Caesar is going to force them out of the religion business.
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