Does a Religion Need to Worship a Supreme Being? New Hampshire Supreme Court Considers the Question

[Warren Stupidity]

Some folks associated with the Free State Project in New Hampshire are suing the town of Westmoreland over what they see as an illegitimate effort on the town's part to declare their church not a real church, roughly because it doesn't worship any supreme being. As per that decision, church founder Kevin Bloom tells me "We disagree, naturally, and so do Taoists and Buddhists, among others."


The church is called the Church of the Sword (COTS). The church had a pastor living in some property it had been gifted, and when they filed to remove it from property tax rolls as a parsonage, as church's do, back in April 2014, their filing was denied. (The annual tax due would be around $3,200.)

COTS lost its suit in round one at Cheshire County Superior Court earlier this year in a summary judgment declaration for the city that COTS was simply not a real religion, and tomorrow oral arguments are scheduled in COTS's appeal to New Hampshire's Supreme Court.

During a written interview, Bloom defends the COTS status as a religion:

On its face, COTS qualifies as a religion as the IRS defines it via the 14 point test. More importantly, a religion should consist of three elements.

It should do good works. By that I mean charity, and visiting members who are prisoners and members in the hospital. We keep track of each other. In fact, the impetus for putting CotS together was the suicide of a new mover, who came here directly after seeing combat in Iraq. He just disappeared, and we later learned he'd shot himself. While we can't keep in touch with 2000 people, we can hopefully keep track of our congregation. We solemnize marriages and perform memorial services. We provide counseling and help where we can.

The second element is largely social, we're a place where friends can see each other once a week.

The third element is the philosophical and religious component. Our beliefs are strongly influenced by Taoist thought; we do not believe in one revealed religion. Rather, we seek to find the good in all religions. Lao Tse famously said, (paraphrase) "I also teach people about their religions". The sword use is the first part of the church service. Other religions don't usually feature armed combat as part of the service, but we do!

https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/14/does-a-religion-need-to-worship-a-suprem

Well they certainly meet the third criteria in the IRS 14 points: must have ludicrous beliefs.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Why do I suspect a lot of SCA folks are in this church?

Sword fighting and homebrew?

[struggle4progress]

18. They actually seem to be a group on anti-government libertarians hoping to abolish property taxes

[rug]

2. Are you rooting for them?

Self-ownership

We believe in an active struggle against those who would deprive us of life and liberty. We believe in studying and applying the martial path in the judicial and legislative arenas, as well as in self defense.

[Kalidurga]

3. If the government is bound to not discriminate against religions then...

they must also not be in the business of regulating religion through arbitrary definitions.

[stone space]

4. Sounds like a religion to me.

At the Church of the Sword, where belief in a god or gods comes secondary to espousing principles of self-sufficiency and arming oneself...one of the holy texts of the 5-year-old, nontheistic, New Hampshire-born religion is Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

“We believe in an active struggle against those who would deprive us of life and liberty. We believe in studying and applying the martial path in the judicial and legislative arenas, as well as in self-defense,” says a sampling of the church’s statement of beliefs......

The seem to preach Living By the Sword.

And I won't mention what THAT leads to.

There ought to be a Bible quote about what Living By the Sword leads to.

Personally, I'd prefer to beat swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. onward christian soldiers!

You managed to hit your target this time. Your aim is getting better. Reload and fire away!

[stone space]

6. Offensive and false.

You managed to hit your target this time. Your aim is getting better. Reload and fire away!

[Warren Stupidity]

13. So you are saying that once again your post

missed its target and was wildly inappropriate?

Interesting. I'm not sure how I can offend a post though. Do you attribute sentience to posts?

[Act_of_Reparation]

8. Actually, this forum could do with a little less of you beating your sword.

Just sayin.

[stone space]

10. This seems more like a gratuitous personal insult than an actual comment.

Actually, this forum could do with a little less of you beating your sword.

Are you feeling OK?

[Act_of_Reparation]

12. Oh, no. It's an actual comment.

Comment.

noun
1. A remark, observation, or criticism:
A comment about the weather.

Feeling fine, thanks.

[struggle4progress]

21. I think their actual religion is that nobody should be required to pay property taxes

[Cartoonist]

7. Move over, Diogenes.

Rather, we seek to find the good in all religions.

[Nitram]

9. Buddhists do not worship a Supreme Being.

In fact, they don't worship anything or anybody. Damned feudal concept, worship.

[mr blur]

11. What about the poor $cientologists?

Unless of course you consider L Ron to be a Supreme Being?

[rug]

14. Now that you mention it, they meet the definition of atheists.

[struggle4progress]

15. Here are the 14 points:

... the organization has the following characteristics:

a distinct legal existence

a recognized creed and form of worship

a definite and distinct ecclesiastical government

a formal code of doctrine and discipline

a distinct religious history

a membership not associated with any other church or denomination

a complete organization of ordained ministers ministering to their congregations

ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study

a literature of its own

established places of worship

regular congregations

regular religious services

Sunday schools for religious instruction of the young

schools for the preparation of its ministers

In the interpretation, the IRS adds:

An organization need not have all of the characteristics (few churches do, and newly-created churches cannot be expected to); thus, no single characteristic is controlling.

Some of the characteristics may be given more weight than others in a given case.

[unblock]

26. that seems to me to be a rather christian-centric definition

down to including the word "ecclesiastical", which is specifically christian.

[struggle4progress]

16. Liberty activists say their newly created religions afford them tax exemptions

By NICK REID
Monitor staff
Monday, July 27, 2015

... At least three small churches in New Hampshire made up of liberty activists who moved to the state as members of the Free State Project have active petitions on their way to high courts. Thousands of libertarians have already taken up residence and pledged their intent to “exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and property” ...

The Church of the Sword’s services are held each Sunday at 11 a.m. at Area 23, a newly opened bar owned by Bloom and Kirk McNeil, who is another of the church’s four pastors ...

Their hymns are called “jams,” and in the case of the July 12 service, for lack of instruments, it was a reading from a manual on safe food preparation set to bongo drums. Their communion was hard cider, during the Ritual of Disobedience, which became a tradition after they held an early service in an East Concord park that forbade alcohol, cigarettes and firearms. “We had all those things,” Bloom said ...

“Personally, I’d like to see taxes done in any other way besides property taxes. I’d like everybody to be tax exempt in their property – absolutely – because I think there’s better ways,” he said. “Governments like it because everybody has to live someplace, so if you’re a renter or if you’re an owner you’re sort of stuck, because if you don’t pay your property taxes, they’re going to seize your property and sell it to somebody else. So you don’t really own your property, you’re always really just renting it from the government” ...

http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/17846931-95/liberty-activists-in-high-court-cases-say-their-newly-created-religions-afford-them-tax

[struggle4progress]

17. Liberty Church Goes to NH Supreme Court

[struggle4progress]

19. The issue before the NH Supreme Court does not seem to go beyond the question

of whether the lower court's summary finding against the current plaintiffs ought be overturned and they be granted a trial on the merits.

[Yorktown]

20. Do you notice that bloodthirsty cults meet/met the IRS definition of religion?

Even without mentioning the hatemongering preached in Pakistan's madrasas,

the mayan cult which included human sacrifices met the definition of religion.

So did Hinduism as practiced for centuries with the burning alive of wives.


Religion, the suitcase word that covers so many sins.

I wonder if Hitler would have succeeded if he had claimed divine inspiration?

[struggle4progress]

23. Don't quit the day job quite yet to practice law

The IRS guidelines apply to certain corporations in the US; but neither Pakistan's madrasas, nor the Mayan cults which included human sacrifices, nor Hinduism qualifies as such a corporation

[Yorktown]

24. This is not a court. Apply your literalism elsewhere.

But literalist lawyers are rarely the most successful.

For some reason, I do not see you at the top of the judicial professions.

[unblock]

27. then why take issue with something as technical as an irs definition?

if you're looking to define a religion beyond the context of federal tax treatment, which, clearly you are, why would you bother caring about what the irs has to say about it?

the irs concerns itself only with such narrow points of tax law. if a church is involved with acts of violent crime such as human sacrifice, genocide, terrorism, or whatever, that's really not of concern for the irs. that's for other parts of the government to worry about. the only crimes the irs really cares about is tax evasion and such. otherwise, they're happy to tax any income, even if derived from criminal activity.

which is to say, churches that commit violent crimes can still be "churches", certainly at least as far as tax treatment is concerned.

[Yorktown]

28. Because the definition has consequences beyond tax

Defining a religion gives an organization respectability

(at least, in the eyes of the majority opinion as it exists today)

And by casting so broad a net, unsavory sects are unwittingly given cover by the IRS


To wit: extremist fundamentalist Christians or radical muslim preachers

[unblock]

29. if anything, i would think the problem there is congress allowing tax exemption for religion

not so much the irs's particular definition of religious organizations.


unless you think the irs should get into value judgments as to which religions and churches have requisite moral fiber.

[Yorktown]

30. Beyond unwarranted tax breaks, 'religions' can be plain dangerous

If the only danger of religions was tax breaks, the world would already be a better place

[struggle4progress]

22. Free State Project

The Free State Project (FSP) is a political migration, founded in 2001, to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire, selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas ... The Free State Project was founded in 2001 by Jason Sorens ... Sorens published an article in The Libertarian Enterprise highlighting the failure of libertarians to elect any candidate to federal office and outlining his ideas for a secessionist movement ... The project has been endorsed by Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. In 2010, Lew Rockwell from the Mises Institute endorsed the project ...

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

[Warren Stupidity]

25. Holy Google Gish gallop batman.

[struggle4progress]

31. Mark Edgington

Free Talk Live is an American call-in radio talk show ... broadcast from Keene, New Hampshire ... Mark Edge (real name: "Mark Edgington&quot ... is the ad salesman for Free Talk Live ... On January 29, 2007, it was revealed that Mark Edge had served nine years in prison for his involvement in the 1988 strangulation murder of a Florida motel manager ...
Free Talk Live

KEENE – In the City of Keene’s Council Chambers on Wednesday, June 11, 2014, the four member Board of Assessors determined that the Shire Free Church has not met the legal burden of proof to qualify as a legitimate religious organization which can be exempted from property tax assessment ... Church founder Mark Edgington addressed the Board. Edgington is co-host of the nationally syndicated talk radio program Free Talk Live, which is now owned by the Shire Free Church ...
Shire Free Church Denied Tax Exemption
June 12, 2014

... Last year, the Shire Free Church appealed the city’s denial of its request for tax-exempt status in Cheshire County Superior Court. The Shire Free Church: Monadnock owns a duplex .. in Keene and claims the property is a parsonage ... However, in June 2014 the Keene Board of Assessors denied Shire Free Church’s application for the tax exemption, prompting the church’s four ministers — Jay Denonville, Mark Edgington, Ian B. Freeman and Darryl W. Perry — to file an appeal in Superior Court on Aug. 27 ...
Keene church continues battle for tax-exempt status
By MEGHAN PIERCE
Union Leader Correspondent

... Mark Edgington, who lives in the so-called parsonage, said he expects the court will avoid declaring that the Church of the Sword is, in fact, a religion ...
Sword-fighting libertarian church appears before Supreme Court for tax exemption case
By NICK REID
Monitor staff
Thursday, October 15, 2015
(Published in print: Friday, October 16, 2015)