Governmental Attempts to Define Church and Religion

Abstract

To conform to the constitutional provisions separating church and state, public officials must be able to distinguish between churches and other types of institu tions. They must also be able to distinguish between beliefs, activities, and organizations that are religious and those that are not. Before 1969 there was very little disagreement be tween the American churches and the federal and state govern ments about the legal meanings of church and religion. Since 1969, however, Congress and some federal agencies (notably the Internal Revenue Service) have adopted some legal phraseology that is extremely offensive to the churches be cause it divorces the charitable, educational and social wel fare activities of the churches from their religious mission. The resulting discord, tension and threat to the proper legal understanding of religion and church can be resolved only through changes in the terminology that the government has created. To bring about these changes, the churches must engage in greater collaboration with each other, and in more frequent and cordial discussions with government officials.