General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Ed Schultz EXPOSES Cause Of Racism In The South [View all]LTX
(1,020 posts)and consolidate power and influence in mega-churches, which would then be free to exercise even greater, and overt, political influence. For a small church (75 or fewer congregants), its principal assets are its buildings and land, frequently in rather prime locations. Tack a 20 to 50 thousand dollar tax bill on to those churches, and they simply cease to exist.
As it is, "The median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings, according to the National Congregations Study (NCS) http://www.soc.duke.edu/natcong/ . Notice that researchers measured the median church size the point at which half the churches are smaller and half the churches are larger rather than the average (186 attenders reported by the USCLS survey http://www.uscongregations.org/charact-cong.htm ), which is larger due to the influence of very large churches. But while the United States has a large number of very small churches, most people attend larger churches. The National Congregations Study estimated that the smaller churches draw only 11 percent of those who attend worship. Meanwhile, 50 percent of churchgoers attended the largest 10% of congregations (350 regular participants and up)."
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#sizecong
This trend towards mega-churches (with their concomitant and almost invariably conservative political leanings and influence) would only be accelerated, with the counter influence of smaller, progressive congregations diminished or effectively eliminated.
You would also run into equality-effect problems, where minority congregations are penalized by elimination of infrastructure (in effect driving them underground), while mega-churches hum along as profit and influence centers.