The war on Christmas. The war on marriage. Wars on schools, on prayer, on the sanctity of life – we’ve heard countless times that a culture war rages in America. If you believe the fundamentalists, they’re merely defending themselves against an overwhelming tide of secularist persecution.
But a recent report by the Council for Secular Humanism and the University of Tampa confirms that this persecution is really a myth. In fact, the report estimates that the federal government subsidizes churches to the tune of at least $71 billion per year.
The Washington Post called these numbers a “lowball,” and estimates the real number is probably much higher thanks to local tax subsidies, sales tax subsidies and fund-raising subsidies, among other benefits. When these benefits are considered the number is closer to $82.5 billion per year.
Related articles
- You give religions more than $82.5 billion a year (washingtonpost.com)
- This Week in God (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
Always Question Authority 
There may have been some point in history when Christians were persecuted, harassed, and even killed for their religious beliefs but that point in history is a distant speck in our rearview mirror. It is more accurate to say, as one author (whom I forget at the moment) said, referring to the Roman Emperor Constantine and his push for Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century, “Before Constantine, it took courage to be a Christian; after Constantine, it took courage not to be a Christian.”
The Before/After Constantine remark (above) is attributed to John Howard Yoder , the Christian Mennonite theologian and pacifist.