Now if you run a for-profit child care center out of your chapel and don't pay taxes, that is something the IRS has seized a church for.
It turns out a lot of them are pretty smart and understand how to treat each case on its own details. Their profession is about picking out exact details to unpack exact consequences, not being swept along by generalities.
The basis of the exemption of churchs is due to the historical development of trusts and revenue law, going back at least as far as the Charitable Uses Act in 1601 -- long before the US Constitution was drafted and adopted. Religious purposes were exempted because at the time genuine belief was common.
Charitable purposes as a concept therefore has a shared origin across all of the common law countries, including the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others. But common law is subordinate to new legislation, and so is historical legislation.
The reason churches are given a free ride is that nobody wants to pay the incredible political capital it will require to fix this relic.
Charities also often have positive externalities, but they have far more regulation than churches. Again, why the special treatment?
The social cohesion aspect of churches is gone at this point as well. That may have been true 50 years ago, but not today.
Perhaps if you are a member of the church, but definitely not if you don't abide by the exact, often conservative , rules of a given church.
Look at slavery, equal rights for lgbtq and people of color, abortion etc. Not only do people in power use the churches to hide their personal beliefs behind, many churches use their power to oppress others.
I mean the crusades were a thing...
I'll agree churches provide social cohesion but often at the cost of tribalism against people outside that given churches norms.
(Not to mention that your so-called “cohesion” also includes Scientology, Westboro Baptists and prosperity theology.)
Your underlying assumption that churches are unique as providers of social capital in modern society is... peculiar. The fact that churches are tax-exempt is a consequence of the dominant position of the Catholic church in the middle ages, and the compromises made in the subsequent struggle to remove the church bureaucracy from the government.
I expect that as religiousness across the US population declines, churches will gradually be required to behave more like other non-profits. But that will probably take many decades.
I hear this a great deal, but would love some actual numbers to back it up. My own experience supports that this is true in a limited way for members of the church going through a discrete crisis, but pales in comparison to the good done by, for instance, WIC and SNAP.
See women’s rights, gay and other sexual orientation rights, minority rights, catholic pedophilia, Mormon multiple wife and underage nonsense, Scientology, etc.
It provides a certain tribe a tax exemption, that may or may not do good deeds with it. No reason to provide any tax exemption (not that anyone should have one in the first place).
I think we have read different history books.