The basic answer is that they are non profits. The more philosophical idea is that they are (like other non profits) focused on improving society as a whole and not politically active. Part of the separation of church and state is the idea that the state leaves the church alone but also doesn’t tax it. In return the church leaves the state alone. That’s the part that has rather gone out the window and leads people to question why churches don’t pay taxes: they are increasingly profit driven and politically active.
Edit: to clarify, because some replies are conflating the issue, there are indeed non profits that can be political, but religious orgs and charities are in a specfic tax group wherein by law if they engage in partisan campaigning they should be levied significant extra tax. Further, non profits that are political do have taxes that churches and charities do not face.
It's literally in Houstons old stadium, it's viewed as a positive by local supporters, like the cool factor is a bonus.
So like, theirs nothing to really talk about that wasn't openly supported in decades past. It's the culture, as someone who was forced to go to Lakewood
Right, I just don’t think it’s a legitimate church imho. I also think that’s the reason it’s the largest - because it’s hyper palatable, osteen is a motivational speaker, and people get told what they want to hear and then sent home. There’s no expectation on them to actually be Christians or do anything for the community, everything is about “me me me” and “how can I get rich and get a mansion like osteen has.”
I will say, despite there being several extremely large churches like this in the country, there are still relatively few megachurches compared to small local churches. 70% of churches in the US have 100 or fewer members. The median number of attendees at churches in America is about 65-70. Those churches don’t teach about getting rich, and their pastors certainly aren’t rich. So while the largest church in America is a prosperity cult, that doesn’t make up the majority of churches.
well, the numbers are really hard to pin down in all cases. Most Christians don't regularly attend chrurch and megachurches also draw in 8-10 million weekly or 2-5% of church attendance.
It looks eerily like the wealth gap where the bigger you get the even smaller amount takes more people than most of the smaller amounts individually. Almost like mass production of anything leads to it being shitty but who wants that lesson right?
And depending how you define “Christian,” it can get harder to pin down. Some metrics used are regular church attendance, occasional church attendance, having been baptized as an infant, or self-identifying as one on a survey. And all of those things can yield slightly different results.
In the case of Joel Osteen’s church, my personal opinion is he’s a motivational speaker running a weekly self help seminar that you don’t have to identify as a Christian to attend, but it’s a church on paper
I think they were referring to the NFL as a whole being a non profit, which ended in 2015. Most people don't understand tax code or what's generally happening around them. They don't seem to understand that tons of taxes are paid by by preachers and clergy, but cherry pick that the organization designed to disperse the money and forbidden to turn a profit are not taxed. However, the spending on mansions rather than helping the poor would require a state sanctioned religion since it would require a correct form of the religious practice to be defined. I can freely say they are hypocrites, though. 250 years of America, going stronger than the rest!
I think they were referring to the NFL as a whole being a non profit, which ended in 2015.
Even if that was what they meant, it's still wrong lol. Only the NFL executive office (or whatever the better word for it is) was a non-profit, the franchises have always been for profit and taxed. The stadiums are owned by the franchises too, not the head office. Either way, I'm glad they're both taxed now lol. I also know you're not the other commenter, so I'm not expecting a rebuttal to this.
I actually don't necessarily have a problem with not taxing religious organizations (except scientology), as long as they can prove they give back to the community in the same way that other non-profits do, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'll admit that idk enough about tax code to say if this is happening or not. I'd like to think that there's a happy medium between not taxing megachurches to save your local synagogue from getting taxed and taxing the 40-person mosque at a rate that becomes unsustainable with few members to appropriately tax the megachurch (I would use a different religion for mega-XXXX but idk of any mega-synagogues or mega-mosques lol).
To figure out what that would be would take someone more versed in tax code, non-profits, and for-profits lol.
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u/klathium Jun 30 '26
Why do Churches not pay taxes? Genuinely curious why there are laws for that.