I'm not sure if all of what I came to learn of the German "Church Tax" is still in effect the way it was when I was over in Deutschland on PCS orders issued by the USAF from1967-69, but I'm fairly certain that the basic concepts are probably still in place.
Essentially, the German "Church Tax" is kinda like what each of our states do when it comes to registering automobiles--
You got an automobile...say it's all bought and paid for...but you can't operate that car legally until it's registered by the authority of whatever state you want to have it made legal to operate. Of course getting that car legally registered isn't free--there's that tax that you must pay to the money-hungry bureaucrats in the state government called the registration fee.
The same idea holds partially true with the German "Church Tax." How much a German citizen must pay is based (at least to some degree) on that citizen's income. Whether or not the rate is 10% [i.e., a "tithe"] I'm not sure (I don't think it's that high a percentage, but maybe it is.)
Traditionally in Germany there are only two principal religions: Roman Catholic and what we here in America would call the Lutheran church. (Germans would refer to it as the "Evangelical" church.)
If you're of the old school in America and still fill out your income tax forms by hand and snail mail it in to the IRS, one of things you get to look forward to every January is finding that most dreaded variety of hate mail that could ever be sent to anyone called Form 1040 (Why the IRS doesn't include the numerical prefix 666 on their Form 1040 I have yet to figure out!) :smilewinkgrin:
In Germany they have their equivalent to Form 1040, and along with that they have a set of forms that they fill out for figuring out both the amount and to which principal religion their "Church Tax" they desire that amount of money to go.
Where things get complicated is when the herr and frau claim different religions. (EX: The herr claims Lutheran and the frau claims Catholic.) In such case, the couple's "Church Tax" is doubled!
But, say you're a Baptist and don't claim to be either Catholic or Lutheran ,and don't wish your "Church Tax" to go to either one of those traditional national religions. Unless things have changed since the 1960's, if you don't want to register as either Catholic or Lutheran, you're lumped in with all the other remaining non-Catholic and non-Lutheran religious groups and classified as belonging to a "cult."
That
really makes the German tax bureaucrats confused and mad such that "Ve haf our vays of dealink vit such volks!" say the Deutscher Mann (whose grandfather or great-grandfather was most likely a top member of Hitler's SS Guards)! And what those "vays of dealink vit such volks"
are....Trust me, you really don't vant to know!
Officially Germany has their kind of religious freedom, but their "Church Tax" still
must be paid into their government---even if you register as an atheist!! (Where the atheists' "Church Tax" money goes to I'm not positive, but it
does go into some governmental coffer somewhere.)
If you think our government is far too socialist and seems to have intruded far too deeply into far too many aspects of our private lives, then I would cordially invite you to transfer your citizenship to most any European country.
"But over there, anything you want or need is provided for you by the government!" you say. Well, that may be true to a point, but keep this in mind: Any government that
gives you almost everything you need or want also has the power to
take almost everything you've got!!
Seldom will you ever hear of a German pastor plead for more money to fund whatever
she (Most younger pastors over there are of the "
she persuasion.") feels is important to
her pastorate.
She doesn't have to! Instead
she fills out some supply requisition forms, and if the higher-ups in the German religious bureaucracy (whose great-grandfather's Iron Cross medals are secretly filed in one of that bureaucrat's desk drawers!) feel that
her request meets the bureaucratic standards for whatever it is that
she has requested, then
she gets
her funds for whatever.
Sure beats having to sit through all of those bleeding-heart, guilt-trip laden pleas for money for which old Brother Smith is famous, doesn't it?
But, wait a minute, where did those German religious bureaucrats find the money to fund their beloved
sister's request? From the income that they received from the Deutschlanders' "Church Tax"!
That's the German way. And, now think for a moment, do you suppose that if
Sister VonLandfelt all the sudden gets a message from God [the
Mother I suppose!] telling
her to take a public stand against the evils of abortion and homos..xuality --both of which are officially approved and legally recognized in German constiutional law--that
she is going to immediately become a public spokesperson decrying the evil and definitely un-biblical practices of both of these things?
Remember,
Sister VonLandfelt's salary, housing allowances and retirement funds are also all paid out from the coffers of the "Church Tax" as well. And that's the way that most German citizens apparently want it.
Will such a thing ever take home here in the USA? I hope it doesn't, but it could very well happen in the near future.
If my memory serves me correctly, just a few months back there was this American politician who chose to visit the German capital of Berlin and whose proposed public policy positions were highly lauded as being just what the throngs of German people felt that US as a nation needed.
H'mmm...Now who
was that politician who had an Irish-sounding last name? O'Henry...no. O'Reilly...no. O'Charley...nope, wasn't him either. It was O something or other.
Can any of you BB folks out there help me out on this?
