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LOL, no.

For instance:
“Sunday schools for the religious instruction of the young” – That is particularly a Christian factor, requiring spiritual indoctrination of the younger on Sunday. (Too unhealthy for Seventh Day Adventists I assume?)

“Established places of worship” – no. Even small Christian demoninations meet in somebody’s residence, a park or rented area. Not all religions have church buildings, and never all religions have a necessity for tax exempt standing. (It’s onerous to want tax exemption if you don’t have a lot earnings.)

“Schools for the preparation of its members” – solely sure massive denominations of main religions have parochial colleges. Once more, that is biased towards folks of the guide.

“Organization of ordained ministers” and “Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study” – once more, that is very a lot biased towards institutionalized religions, like Christianity, which have plenty of cash, property, and dogma. In lots of pagan religions the ministry is made up of people that have accomplished the equal of an apprenticeship. The curriculum for this coaching varies from group to group.

“Literature of its own” – that is fully biased towards folks of the guide. Experiential religions don’t have governing literature, catechism, or “bibles”. A lot of the “literature” is contemporaneous writings by adherents, not some outdated, moldy, a number of occasions reinterpreted books of allegedly historical writings. There isn’t a “Wiccan New Testament”, “Druidic Old Testament” or “Asatru Koran”. The thought is preposterous.

“Membership not associated with any other church or denomination” – simply the wording of that is biased towards folks of the guide. Pagans don’t have “churches”, typically. Plus, people could also be affiliated with multiple “denomination”.

All the “distinct creed”, “ecclesiastical government”, “Formal code of doctrine and discipline” and “Formal code of doctrine and discipline” are once more closely biased towards outdated, established and dogmatic religions, the dysfunction of which is why folks flip to paganism. Whereas some pagan religions have tried to arrange these trappings to attempt to please the biased IRS pointers alleged right here, most of us snort at it.

I discovered the pdf you grabbed this record from, however you ignored a vital paragraph:

“The IRS generally uses a combination of these characteristics, together with other facts and circumstances, to determine whether an organization is considered a church for federal tax purposes.”

Not all “real” religions need to be “churches” for tax functions. (It doesn’t even come into play except the group takes in over $5000 a yr.) You possibly can learn the actual IRS guidelines about tax exemption (which is not the identical as whether or not a faith is “real” or not) on this pdf: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf

Most notably, it doesn’t say that religions who don’t meet these (closely biased) pointers are “fake”, it merely says they might not qualify for tax exempt standing. These are two various things.

A 13 member Wiccan coven isn’t prone to have a “church” property, a paid minister, or a parochial college. The thought is ridiculous. It additionally doesn’t absorb $5000/yr or extra in donations. Even teams of covens, circles and kindreds don’t herald that a lot. Particularly, 8 common celebrations per yr, occasions perhaps $500 per occasion towards prices is barely $4000, and with a distinct group presenting every time, it doesn’t come near assembly the brink.

So you might be barking up the mistaken tree if you happen to use biased IRS tax exemption standards to find out the “realness” of a faith. Their standards are meant to separate spiritual organizations from scams, they usually don’t do very properly at that, IMO.



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