Jesus Christians.com

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/12/2843744.htm?site=news

Sounds like the same hate group that had a conference in Sydney which we observed.

They are intent on enlisting Politicians to conduct witch hunts of any group they claim to be a "cult".
Again the word is perjorative, and implies that the group is evil or doing illegal thngs without any evidence.

Sad to see, but I noticed that all the generalised cultophobia in the article seems to be coming from the institution itself.

All it says about Nick Xenophon himself is that he's been campaigning for investigation into scientology's tax exempt status. Quite a reasonable idea in all truth.

Who knows what he believes about cults further than that.

Isn't xenophobia a fear of anything that is different? I suppose he gets comments like that all the time!

There is a general thought that religions of any sort should not be tax exempt, and especially those who are prosletysing.
This idea was brought up in the recent atheist convention here in Melbourne.

I would say the the tax exempt law does hark back to the protestant reformation. It is argued that the exemption law is 400 years old now. Naturally it has helped many Christian groups to preach the gospel, and/or do other charitable works.
Back then these things were considered honourable voluntary activities. But now the move is on to ban preachers of any kind.


But it has also helped them buy real estate and build big churches.
Then came the new religious groups such as Scientology who some would argue is a way of dodging tax. That some of these groups may be ethically or morally bankrupt puts the whole idea of religion into disrepute.

It seems neither the Labor or Liberal party want to debate tax exemption with Xenophon because so many of the main stream churches and religions benefit from it. If they start banning one group they would have to ban them all.

The issue seems to balance on what a person's attitude is toward "organised religion". You say, for example, Ross, that tax exemption helped them preach the gospel. Well, it provided them with more money, with which they could print literature, build churches, etc. But is that necessary to 'preach the gospel'. There is always the spiritual aspect of Christianity as opposed to the organisational aspect. I think that it is fair enough for Christian churches to be given tax exemption, but their faith should not be dependent on it.

Certainly, trying to single out specific religions (e.g. scientology) for harsh treatment opens a huge can of worms. There is a lot of money tied up in most big religions these days, and so it is a bit hypocritical to call one a tax dodge and not the others.