{"id":4727,"date":"2012-11-14T09:30:37","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T09:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=4727"},"modified":"2012-11-14T13:33:34","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T13:33:34","slug":"2012nov14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/2012nov14\/","title":{"rendered":"Churches should benefit the public"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
An Excluisve Brethren meeting hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Exclusive Brethren church trust in Devon is to consider advertising its services to satisfy the Charity Commission that it serves a public benefit, according to Third Way magazine<\/a><\/strong> yesterday.<\/p>\n

The news that\u00a0the Preston Down Trust had been refused charitable status<\/a><\/strong> was greeted with alarm in some Christian circles, but the National Director of Christian Voice believes it is a very special case and that good can come from it if the decision forces churches into the gospel imperative of social action.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the Brethren, the Charity Commission cited a tribunal ruling that religion is not always for \u201cthe public benefit\u201d and said \u201cthere is no presumption that religion generally, or at any more specific level, is for the public benefit, even in the case of Christianity or the Church of England\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Brethren have announced their intention to seek an appeal<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Exclusive Brethren are a Christian denomination who have no fellowship with those outside.\u00a0 They affix a small sign to their meeting hall stating that it is a place of public worship to satisfy the law, but little else gives its function away.\u00a0 They do not extend hospitality to outsiders and are not involved in the community at large, keeping themselves as separate as they can from the world.<\/p>\n

MPs on the Public Administration Select Committee, which is investigating the work of the Charity Commission, are concerned that the commission could start denying charitable status to other religious groups.<\/p>\n

Charlie Elphicke, a member of the committee and the MP for Dover and Deal, believes the commission is ‘committed to the suppression of religion’.<\/p>\n

The Charities Act\u00a02006 means that organisations which previously gained charitable status automatically now have to demonstrate \u201cpublic benefit\u201d.<\/p>\n

Professor Peter Luxton, an expert in charity law at Cardiff University, said the Charity Commission\u2019s attempt to define public benefit was \u201ca nonsense,\u201d since the 2006 law did not make any changes to the definition of a charity.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe Commission has been completely out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Charity Commission said: ‘The application from Preston Down Trust was not accepted on the basis that we were unable to conclude that the organisation is established for the advancement of religion for public benefit within the relevant charity law.’<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman went further, saying that the decision to deny charitable status to the Preston Down Trust ‘took into account the nature of Christian religion embraced by the trust and the means through which this was promoted, including the public access to its services and the potential for its beneficial impact on the wider community’, according to Third Sector<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Rod Buckley, a member of Preston Down Trust, said that it does allow non-members to attend services,\u00a0but advertising its meetings will demonstrate that.<\/p>\n

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice,\u00a0said:<\/p>\n

‘This decision, while it may seem unwelcome, is not quite the big deal that some are making\u00a0out.\u00a0 There is not the remotest possibility of\u00a0churches up and down the land losing their charitable status.<\/p>\n

‘In a sense it is a pity that new charity law has allowed the Charity Commission to change the old understanding that the promotion of religion is a good thing and that ‘it is good for people to have a religion’, but that was in an era when ‘religion’ in our land simply meant Christianity.<\/p>\n

‘However, in\u00a0Britain today, we are beginning to see that not all religion is good.\u00a0 Churches engage, or should engage, in social action, and the Christian faith has brought immense benefit to our nation.\u00a0 Our laws were historically based on Christian principles of justice, although secularists have deliberately legislated against righteousness in the last fifty years.\u00a0 Our heritage of generosity, altruism, philanthropy and care for the poor and needy were based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, although these too are now under pressure.<\/p>\n

‘But other religions struggle to show any public benefit.\u00a0 Mosques and Islamic trusts further the Islamic faith and give nothing beneficial to the community at large.\u00a0 Hinduism is similarly introspective, while campaigning atheist concerns with charitable status offer nothing that could conceivably be described as having a public benefit.<\/p>\n

‘By observing that the Exclusive Brethren need to show how their faith benefits the outside world, the Charity Commission are pussing them into an openness and a willingness to serve that should be at the heart of the Gospel.\u00a0 That can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n

‘Christians and churches in general need to take note and if they do not have projects which benefit the community, they should put them in place as a matter of urgency.\u00a0 God became one of us in Jesus Christ, and especially as we come up to Christmas, we need to learn the message of his incarnation and become his hands and feet doing what he urged us to do on earth.\u00a0 In addition, we need to show that Christians live industrious, God-fearing lives which make a positive impact on the world around us.<\/p>\n

‘We should also begin to draw the attention of the Charity Commission to the lack of public benefit of anti-Christian bodies with charitable status.\u00a0 Groups promoting evil under the guise of ‘educating the public’ should be exposed for what they are.\u00a0 The Charity Commission may have done the cause of Christ a lot of good in this decision.’<\/p>\n

Some suggestions of social action church projects:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Engaging with the community in prayer and worship<\/p>\n

Evangelism<\/p>\n

Wide advertising of worship meetings, services and projects<\/p>\n

Street Pastors and ‘Night Lights’<\/p>\n

Soup Kitchens<\/p>\n

Food Banks<\/p>\n

Offering help with unemployment claim forms and housing benefits<\/p>\n

Debt counselling<\/p>\n

Helping people into work with courses, drafting CVs, etc<\/p>\n

Advice with business skills and encouragement,<\/p>\n

Marriage preparation, guidance, and building.<\/p>\n

Poverty relief at home<\/p>\n

Support of projects overseas<\/p>\n

MIcro-finance<\/p>\n

Support for parents in trouble with Social Services,<\/p>\n

Help with parenting and home management skills,<\/p>\n

Speaking out on the issues of the day,<\/p>\n

Do our members have any other suggestions?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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An Exclusive Brethren church trust in Devon is to consider advertising its services to satisfy the Charity Commission that it serves a public benefit, according to Third Way magazine yesterday. The news that\u00a0the Preston Down Trust had been refused charitable status was greeted with alarm in some Christian circles, but the National Director of Christian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,86],"tags":[15,608,605,606,607,609,43],"class_list":["post-4727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-freedom","category-secularism","tag-christian-voice","tag-peter-luxton","tag-plymouth-brethren","tag-preston-down","tag-preston-down-trust","tag-rob-buckley","tag-stephen-green"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":23,"rttpg_category":"Christian freedom<\/a> Secularism<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"An Exclusive Brethren church trust in Devon is to consider advertising its services to satisfy the Charity Commission that it serves a public benefit, according to Third Way magazine yesterday. The news that\u00a0the Preston Down Trust had been refused charitable status was greeted with alarm in some Christian circles, but the National Director of Christian…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}