wfn.org | UCC-led group files complaint with IRS over D.C. 'church'

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

UCC-led group files complaint with IRS over D.C. 'church'

> Written by staff and wire reports
> February 24, 2010

A group of 13 mainline Protestant pastors ? including several from the
United Church of Christ ? has filed a letter of complaint with the
Internal Revenue Service, claiming that a townhouse on Capitol Hill
that provides inexpensive lodging and meals for conservative Christian
members of Congress is not a church, and that it should not hold the
tax-exempt status afforded a house of worship.

"We are concerned that an exclusive residential club for powerful
officials may be masquerading as a church," said the letter to the IRS
of the C Street Center, 130-year-old townhouse valued at $1.8 million.
"Any time an organization uses church status as part of a tax
avoidance scheme, it poses a threat to the integrity of religious
institutions everywhere."

The Rev. Eric Williams, senior minister at North Congregational United
Church of Christ in Columbus, has led the effort on the complaint,
which was filed Feb. 23. "Whenever I feel the (Christian) church is
being maligned or misrepresented, boom! Twin flags of passion go up,"
says Williams. "One as a child of God, and another as an American citizen."

The C Street Center offers inexpensive lodging and meals for at least
five members of Congress. The townhouse is an affiliate of a secretive
international Christian network known as the Fellowship, or the
Family. Its stated purpose is to cultivate relationships with
politicians, business people and military leaders, bringing them
together for prayer and Bible study ? and sometimes getting involved
in matters of diplomacy and foreign policy.

In the letter, the pastors say the C Street Center does not meet IRS
requirements for a church because it does not appear to hold regular
religious services open to the public; has no religious school for
young people; and has no distinct creed or ecclesiastical structure.
Moreover, the letter said, the center has avoided transparency by
taking advantage of IRS rules that say churches do not have to file
annual information returns, known as Form 990s.

Richard Carver, president of the Fellowship Foundation, the
corporation that oversees Fellowship ministries, said he could not
provide any information because the C Street Center was formally a
separate legal entity.

J. Robert Hunter, another member of the Fellowship, said that while
there was a separate legal arrangement, there was a "very close
working relationship" between the center and the Fellowship. "There
are religious services all the time in that building," Hunter said,
but they are not open to the public. He said the residence is designed
for people to model their lives on Jesus. He added that "one of the
purposes is to give a safe place where politicians who are tempted by
lust would hold each other accountable."

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina has said he sought spiritual
counseling there in connection with his affair with an Argentine
woman. According to an article in the Feb. 24 edition of the New York
Times, the residence has been home to two other legislators who
espoused conservative family values but recently were tarnished ? Sen.
John Ensign (R-Nev.), who admitted to an affair with an aide; and
former Rep. Charles W. Pickering Jr. (R-Miss.), who faced accusations
of an extramarital affair.

Last fall, after the scandals put the C Street Center in the
headlines, the District of Columbia revoked tax-exempt status on 66
percent of the building, saying it was primarily a residence. The
complaint to the IRS concerns the property's federal taxes.

The Feb. 24 letter was signed by pastors of Columbus-area United
Church of Christ, Methodist and Episcopal churches, as well as by the
Rev. Robert Molsberry, the UCC's Ohio Conference minister, and the
Rev. Forrest Hoppe, association minister of the UCC's regional Central
Southeast Ohio Association.