Crown Financial Cautions Churches About Taking Coronavirus Stimulus Money

[Mark_Smith]

That’s right Bert. Remember the old adage… “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you!”

I’ve always been in the other camp — just because you’re NOT paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.

Or, as I learned when I was little — “In God we trust — all others pay cash.”

[Mark_Smith]

If government is that untrustworthy and that eager to destroy churches, they can take you out anytime they want to! They don’t need an excuse. They’ll just make one up.

They could, yes, but in reality, even the dictatorships of the 20th century (and 21st in places like China and Vietnam) tend to at least pretend to hold to a pretext of justification for what they are about to do. If they do not, they lose the support of those they need to hold the whole shebang together. You can get people to work as gulag guards when the pretext is the prisoners are actually enemies of the state. If word gets out that the inmates (and guards) are all just there because Stalin is a paranoid nutcase with syphilis (which he likely was—there is actual forensic evidence for this), they start showing up as empty guard towers and once-precise accuracy with their guns goes south in a hurry. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to the question of, whether or not the law specifies a degree of control (I did and do concede it does not appear to), whether the law can be reasonably interpreted as giving the pretext for control.

In other words, you’ve got to assume the law will at some point be interpreted by people who hate your guts. If you don’t like the likely consequences, you might want to avoid signing on for taking advantage of that law.