Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 159
many observers of religious entrepreneurship would probably agree with me, not many,
including me, understand the history of why this activity is so privileged in the eyes of
the state.
In tacit admission of my ignorance about church history in America, I have no answer to
the question of why churches are not taxed at any level of government. A church
employs administrators, parsons or preachers who are engaged in commercial
enterprise, much as a nurse, medical doctor, hospital administrator, or for that matter
anyone making a living by selling a service. Why should one be automatically exempt
from all taxes and the others only upon certain conditions or not at all? Could we, as a
country hold on to our moral principles if we taxed our churches? I believe this is an
area that, though taboo at present, must and will be explored in the future.
As I said above, I discuss the presence of religion in America and in Americans’ lives, in
this chapter that deals with family because of the interrelationship that exists between
the moral values that shape our actions as individuals and as a society and what we
learn at home and at church. Family is the best vehicle to teach virtues and,
unfortunately, also prejudices. Every time the state enters these areas, somebody of a
different creed, or of no creed, will object. Religion’s objections always beget problems,
sometimes of the worst and most lasting kind. Therefore the state, in the opinion of
many, mine included, is not the vehicle to teach any specific religion, but it does have a
role in rooting out the perversity of prejudice.
The Founding Fathers separated church from state, but they very much recognized the
value of religion in forming strong individuals and strong nations. In the generations
immediately following the foundation of the country, the Northerners adhered to a strong
protestant self-reliant work ethic and built their own characters based on what at the
time was generally acceptable to glean out of the Ten Commandments of the Old
Testament. Killing and stealing were not acceptable, unless they could be draped with
the robes of overwhelming self-interest. In cases related to the partition of the American
wilderness, pioneers killed and stole but they euphemistically called it self-defense. The
process became known as settlement and it became morally acceptable. Because of
the predominance of immigrants with similar backgrounds and experiences, the
Founders’ mores became the allegoric backbone of the American character. Perhaps
more properly, they embodied the pioneering spirit that drove the colonization of
America.
Southerners worshipped the same Christian God, but in addition to using land usurped
from the natives that lived therein, they relied for their welfare on the labor of slave
populations. The fact that slavery had a long history of existence made its acceptance
easy. But, swept by the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment at the time of the
constitutional convention, most of the Founders from the South had to concur that the
peculiar institution of slavery would finally have to disappear. They essentially bargained
to give slavery another generation to continue unchanged and then, by opening the
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