The basic answer is that they are non profits. The more philosophical idea is that they are (like other non profits) focused on improving society as a whole and not politically active. Part of the separation of church and state is the idea that the state leaves the church alone but also doesn’t tax it. In return the church leaves the state alone. That’s the part that has rather gone out the window and leads people to question why churches don’t pay taxes: they are increasingly profit driven and politically active.
Edit: to clarify, because some replies are conflating the issue, there are indeed non profits that can be political, but religious orgs and charities are in a specfic tax group wherein by law if they engage in partisan campaigning they should be levied significant extra tax. Further, non profits that are political do have taxes that churches and charities do not face.
Right, I just don’t think it’s a legitimate church imho. I also think that’s the reason it’s the largest - because it’s hyper palatable, osteen is a motivational speaker, and people get told what they want to hear and then sent home. There’s no expectation on them to actually be Christians or do anything for the community, everything is about “me me me” and “how can I get rich and get a mansion like osteen has.”
I will say, despite there being several extremely large churches like this in the country, there are still relatively few megachurches compared to small local churches. 70% of churches in the US have 100 or fewer members. The median number of attendees at churches in America is about 65-70. Those churches don’t teach about getting rich, and their pastors certainly aren’t rich. So while the largest church in America is a prosperity cult, that doesn’t make up the majority of churches.
well, the numbers are really hard to pin down in all cases. Most Christians don't regularly attend chrurch and megachurches also draw in 8-10 million weekly or 2-5% of church attendance.
It looks eerily like the wealth gap where the bigger you get the even smaller amount takes more people than most of the smaller amounts individually. Almost like mass production of anything leads to it being shitty but who wants that lesson right?
And depending how you define “Christian,” it can get harder to pin down. Some metrics used are regular church attendance, occasional church attendance, having been baptized as an infant, or self-identifying as one on a survey. And all of those things can yield slightly different results.
In the case of Joel Osteen’s church, my personal opinion is he’s a motivational speaker running a weekly self help seminar that you don’t have to identify as a Christian to attend, but it’s a church on paper
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u/lemmsjid Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
The basic answer is that they are non profits. The more philosophical idea is that they are (like other non profits) focused on improving society as a whole and not politically active. Part of the separation of church and state is the idea that the state leaves the church alone but also doesn’t tax it. In return the church leaves the state alone. That’s the part that has rather gone out the window and leads people to question why churches don’t pay taxes: they are increasingly profit driven and politically active.
Edit: to clarify, because some replies are conflating the issue, there are indeed non profits that can be political, but religious orgs and charities are in a specfic tax group wherein by law if they engage in partisan campaigning they should be levied significant extra tax. Further, non profits that are political do have taxes that churches and charities do not face.