Spiritual Results

Spiritual Results was founded by people who care about independence from the state. We hold, as an article of faith, that the authority of the Church comes from the Source and from conscience, not from any government, and that no state can tell us what to believe, whom to receive, whom to ordain, or how to worship. We also hold, as an article of the same faith, that we render to civil authority what is civil authority's.

Those two convictions are not in tension. They are the whole tradition. And they happen to be exactly the position the law respects. Here is what a church that keeps its house in order may genuinely set aside.

The real opt-outs

No incorporation. An unincorporated church needs no state filing, no annual report, no registered agent. We chose this. The cost is that we have no corporate liability shield and must hold property through trustees, which we accept.
No application to the IRS. Churches are exempt without asking (Section 508(c)(1)(A)).
No annual return. Churches do not file Form 990 (Section 6033).
Protection from ordinary audit. The IRS may examine a church only under the special procedures of Section 7611, which require a high-level determination and written notice.
Social Security, for ministers who object. A minister with a sincere religious objection to public insurance may permanently opt out of Social Security and Medicare on ministerial income (Form 4361). This is a sworn statement of conscience, not a financial choice, and it is irrevocable.
Payroll tax, for the church. A church may elect on religious grounds not to pay the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare for its staff (Form 8274).
Property tax. Property used primarily for religious worship is exempt in Arizona (A.R.S. §42-11109) and under the Arkansas Constitution, by affidavit to the county assessor.
Vehicle license tax. Arizona waives the tax portion of registration for vehicles owned by qualifying religious organizations.
Charity registration. Arizona has none.
Debt and government money. A church that owns what it holds and takes no grant has no lender and no funder to answer to. This one is not a legal exemption. It is a discipline, and it is written into our Constitution.
Employment law for ministers. The "ministerial exception" means no court may second-guess whom a church chooses as its ministers.

What forfeits all of it

Every item on that list depends on being a church in good standing with clean documents. The other version of sovereignty, the one that declares itself immune from tax, registration, and law by virtue of a document, a filing, or a status, has lost in every court that has heard it. Religious objection to paying tax is on the IRS's list of frivolous positions; the penalties are $5,000 per filing and up to $25,000 more for pressing it in Tax Court. Written into a church's founding documents, that language is evidence of an unlawful purpose and grounds for denying exemption.

So the person who writes "we do not pay property tax" into his bylaws has traded a real exemption for a declaration that gets him audited. We would rather have the exemption.

Our position, in one sentence

Statement of Faith §8: the Church has not asked, and will not ask, any government to approve its existence, its faith, its worship, its membership, or its ministers, because a government cannot approve what it never had the authority to grant; and where government acts within its lawful authority, we obey the laws of general application, pay what is lawfully owed, and claim no immunity the law does not give.

Article IX of our Constitution: the authority of the Church proceeds from the Divine and from the conscience of its members, not from any state; the Church claims no immunity from any law of general application; and it minimizes its entanglement with the state by owning what it holds, owing no one, taking no public money, and keeping its own house in order.