Hammond: IRS probe of church politically motivated

In a letter sent to supporters on Saturday, Pastor Mac Hammond of Living Word Christian Center wrote that “enemies of the gospel, often politically motivated,” are behind an ongoing Internal Revenue Service probe of the church. Hammond and Living Word are the target of an IRS audit investigating allegations of excessive compensation as well as of favorable loans and leasing arrangements that Hammond secured through the church.

“We believe that this investigation of the IRS is completely unfounded and politically motivated,” wrote Hammond in the four-page letter ( PDF). “There is a very clear effort, national in scale, to discredit, defame, and intimidate ministries and preachers of what has come to be called the “prosperity message” – which in actuality is nothing more than the gospel – the good news that God is good and
our covenant of blessing will provide increase in every area of our life.”

He continued, “Those behind these attacks we will, for the moment, only identify as enemies of the gospel, often politically motivated. They are fearful not only of the moral imperative communicated by these ministries, but the growing wealth and influence of those constituencies. In the natural world, money is power and influence, so a wealthy church (individually and collectively) is without question going to gain increasing visibility and influence in its city, state, and nation. The opponents of Christian ideology rightly understand that to limit our influence, they must limit our growing wealth – and to accomplish this goal, they must undermine and corrupt the commitment of the donor base.”

Hammond also reiterated that he has no qualms about the wealth he has made as pastor. “The media allegations mean little or nothing if you keep the larger context in mind: Our individual level of wealth, according to God (Eph. 3:20) can potentially exceed what we can even ask or think, limited only by the power of faith that works in us,” he said. “I refuse to ever be embarrassed or apologetic for the level of God’s blessing upon my life, and believe every day that my preaching will have the same effect upon your life.

“Regardless of the fact that it is the will of God for us to prosper and the level of that prosperity to be determined only by our faith, the Internal Revenue Service has assumed the rather questionable responsibility of deciding how much compensation a minister should receive,” he wrote. “It seems an apparent violation of the separation of church and state.” It’s an ironic coda to a controversy that started when Hammond endorsed Rep. Michele Bachmann during her October 2006 appearance at his church.