The Church and the IRS

So, from my research it appears that ultimately the IRS gets to decide what is a church and what is not. Since the the first amendment of the constitution of the United States, which took place in 1789, congress can't make any laws regarding churches or any religious establishment. So, if laws can't regulate churches, who does. Well, churches want money....donations. People want to deduct these donations from their taxes. In comes the IRS.

Although not required, churches need to submit some forms to become what they call a 501(c). This allows the donations given to a church to be tax deductible for those donating. There are some general guidelines that need to be followed to be considered to be a church. But in the end, if there are any questions about what you are doing falls into these church guidelines, the IRS decides if you are a church or not. Of course this can escalate into the courts, which it has on many occasions.