On the other hand, a tax-free religion founded on publicly mocking Paul Ryan may be the natural endpoint of American politics.

There are several reasons why allowing religious institutions to engage in explicitly political advocacy while otherwise pretending that they are purely charitable institutions may not be a good idea. None of those reasons matter to the people who keep demanding a change in the rules that would allow them, personally, to exploit the resulting loopholes, and so the repeal of the Johnson Amendment, the law barring such mixing of electioneering and "charity," is once again in the House version of the Republican tax bill.

All right, experts who deal with this thing: What could possibly be the problem with telling people you are a church, but then in fact instead spending your money as a political organization?

“This is a radical proposal to change campaign finance laws,” said Tim Delaney, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, which has been lobbying against changes to the Johnson Amendment. “Charities and foundations have worked for years, decades and centuries to build the public’s trust, and we don’t want to be dragged down by toxic partisanship.” Mr. Delaney and others who oppose the move say charities would come under pressure by partisan donors to engage in politics as a condition of their giving. The National Association of State Charity Officials, which opposes the bill, said the “Johnson Amendment helps give donors confidence that their donations will be used for charitable purposes and not electioneering or other private, noncharitable purposes.”

I will tell you right now that if the Senate goes through with this latest House attempt the first thing I'm going to do is found myself a church. It's going to be a grand church, with important-sounding titles and a website with Bible quotes. I will call it the Church of Paul Ryan is Bad, and it will be exempt from taxes and you're all free to donate as much money as you want, if you're in an income bracket that could benefit from that sort of cynical so-called charity tax dodge, and why the hell not.

There's probably a downside there in terms of belittling all American religions by turning them into cheap pass-throughs for corporate campaign cash, but that seems to be the way the world is turning these days. Being a venue for political cash seems to be the sole reason most televangelists exist even now—no reason not to drag every other aspect of religion down to that level as well.