Metro Tax Money Funds Ministry to Transport Masses to Christ

The latest Metro Council resolution designed to send almost $14,000 to a church camp that would support the Churches of Christ parochial devotions to the Christian Bible motivated me to take a second look at a previous bill that handed Nashville Inner City Ministry $5,000 in collected property tax money for their bus ministry.

According to the resolution adopted by the Metro Council and signed by Mayor Bill Purcell last January, the money shall be used to pay operating costs for buses to take youth to Life Skills classes, which the ICM has described as both biblically-based and not biblically-based.

But buses themselves are characterized by ICM on its website as having a proselytizing purpose:

we are a bus ministry and the bus is our major tool in bringing the lost to Christ.

The ICM head driving instructor underscores the mission of the buses that Metro is partially funding:

As long as there are people that need to know the Lord they will need to be transported in mass to a place of learning, and the bus is the best tool we have NOW.

The Nashville Inner City Ministry wrote one contrary statement to Metro Legal in order to secure $5,000. That statement said that the funds would not be used to promote religious beliefs. And yet, even the transportation that the funds will support is characterized by the Ministry itself as a "tool" for "bringing the lost to Christ in mass." Does Metro Legal not check out the published statements of these organizations?

And adoption of that $5,000 resolution in January has set a precedent that will likely encourage the council to pass a second ICM resolution this Tuesday to send nearly 3 times that amount to the Ministry's church camp. How much tax money is Metro Council willing to spend on a ministry designed to bring the masses to their splinter faith?