If C Street Center’s classification as a church is not challenged by recognized, ordained members of the clergy, then the charitable and religious activities of all legitimate houses of worship are jeopardized at great cost to the beneficiaries of those activities.

That curious C Street townhouse in Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood — host to evangelical conservative congressmen, including two caught up in extra-marital affairs last year — jumped back into the spotlight this week. A group of pastors from the Columbus, Ohio, area is challenging the tax-exempt status of the owners of the townhouse, an entity called C Street Center, saying they operate a boardinghouse, not a church as claimed.

In their request for an investigation, filed Tuesday with the IRS, according to various news outlets, the pastors argue that C Street’s tax classification “poses a threat to the integrity and legitimacy of all religious organizations in the United States.”

The Rev. Forrest Hoppe, the Columbus-based regional minister of the United Church of Christ and one of 13 complainants, said in an interview Tuesday with the Columbus Dispatch.

I look at C Street as a total abuse of claiming to be a church … On behalf of the churches I work with and serve, I have a responsibility to call into question the legitimacy of this organization as a church.

READ MORE: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/02/pastors-urge-irs-to-investigate-evangelical-washington-insiders-c-street-center/1