According to Christianpost.com (Instapaper format), there is a group of “at least 100 pastors nationwide” who are going to challenge tax code by “talking politics in their sermons [on] Sunday.”

The law, passed in 1954¹, states that a non-profit organization with tax exemption cannot “participate in, or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.” If they do so, they can lose their tax-exempt status.

As I understand it, this law is meant to prevent pastors from speaking directly for or against specific candidates, although pastors have been able to speak freely about issues. Apparently this is not enough for some.

Participants of the third annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday, organized by the Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, will use the Bible’s teachings to preach on the positions of electoral candidates or current government officials in defiance of an IRS rule proposed by then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson and passed by Congress in 1954.

To be clear, churches and pastors have had the freedom to talk about politics since 1954. The only issue is whether or not there is any penalty for doing so. The Johnson Amendment brought the possibility of a penalty. So my first question is, “Why not simply give up your tax-exempt status?” The answer, of course, is that the only thing these folks probably like less than feeling like their freedom has been restricted is paying taxes.

“Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government – in this case, the IRS,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit; we want to get government out of the pulpit.”

That is, at best, disingenuous. If the ADF (and those related to it) did not want to get into politics, this would be a non-issue. And again, if they wanted the government out of the pulpit, they could simply give up their tax exempt status.

It would also be a mistake to think this hasn’t happened already, across the country. Even in our own small corner of the world, I heard from numerous people that there was a pastor in 2004 who told his congregation that if they did not vote for George W. Bush they should not return to church the following Sunday. That may be one of the more explicit examples, but given the state of American politics today it isn’t hard to imagine that a sermon given about “the issues” may not explicitly endorse a candidate, but if one candidate has run on a specific platform (gun control, gay rights, abortion, taxes) and the Sunday sermon addresses that topic from the same perspective as the candidate, it isn’t hard to conclude how the pastor wants you to vote.

The IRS rule, ADF contends, has in effect “muzzled” pastors from speaking freely in the pulpit. It has also given groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State a “political tool” to advance its agenda to silence the Church in the public square.

It is important to remember that there is a group called “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” for a reason. The Founding Fathers set up that separation, and for good reason. They had seen what the combination of religion and politics had done in their home countries, and they saw what the lack of religious tolerance did in the colonies.

Christians should be wary of the intermixing of religion and politics given that the first example we have of political leaders and religious leaders cooperating in the New Testament led to Jesus’ crucifixion. Those who want to bring religion into the political realm do so with good intentions, but history has taught us again and again and again that those good intentions cannot and do not withstand prolonged exposure to political power.

“Decisions about what is preached from the pulpit of a church should not belong to the government but to the individual pastor and church itself,” wrote Chuck Colson, founder of the prison ministry Prison Fellowship and a former aide to President Richard Nixon, in a column this week.

“That is why I support Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” he said, “in which pastors across America will take a courageous stand and boldly challenge the IRS’s restrictions on their freedom of speech when it comes to political candidates and issues.”

ADF attorneys have vowed to legally defend participating pastors if the IRS tries to revoke their church’s tax exempt status.

The decision does belong to the church and the pastor. But of all the institutions in the world, churches ought to be the ones most acutely aware of the fact that choices have consequences. It’s understandable that the church would want to avoid paying taxes, because, after all, that’s money they can spend elsewhere.

But is it even Biblical? After all, in 3 of the 4 canonical Gospels we have a story where Jesus is asked about paying taxes, and he answers “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matthew 22:15-22. See also Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20:20-26.)

~ This Isn’t Really The Most Important issue ~

Tony Campolo once said that combining religion and politics is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. It doesn’t hurt the horse manure, but it ruins the ice cream.²

There are many reasons to be concerned about pastors speaking on behalf of particular candidates, not the least of which is the fact that, in practice, this tends to lead pastors to become uncritical parrots of certain “talking points” which the political realm has established as the most important issues of the day. Despite the vast number of passages in the Bible about hospitality, caring for the weak, the dangers of hoarding money and turning a blind eye to those in need, pastors who want to talk about certain political figures don’t usually want to talk about those passages. I haven’t heard many pastors wishing that they could endorse a candidate who is against war, despite Jesus’ very clear stance against violence, going so far as to heal the ear of a man who had come to kill him after one of the apostles cut it off trying to defend Jesus (Luke 22).

You may be a Christian who disagrees with those interpretations… which is my point. When a pastor stands before a congregation, she or he has a great deal of authority. For this person to declare themselves as being for a certain candidate is to potentially put themselves at odds with members of their own congregation. Seriously considering and discussing the various issues is dangerous enough. Explictly endorsing a person or political party as a whole seems destined to make problems for members of the congregation who may be less likely to seek pastoral counseling in a time of need from a pastor who has drawn such a line in the sand.

Are these pastors really willing to risk their relationships with those in their congregation over politics? If a pastor was foolish enough to believe that everyone in his/her church believes the same way about political issues, my question then would be, “Well then why is it even necessary to pronounce it from the pulpit?” What if that is the Sunday a visitor has come into an unfamiliar church, hoping to hear a Word from the Lord. I ask again, are politics worth that risk? Does that sound like something Jesus would do?

~ Footnotes ~