On September 28th, 31 pastors spoke from their pulpits in such a way that directly violated the IRS prohibition and threatened the loss of tax exempt status in order to challenge the IRS ruling that limits what pastors can say from the pulpit concerning their support or lack of support for a candidate.
The threat to a church of losing its tax-exempt status is, for many, the irrefutable evidence that preachers should not mix “politics and religion.” Moreover, surely such a penalty for doing so is based upon the Constitution.
First, pastors are not prohibited by the Constitution from speaking out on political candidates or anything else for that matter. ((see my blog “Pulpit Politics and History)) They are protected specifically by the First Amendment just like everyone else. Historically, pastors have spoken out on any and every issue affecting life until 1954. The Alliance Defense Fund states:
All that changed in 1954 with the passage of the “Johnson amendment” which restricted the right of churches and pastors to speak Scriptural truth about candidates for office. The Johnson amendment was proposed by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, and it changed the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit churches and other non-profit organizations from supporting or opposing a candidate for office. After the Johnson amendment passed, churches faced a choice of either continuing their tradition of speaking out or silencing themselves in order to retain their church’s tax exemption. The Internal Revenue Service, in conjunction with radical organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State, have used the Johnson amendment to create an atmosphere of intimidation and fear for any church that dares to speak Scriptural truth about candidates for office or issues.”
The law not only violates the First Amendment, it grants the government the right to examine the content of a preacher’s message and determine whether it is acceptable or not. Whether a pastor speaks truth concerning politics should be left for the local church to decide.
The famed Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s response is as needed today as it was in his day. “I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics.’ This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick.” ((Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 27 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1882), 225.spurgeon:))
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, speaking about pastors’ unwillingness to address the atrocities of the Third Reich, said, “We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learned the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?” ((Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “After Ten Years,” in Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1971), 16-17.))
I applaud my brothers for their courage in speaking out.
Some say they should not have committed this act of civil disobedience since there are still legal avenues of redress. However, it is one thing for the government to make something allowable, e.g. abortion, and quite another to say that someone must have an abortion. At that point it is righteous to violate the law even though legal redress through voting may still exist. (Acts 4:17-20)
John the Baptist chose to speak the truth about politicians and to politicians about their own sins, for example, when he told King Herod concerning his immoral marriage to his brother’s wife, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” (Matthew 14:4)
John was beheaded for this “mix of politics and religion” but better to lose one’s head than to lose one’s righteous integrity.
