Then, as now, critics argued that ministers were remiss in bringing politics into the pulpit. “There are special times and seasons when [the minister] may treat of politics,” William Gordon declared in a sermon preached December 15, 1776, in defiance of British General Thomas Gage’s prohibition. To that, a loyalist complained: “I most heartily wish, for the peace of America, that he and many others of his profession would confine themselves to gospel truths!”
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The IRS political activity ban blatantly violates the First Amendment, is vague and burdensome, and marginalizes churches at a time when America most needs a moral witness.
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But for New England’s ministers, who had been faithfully applying God’s Word to every area of life since the first generation arrived in Massachusetts, that was not possible.
In the mid-nineteenth century, evangelical Christians were primary agents in shaping American political culture, according to Richard Carwardine, author of
Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America. “Political sermons, triumphalist and doom laden, redolent with biblical imagery and theological terminology, were a feature of the age,” he writes.
For example, one minister distilled the question before voters in the 1856 election with great precision. The contest, he declared, pitted “truth and falsehood, liberty and tyranny, light and darkness, holiness and sin … the two great armies of the battlefield of the universe, each contending for victory.”
Language like that today might earn a visit from the IRS. It did in 1992 after the Church at Pierce Creek in Vestal, New York, placed an ad in two newspapers warning Christians not to vote for Bill Clinton for president. Such a vote, the ad warned in rhetoric echoing 1856, would be to commit a sin. The IRS took notice and three years later revoked the church’s tax exemption.
Double Standard
But while the IRS aggressively acted in this case, it has sometimes looked the other way when candidates are welcomed and endorsed at African-American churches. The American Center for Law and Justice found that the IRS had record of 562 instances where candidates from one party appeared before African-American churches from 1987 to 1994.
In 1994, for example, New York governor Mario Cuomo appeared during his campaign for reelection on a Sunday morning at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in
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Harlem. After his speech, according to a Newsday report,
“Cuomo was rewarded with a long, loud round of applause and an unequivocal endorsement from the pastor.” The IRS did not revoke the tax exemption of this church, or any other which the IRS knew had opened its doors to office-seekers.
The unequal enforcement of the existing law is just one of several reasons why scrapping the political activity ban altogether is a good idea. Beyond that concern, the political activity restriction blatantly violates the First Amendment, is vague and burdensome, and marginalizes churches at a time when America most needs a moral witness.
The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech….” Yet that is exactly what the Congress has done by silencing churches.
Nor is the political activity ban easy to obey. Not just endorsements, but voter education activities such as voter guides that compare office-seekers on issues may violate the ban if they are perceived as partisan. Even addressing issues, such as abortion, from the pulpit during an election campaign may violate the IRS rule if abortion is under debate in the campaign.
With so much uncertainty and so much at risk, silence is the only option for the prudent minister who wants to ensure that the IRS does not open a file on his church. But should churches abandon their historic role and stay silent when the Word of God is not?
Voice of Church Needed
“What would we have wanted of the church in Germany with the rise of Adolf Hitler?” asked Lynn Buzzard, a law professor at Campbell University. “When churches perform their not novel but traditional task,” of addressing moral issues in a political context, “suddenly we say, ‘Oh, you’ve crossed some line.’”
But instead of being crossed, that line must be removed by act of Congress if the full-throated voice of the church is to be heard in America again. “In a culture like ours which sometimes seems on moral life support,” Dr. Kennedy said in his letter to Rep. Jones, “the voice of the church and her message of reconciliation, virtue, and hope is more important now than ever before.”
You can lend your voice in support of the “Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act” by writing or calling your federal representative. Thank you for your help to restore full First Amendment freedom to America’s houses of worship.
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