This post is inspired from the following article:
For those that follow religious news closely, one of the
stories you will hear a lot about in the next several months is the possible
decision by the IRS to examine churches more closely.
Without going into too much detail, the current tax code in
our country keeps churches and religious organizations tax exempt so long as
they do not engage in overt political activities. The most clear of these would
be for a pastor or church leader to endorse a specific candidate from the
pulpit. The tax code is 501(c)(3), which does not allow overt electioneering.
This comes after the previous IRS scandal with the Obama
administration, where they had audited non-profit political groups to see if
they were in violation of the above mentioned tax code. The scandal was that
the Obama administration had specifically targeted conservative groups at the
expense of liberal groups. Like most scandals today, there is plenty of outrage
and excuse making on both sides, followed up by stories of lost emails,
refusing to testify, and other insider political football that generally causes
my eyes to roll back in my head. This will certainly fall somewhere within the
spectrum of legitimate IRS action that became a little too partisan to devious
plan by the administration to destroy grassroots conservative organizations.
Your final position, if not apathy, will probably depend on what you already
think of the Obama administration.
That said, this new situation is quite different. The
general tradeoff of tax exemption for not engaging in electioneering seems to
have been the status quo for some time. However, since the time leading up to
the election in 2008, more than 1,600 churches have deliberately breaking the
law by endorsing specific candidates, with more similar activities planned for
the run up to the midterms this year. For more context, check out this article:
What is interesting from that article, however, is that
according to surveys only around 10% of pastors think it is a good idea to
endorse candidates from the pulpit. And despite the CNN report that endorsing
candidates “could hold more sway than previous years” I suspect that the
candidate endorsed by most pastors probably didn’t win.
It does seem that endorsing candidates is a direct challenge
by the pastors to provoke a response by the IRS that would threaten the tax
exempt status of churches and religious institutions. The next move then,
supported by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), would be to challenge the
law (of no electioneering for tax exempt organizations) for the right to
endorse candidates, among other political activities.
It seems that the IRS, even though they were not shy in
investigating non-profit political organizations, were not willing to take the
step of accepting the bait of the ADF without prompting. However, it seems that
an atheist legal group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), had sued a
religious organization for electioneering activities in 2012. This organization
has agreed to drop this lawsuit after it came to an agreement with the IRS in
which the IRS will no look into the political activities of these churches that
have endorsed political candidates from the pulpit.
So this is where we are at. A small number of churches have
challenged a pretty set status quo by overtly endorsing candidates from the
pulpit. The IRS had refused to respond until a lawsuit by an atheist
organization has pretty much forced their hand. Over the next few months
leading up to the midterms we will see continued coverage, followed by some
sort of action by the IRS. If they take action against the churches and
religious institutions, there will be a lawsuit by the ADF. If they don’t take
action, I suspect that the FFRF will bring another lawsuit. Either way, more
fun with lawsuits.
Can’t say I’m a fan of the actions of the pastors and the
ADF. I generally see the no overt electioneering for tax exempt status to be a
reasonable situation, but this goes far beyond this. Hard to see this as
anything but a lose-lose as far as the church is concerned. At stake is the tax
exempt status. That is a nice thing for churches and probably pretty close to
necessary for many of them to survive. To give that up for the right to
publicly endorse candidates strikes me as a disaster. And even if the ADF
“wins” and keeps the tax exempt status while still able to publically endorse
candidates, then that doesn’t seem like much of a gain either.
Politics out of the pulpit is always a tricky business. I am
not naïve enough to expect no politics from the pulpit, but I would like to
think of that as pushing specific policy positions rather than pushing a
specific candidate or a specific political party. The reason for this is
simple, Christ is available to all people, whether they are Republican or
Democrat, whether they might have preferred Obama or Romney. For a church to
endorse one party or candidate, they risk alienating a significant portion of
the congregation, or, perhaps more importantly, a significant portion of their
potential congregation.
I do realize with certain denominations and certain
locations this is not as much of a concern. Heck, endorsing a political
candidate or party might be a wise business plan, but for the church as a whole
it is a disaster. It leads to kingdom splitting, not kingdom building. It does
nothing to lead people to Christ, but does much to set up a barrier and to
reinforce stereotypes that are not true. Reinforce the stereotype that to be a
Christian requires a specific set of political beliefs rather than accepting the
invitation that is given to us of new life in Christ. That, more than anything,
is why pushing the envelope on overt electioneering is a lose-lose for the
church.
I will be watching this closely, but I suspect it does not
end well for the church, no matter what the outcome is.
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