A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.
Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.
The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.
It also comes as the IRS has increased its investigations of churches accused of engaging in politics.
I wonder how these folks would react if Muslim imams preached in their mosques about which candidates to vote for ….
Electoral politics is a stinking swap. Churches that take the New Testament seriously should be wary of squandering their moral and reputational capital whoring for particular candidates or a particular political party. Evangelicals’ partisan political dalliances have already brought the “evangelical” label into some disrepute—so much so that many evangelical pastors are distancing themselves from it.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“I wonder how these folks would react if Muslim imams preached in their mosques about which candidates to vote for” —D.C. [#1]
DC: They’d like it even less if the imams headed madrasas with huge endowments that they used to fund a political machine.
Make that “stinking SWAMP.” Though the swamp features many “stinking swaps”—the worst of which is to sell one’s integrity for power and influence.
While as a Christian I don’t like churches engaging in politicking for candidates, as an American I despise the Government’s attempt to control churches through the IRS.
I could care less if Imams preached in mosques about which candidate to support. It’s their preaching in mosques about whose throats to slit that I have a problem with.
DC it’s none of the governments business. As far as I am concerned it is an abuse of the power to tax. Churches should be tax immune.
“Churches should be tax immune”
This statement unwittingly illustrates the problem. If you call your political party a “church,” do you make your donors’ campaign contributions tax-deductible?
More broadly, how many laws do you get to exempt yourself from by calling yourself a church?
I am in rare agreement with Irenaeus on this issue. I like to keep politics and religion seperate as much as feasible, and allowing unrestricted poolitical activity by churches will only result in ever more politicised churches. ECUSA is bad enough as it is, I don’t want stained glass images of Reagan or Clinton.
Though I personally, vehemently disagree with preachers misusing their pulpit to beat their political hobby horses, I really do not have an issue with churches reserving the right to do so. All I ask is that they put their money where their mouth is and pony up their tax exempt status.