Among his administration’s successes, which U.S. President Donald Trump touted on Monday at a White House Faith Office lunch in the State Dining Room, was reversing some 70 years of precedent when it comes to preaching politics from the pulpit.
“We’re getting rid of the Johnson amendment that didn’t let the pastors speak,” Trump said, according to the pool report.
Under the 1954 congressional amendment, nonprofits are barred from engaging in political campaign activity. “To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has, in fact, strengthened the ban,” the IRS states. “The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates.”
According to a court filing earlier this month from the IRS, clergy can now address political topics from the pulpit without jeopardizing the nonprofit status of their religious institutions. The July 7 joint motion between the National Religious Broadcasters and others and the IRS states that the parties agree that the court can find that the “Johnson amendment unconstitutionally prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from engaging in political speech.”
When clergy address congregations “in good faith” via “customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith,” they don’t “participate” or “intervene” in political campaigns “within the ordinary meaning of those words,” the parties stated.
“Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates,” they added. “Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson amendment as properly interpreted.”
“I love the fact that churches can endorse a political candidate,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at a lunch with African leaders at the White House on July 9. “We have a lot of respect for the people that lead the church, the pastors, ministers, rabbis and all different leaders, all different religions.”
“People respect those people, I think there’s nothing wrong,” Trump said. “There’s a very big penalty that took place just a little while ago, a thing called the Johnson Act, and it was a very big penalty.” The president added that congregations that gather on Saturday or Sunday want to hear from their clergy about politics.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said “the IRS was addressing a specific case, and it doesn’t change how the Catholic Church engages in public debate.”
“The church seeks to help Catholics form their conscience in the Gospel so they might discern which candidates and policies would advance the common good,” it said. “The Catholic Church maintains its stance of not endorsing or opposing political candidates.”
David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple, a conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, stated that the “horrendous” decision “pressures clergy to be partisan, religious institutions to care more about polls than prayer.” The move takes “the one unifying institution in America” and makes it divisive, he said.
