So What If Preachers Endorse Political Candidates?
(ANALYSIS) Unless a federal court challenge succeeds, American clergy are now free to endorse political candidates in sermons during worship. The Internal Revenue Service has just erased the pulpit prohibition that for 71 years was among conditions to obtain federal tax exemption on income and donor gifts.
The impact is tough to predict. Is this a tempest in a Trump era teacup or a switch that’s “toxic for both churches and our politics,” as law professor Brian Galle warns? How many and which sort of pulpits will turn political? Can sermons really reshape campaigns? Which party benefits more? Most important, whatever the political boost, will pulpit endorsements help or hurt American religions?
Existing tax law grants exemption if a non-profit organization “does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” When Sen. (later President) Lyndon B. Johnson introduced this as an amendment to the tax code’s section 501(c)(3), it was non-controversial and adopted without debate.
READ: The IRA Says ‘Churches’ Can ‘Endorse’ Politicians
That language does not prevent non-profits from taking stands on political issues. But some religious activists have consistently decried the endorsements ban as violating free speech under the Constitution, and Republicans have taken up the cause. At the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, newly-elected President Donald Trump promised he’d “totally destroy” the ban, and issued an executive order against enforcement by the IRS.
This past April, House and Senate Republicans introduced the Free Speech Fairness Act, which would allow partisan statements by all non-profits, not just religious ones. But the Trump Administration presumably calculated legislative repeal cannot pass and so, as on many matters, is bypassing Congress and employing executive action.
On July 7, the IRS entered a joint consent decree to settle a free-speech complaint filed by two Texas churches along with National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America. Using legal legerdemain, the IRS said the 1954 “Johnson Amendment” remains intact. But its new reinterpretation says no unlawful campaign intervention occurs “when a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation, through its customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith.”
This freedom is granted to all religious faiths but only to local congregations, not to other religious organizations much less other non-profits. Apparently, the “religious services” connection still rules out candidate pitches via church Websites, newsletters, or press releases. Since worship services are open to the public and many churches stream yhem online, the media will publicize newsworthy endorsements anyway.
The consent decree says that in practice “the IRS generally has not enforced the Johnson Amendment” over speech at worship services. Churches will frequently invite candidates to appear at worship minus explicit endorsements. The decree also contends that the now-abolished sermon restriction created “serious tension” with the Constitution’s ban on government “establishment of religion” by siding with religions that shun pulpit politics against those in favor.
The pro-candidate sermons will occur in a time when public regard for the clergy continues a worrisome slide (as with other vocational groups). Gallup reported in January that only 30% of Americans rate the ethics of U.S. clergy “high” or “very high” — just below auto mechanics. Jonathan Tobin of Jewish News Syndicate favors the loosened IRS rule in principle, but “the last thing many want to hear when in a house of worship for religious services is a political sermon,” so some might decide it “isn’t really a good fit for them and their families.”
The potential for blowback is seen in a 2022 Pew Research Center poll where 77% of Americans thought houses of worship “should not come out in favor of one candidate over another.” Such opposition was expressed by 70% of Republicans and Republican “leaners” and 84% for Democrats. Surprisingly, 67% over-all even felt houses of worship “should keep out of political matters” in general. In a religious breakdown, opposition was lowest among black Protestants (63%) and white evangelical Protestants (62%), compared with non-evangelical Protestants (81%), Catholics (80%), Jews (77%) and those with no religious affiliation (87%).
There’s been lavish media coverage of white evangelicals’ consistent GOP support across five decades and more. But Duke University’s National Congregations Study reported in 2020 that at the grass-roots level, evangelical churches are the least politicized of the major segments in American religion. They were exceeded by, in ascending levels of activism, white “mainline” Protestants, non-Christians as a whole, Catholics and Black Protestants. Duke surveyed political discussions, voter registration drives, get-out-the-vote campaigns, distribution of voter guides, directly lobbying public officials, joining demonstrations, and inviting candidates to speak at worship.
The periodic Evangelical Leaders Survey poses policy questions to National Association of Evangelicals board members and officials with denominations, schools, mission boards, media companies, prominent congregations and the like. In a survey before last year’s election, 98% of these leaders believed clergy should not endorse candidates from the pulpit. N.A.E. President Walter Kim thinks “endorsing a political candidate is rarely helpful and most often breeds division.”
We’ll see, but chances are Catholic bishops won’t want priests to endorse candidates during Mass. Despite expectations, evangelical Protestants might not rush to endorse, either. By strong tradition, they desire sermons on biblical teaching, not politics, and they need no special prodding from pastors in order to vote Republican. It would be ironic indeed if Trump’s policy turns out to mainly encourage sermonic support for Democratic candidates from white liberals, Black Protestants and Jewish rabbis.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He is a recipient of the Religion News Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.