Churches and Politics
Every election season, various groups try to intimidate churches and pastors to be silent on the great social and moral issues of our time. But churches and pastors have a God-given right-protected by our Constitution-to speak to the issues of our day and to be, as Scripture commands, the "salt and light" for our culture.
Recently, we have seen organizations such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State send letters to churches in an apparent effort to suppress the speech of churches and pastors on critical social issues. Churches are implicitly or even directly threatened with the loss of their tax-exempt status if they don't "toe the IRS line" as to permissible speech. Some groups go so far as to file complaints with the IRS, occasionally leading to IRS investigations. The resulting (although very remote) chance that a church could lose its tax-exempt status is used to silence Christians inside their own churches.
Such tactics are not new. For example, in 1996, 1998, and 2000, pro-homosexual activists targeted churches that supported a proposition in California that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. In one mailing, activists sent out some 80,000 threat1 letters. Fortunately, those would-be censors failed to suppress Christian speech. The California measure ultimately passed and no church had its tax-exempt status revoked.
Unfortunately, the Internal Revenue Service has muddied the waters by giving unclear guidance and inconsistently enforcing some very vague regulations. ADF believes that some of these IRS actions are unlawful under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and2 one day will be stricken down in court. Until that day, churches and pastors that prefer to conform to the IRS standards will find ADF's Guidelines for "Political Activity" by Churches and Pastors to be helpful.
Churches and pastors must not allow the tactics of intimidation and intolerance to succeed in silencing their voices on the critical issues of our day. If any government official or private activist group threatens your church for its speech regarding these issues, please contact ADF at 1-800-TELLADF or www.telladf.org immediately. ADF attorneys will promptly review your situation and, if ADF undertakes your case, will defend your church without charge.
By this letter, we assure you that churches and pastors have broad constitutional rights to express their views on social and moral issues, such as marriage, abortion, and homosexual behavior. The guidelines ADF provides will help you and your church stay within the IRS's rules if you so desire.
Sincerely,
Gary S. McCaleb
Senior Counsel
Alliance Defense Fund
2) Specifically, ADF believes that churches and pastors have the right to speak Biblical truth from the pulpit about candidates for office, even if that means opposing or supporting particular candidates from the pulpit. This was the historical and constitutional norm from the founding of our country until 1954. In 1954 the tax code was amended by a politician intent on silencing a political opponent that happened to be a tax-exempt group. ADF anticipates bringing a federal lawsuit to directly challenge the 1954 amendment and restore full First Amendment rights to churches and pastors. Until then, if your church wishes to remain within current IRS guidance, the enclosed guidelines will help you achieve that goal.
