Bishop Rudolph McKissick Jr., senior pastor of The Bethel Church in Jacksonville, Florida, recently spoke to his church about the importance of the upcoming election and expressed his personal view that Vice President Kamala Harris was a better candidate for the presidency than former president Donald Trump. During this address, he stated that he had consulted with a lawyer from the Harris campaign regarding what he could and could not say from the pulpit.
Such a statement is a curious one to come from the pulpit, because it shows that Bishop McKissick was concerned he could somehow say the wrong thing and consequently harm his church in some way.
Around the same time, in Rockwall, Texas, Lakepointe Church senior pastor Josh Howerton gave a sermon entitled "How to Vote Like Jesus," in which he encouraged his congregation to vote and explained how Christians should approach voting. While never explicitly endorsing a candidate, Pastor Howerton was critical of many Harris policy positions he viewed as inconsistent with the Christian faith and complimentary of many of Trump's policy positions, while admitting that voting in this election would involve voting for a flawed candidate.
While Bishop McKissick's message was generally met with silence, Pastor Howerton's sermon was immediately met with criticism, including a letter by a legal advocacy group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation to the Internal Revenue Service demanding that Lakepointe's tax-exempt status be revoked for supposedly violating federal law.
It seems that every election season, these kinds of situations arise all around the country. As religious leaders struggle to navigate how to address their congregants on matters related to the intersection of faith, doctrine, and politics, some person or group inevitably complains that a church ought to lose its tax-exempt status for crossing the nebulous line set by the IRS pursuant to a provision of the tax code known as the Johnson Amendment.
The amendment, adopted in 1954, forbids any religious tax-exempt organization from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. Since its adoption, this provision of the tax code has been used to silence churches and force pastors to censor their sermons out of fear that the IRS might investigate a church for allegedly violating the Johnson Amendment.
While it invariably seems that such investigations are only targeted at the conservative side of the political spectrum, houses of worship of all faiths and beliefs should take solace in the knowledge that the First Amendment protects their rights no matter which candidate a pastor or church feels compelled by their faith to support.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held on multiple occasions that the government may not interfere with a church's independence as to the content of its preaching, teaching, and counseling. Indeed, even engaging in an investigation into church communications can violate the First Amendment because any such inquiry undermines the independence of religious institutions and their own determinations on matters of faith and doctrine.
In other words, the government has no business censoring the sermons and teaching of any religious entity across the country. The fact a religious leader like Bishop McKissick feel the need to consult a lawyer before addressing his congregation demonstrates the unlawful chilling effect the Johnson Amendment has on protected religious activity.
Setting aside the constitutional issues, any investigations related to the Johnson Amendment are also an exercise in futility. The IRS' own guidance recognizes that houses of worship are automatically tax-exempt regardless of whether the IRS has formally recognized that status or not. Thus, even if the IRS revoked a church's tax-exempt status, it would still be tax exempt because of its status as a church. Houses of worship therefore need not fear this paper tiger.
As we enter the home stretch of this election season, religious people should feel emboldened to address matters of faith and politics according to the dictates of their own consciences. The First Amendment robustly protects the right to discuss political topics through the lens of faith, and no one should allow fear of an inquiry from the IRS to chill such activities. Should the IRS begin investigating a church, synagogue, or mosque for engaging in this kind of protected religious activity, they should know they can still rely on the First Amendment to defend their God-given rights.
Ryan Gardner is counsel for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all. Read more at FirstLiberty.org.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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