Today, Oct. 5, is
being observed by some conservative Protestant pastors and churches as “Pulpit
Freedom Sunday” (PFS). Since 2008, a number of preachers across the country
have participated in PFS, giving partisan political endorsements in their
sermons.
These pastors
are willing to defy the law in order to defend their right to freedom of
speech—and to promote political positions and candidates that they think are
biblically correct.
Since 1954,
tax-exempt religious organizations have been barred from endorsing parties or
candidates. The new U.S. tax code enacted then is sometimes referred to as the
Johnson Amendment, as it was first proposed by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson.
The Alliance
Defense Fund (ADF) was founded in 1994 by Bill Bright, James Dobson, D. James
Kennedy, and Donald Wildmon (not to be confused with Thinking Friend Donald
Wideman), among a number of other conservative Christian leaders.
In 2012, the
ADF changed its name to Alliance Defending Freedom, but both before and after
the name change ADF has been a leader among Christians organizations opposing
the Johnson Amendment and advocating PFS as “a strategic litigation plan.”
Through
“tactical lawsuits” against the IRS, the ADF says they are seeking “to restore
the right of each pastor to speak scriptural Truth from the pulpit about moral,
social, and governmental issues.”
They eagerly
desire for each pastor to be able to speak freely from the pulpit “without fear
of losing his [sic] church’s tax-exempt status.” (These quotes are from this website.)
The ADF claims
the Johnson Amendment is an unconstitutional restriction of legitimate
Christian discourse and a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech.
The same
website gives the names and location of the 1,225 churches across the nation
that observed PFS last year, down considerably from the 1,620 churches that
participated in 2012. That decrease was partly due to a lawsuit.
In November 2012
the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) filed a lawsuit over conservative
preachers openly defying those restrictions.
(View that document here.)
That lawsuit
was settled in July of this year. The FFRF claimed victory, as the IRS has now instituted
a protocol for investigating tax-exempt churches and religious organizations
involved in political activity.
This has not
deterred the ADF from actively promoting PFS—and some 1,500 churches are
expected to participate today.
Matt Barber,
vice president of Liberty Counsel Action (LCA), spoke about PFS at the June 2014
Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" conference in
Washington, D.C.
Thousands of
pastors, Barber noted, have disobeyed the IRS law in acts of civil disobedience
on Pulpit Freedom Sunday. LCA, headed by Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University
School of Law, wants the IRS to take punitive action so that they can challenge
the law in courts.
Presently, all
50 states and the District of Columbia exempt churches from paying property
tax. Moreover, donations to churches are tax-deductible. In stark contrast to
ADF, LCA and other such groups, though, there are others who are asking if such
tax exemptions are actually contrary to separation of church and state. That
may well be the case.
So what is really
at stake on this Pulpit Freedom Sunday is not the freedom to speak, but the
freedom not to pay taxes, which may be questioned under the best of conditions. At present, if churches are willing to give up their tax exempt status,
their pastors are completely freely to say what they want from their
pulpits.
That is probably
sufficient freedom—for today and for every Sunday.
