Refusing LBJ's Help.
A July 7th Court Filing by the IRS states that Churches and other religious communities can endorse political candidates.
This isn’t going to be particularly eloquent or literary, but I think it’s important to get some thoughts written down and shared about a Court Filing submitted yesterday by the Internal Revenue Service. This court filing offers a novel interpretation of the Johnson Amendment (named for its author, then-Senator (and member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Lyndon B. Johnson) to the United States Tax Code.
Here are my initial thoughts:
The Johnson Amendment was a really important addition to the IRS code, prohibiting organizations with tax exempt status under section 501(c)3 of the code from endorsing political candidates. This new reading of the code, presented in a court filing by the IRS, essentially undoes this, arguing that an endorsement of a candidate from the pulpit does not equate the church "participating" or "intervening" in a political campaign, but argues that "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 these things" and compares endorsements to "any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates."
This is pretty clearly a novel interpretation of the Johnson Amendment, despite what the filing seems to argue. You can read the IRS filing for yourself here.It’s important to note that faith communities have not been prohibited by the longstanding interpretation of the Johnson Amendment from discussing social or moral issues in our society, which--of course--have political ramifications. I think it's important for churches to convene those conversations, for sermons to push people to think theologically about the things we live with, even—and perhaps especially—if members of the congregation do not reach a single, shared conclusion. For Christians, in particular, for us to claim that the experience of Jesus is the experience of “God-With-Us” (Emanuel), we need to talk about the muck, the mess, the joy, and the challenge of the life that God does share with us—and the state of our world, its wars and conflicts, and the moral issues of the day are part of that. We shouldn’t check our brains at the door when we enter the church, as the cliche goes, and we shouldn’t check our faith at the door when we leave it.
I’ll admit that this confusing for a lot of people, even those who’ve been lifelong members of a religious community. We’re often taught that in polite society, one never speaks of religion or politics among friends; We often understand the “separation of church and state” as an extension of that stance of politeness that applies to our faith communities and thus avoid learning how to respond thoughtfully and faithfully to public issues. Instead, our partisan language—not our theological language—becomes the framework through which we talk about religion and faith.
Further, As the filing suggests, one of the criticisms of the Johnson Amendment has been whether it interferes with the free speech of religious communities. Why shouldn’t a community be able to express its religious convictions—even if those religious convictions mean the endorsement of a political candidate? For the churches whose lawsuit led to this filing, the Johnson Amendment didn’t create a firewall against bad behavior, it created a tightrope to walk. (Before this filing, I would have argued that sure, if a congregation feels called to endorse, whatever—do it; but they shouldn’t expect to be tax-exempt. You may still define yourself as a church, but you’re not a church in compliance with the IRS.)
Voting is a matter of conscience, and in a country and culture that claims to value democracy1, protect the voting rights of individuals through free and fair elections, we should never confuse conscience for conformity or coercion.
And let’s be honest, Religious speech has the power to be coercive and demand conformity. That makes it a very powerful political tool. A religious gathering may be cast as a “family discussion concerning candidates” but if that “family” has been taught that its sacred text is inerrant, and its clergyperson’s statements on all things are divinely inspired, and that shared political choices are the same as answering God’s call, there’s not actually room for discussion.
But there’s plenty of room for manipulation and abuse2. And no matter your faith and political commitments, that’s not good for the moral development of people; it’s not good for democratic institutions.
And From where I’m sitting, it’s not good for the practice of Christian faith.
It subverts the way conscience and a sense of call should work—instead of leading the Church to adopt the marks of what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, it bends the church’s vision of the Kingdom to conform to the flavor of politics endorsed from the pulpit.
So, no matter what you hear from me from the pulpit, you won’t be hearing an endorsement for a candidate—but you will hear me, in this blog entry, over a beer or coffee, or maybe when you stop me in the grocery store, lament the loss of LBJ’s firewall and gift for lovers of religious freedom, democracy, and individual conscience.
I use the term democracy broadly here and elsewhere. One of my pet peeves is when people like to pointedly say that “We live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy” as if the former is not the embodiment of a democratic impulse. I always want to reply, “I’m well aware of what you’re trying to say, buddy, but it’s like you’re telling me how often you eat ‘Rocky Road’ but you never buy ice cream”
I’ve written previously about Religious Freedom and Religious Coercion. Here’s a link to that post.