In Theory: Political endorsements remain a no-no for nonprofits
One change made to the GOP tax bill before the president’s signature late last year removed language that would have repealed the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits 501(c)(3) nonprofits including churches from making political endorsements.
Such a change would have strengthened freedom of speech, according to GOP supporters of the repeal. “It’s really a carve-out to make sure, in the views of those who support it, that the pulpit is a free-speech zone,” said religious-liberty expert Charles Haynes in the Washington Post.
Johnnie Moore, a co-chair of the president’s evangelical advisory group, seconded that position in an article published on Christianity Today: “Pastors ought to be able to speak openly and freely without fear or intimidation.”
But the end-game of the proposed change would have meant regulation, Andrew L. Seidel writes in a Religion News Service commentary, explaining that churches, as recipients of donations, would have become super-PACs, inevitably welcoming government oversight.
“The havoc that would be wrought by repealing the Johnson Amendment would make Citizens United look like the golden age of American democracy,” Seidel wrote.
Q. How do you feel about the Johnson Amendment? Would allowing nonprofits including churches to weigh in on candidates and public policy threaten or strengthen democracy?
While I am not sure the Founding Fathers under the 1st Amendment’s freedom of religion clause, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” would have wanted clergy to get involved in politics, we, as a people, have a long history of religious leaders and politics mixing. Anyone who has walked the Freedom Trail in Boston has passed the Old North Church.
Clergy have the same rights as other leaders in our country and should be able to express their opinion on matters that effect and could affect their congregants. If a candidate supports the ideas of a certain clergy, why shouldn’t the clergy support them?
My teacher, Rabbi William Kramer, upon becoming a lawyer, once said, “During the week I express the 1st Amendment, on the Sabbath I espouse the first commandment.”
All clergy should feel free to do the same!
Rabbi Mark H. Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank
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According to the Oxford dictionary, freedom of speech is “the power or right to express one’s opinion without censorship, restraint or legal penalty.” The 1st Amendment to the Constitution guarantees American citizens the right to freedom of speech. This freedom extends, of course, to pastors as they address their congregations from the pulpit. Or at least it should. At the moment it does not, at least not completely. Freedom of speech is essential for the health of any democracy. Politicians run on, and political parties take their stand on platforms that involve moral issues that are directly addressed in the Bible. Congregations have the right to hear, in an unrestricted manner, what the Bible teaches about what their prospective political leaders wish to accomplish. It is the pastor’s duty to apply what the Bible teaches to the events that affect their congregation member’s lives. Paul exhorted Timothy in the second epistle that bears his name: “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:1-2). Democracy will be strengthened, not threatened, if pastors are allowed to do this without interference.
Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank
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It isn’t as worthy as either a prohibition of capital punishment or a ban on leaf blowers would be, but yes, I am good with the Johnson Amendment.
The current Johnson Amendment does not actually say that clergy aren’t allowed to “weigh in on candidates and public policy,” but that they can’t “endorse or oppose” political candidates, per the Religious News Service. This source also has an in-depth explanation of the potential negative ramifications if it were to be repealed.
Pastors can present any facts or opinions about candidates and issues they want, without urging a particular vote. This is a minimal limitation of speech. The particularly bad language in the GOP’s proposed replacement of the Johnson Amendment would have allowed monetary donations of any amount to be given to churches to be passed on to candidates and issue groups, in violation of existing campaign finance limits.
Closer to home, I would not like to see our local civil society groups, of which we are fortunate to have many, spend time and effort on candidate endorsement and on the contentious debates which that would require.
Let’s all stay in our lanes, with nonprofits including churches and their pastors speaking to their values but without endorsing or opposing candidates.
Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose
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I feel that, simply by quoting most Scripture, many clergy break the Johnson Amendment. If a preacher were to, say, invoke the line “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” while holding up a picture of the 115th Congress or any president with his cabinet (many churches use visual aids these days), then there goes the church’s tax-exempt status. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy not knowing how my pastor is voting just as long as I’m comfortable with how he/she is living.
What then-Senator Johnson did in 1954 was an incredibly brave thing for a son of the South to do; it helped to separate church and state on one of the most significant of fault lines: money. Now as our president and his base of benighted evangelicals hope to quash the Johnson Amendment with an Executive Order that undermines it, we’re left to wonder at how short-sighted such a scheme is.
If the Johnson Amendment were to be eroded and churches and synagogues were to become earnest boosters of a Pence/Kushner income stream, mightn’t mosques feel emboldened to speak up about travel bans, drones and Guantanamo detainees? And how quickly would this administration punish a mosque for hate speech while celebrating the “free” speech of donor churches?
As with Saul on the road to Damascus (we’ve since bombed that road), I hope that strange-bedfellow evangelicals will see the light and dump Trump, give to the poor instead, and stop propagating this “God uses imperfect tools” idea to justify their support of this charlatan. In the meantime, my reverend doesn’t need to tell me how to vote because I can read.
Marty Barrett
President, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills (UUVerdugo)
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I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Protestant German clergyman who railed against the rising regime of Hitler. He pegged Fuhrer worship as a cult, and he was hanged for doing what pastors are supposed to do. How may a pastor today speak against persons or parties who are evil, biblically speaking, if our law likewise forbids us? Some answer that churches can say anything so long as we don’t file as nonprofits, but the problem is we can’t afford it, and we shouldn’t be taxed anyway, having been legally declared exempt for the sake of religious freedom. Of course, as people of the Word, we’re especially interested in having freedom of speech simultaneously protected. Religion informs culture and acts as watchman to the moral climate; for just speaking to justice issues, and suggesting favorable proponents, we should not be penalized. Now maybe it’s the case that names shouldn’t be named and congregations shouldn’t behave as electioneers, but we must speak about biblical issues as we convey God’s words on matters, and if some moral issue becomes a political one, we can’t just desist. If an especially godless candidate, or instead, one of exemplary moral character were to be in the news, would it not be spiritually appropriate to address them?
Most preachers don’t generally name politicians and instruct congregations on how they should vote, but what we do is preach the truth, alert the congregation to cultural incongruities, and then let the people put two and two together. As long as we can do that, the Johnson Amendment will likely not harm us. Nevertheless, faithful folks don’t like what seems to be a manipulation of their religion by government restricting anything related to it. The Bible tells of the Apostles who set us an example when they were chastised by a court which said “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name [Jesus].” The Apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than human beings!” (Acts 5). It’s probably a time for a Johnson Amendment rewrite, where religious speech becomes fully unfettered, and political agendas are not unusually advanced.
Rev. Bryan Griem
Tujunga