Thirty courageous pastors defied the unconstitutional US ban on speaking out about politics from the pulpit yesterday. ... Its something at least!!
The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution specifically prohibits Congress from imposing ANY laws on our religious freedoms:
- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
If a pastor speaks to his or her congregation and explains that one candidate supports their religious values and should be elected rather than his or her opponent, or that one candidate opposes their values and should therefore be rejected, the ministry is often attacked by relentless IRS henchmen and bankrupted. Such abuses are one reason why so many Christians plan to vote for Barrack Husein Obama despite his commitment to abortion and infanticide. Pastors are forbidden from explaining such vital issues to their flocks in direct violation of the 1st Amendment.
In some cases ministers who hold views that are not politically desirable by the state are framed and arrested by government operatives using this as a pretext as appears to be the case with Pastor Tony Alamo (See my blog on this) of Alamo Ministries.
But some few brave ministers took a stand on Sunday!
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From All Things Considered:
Pastors To Preach Politics From The Pulpit
Barbara Bradley HagertySeptember 24, 2008 ·
On Sunday, more than 30 pastors across the country are expected to preach a sermon that endorses or opposes a political candidate by name. This would be a flagrant violation of a law that bans tax-exempt organizations from involvement in political campaigns.
Among the pastors expected to violate the ban is Pastor Gus Booth.
Booth will endorse Republican nominee John McCain — four months after delivering a sermon opposing the two main candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
In May, Booth told his 150 congregants of the Warroad Community Church in Warroad, Minn., that the next president will determine policy on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.
"If you're a Christian, you cannot support a candidate like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton," Booth said.
With that, Booth gleefully zipped by the line barring ministers from engaging in political campaigns. The IRS bars people from endorsing or opposing specific candidates from the pulpit. Booth sent an article about his sermon to the IRS so the agency wouldn't miss it. He and his elders knew he would be jeopardizing the church's tax-exempt status.
But, he says, it's his job to evaluate candidates in light of biblical teachings.
"Bottom line is, I'm a spiritual leader in this community, and spiritual leaders need to make decisions. We need to lead spiritually, and we need to be able to speak about the moral issues of the day. And right now, the moral issues of today are also the political issues of today," he said.
The Pulpit Initiative
On Sunday, 33 ministers will take part in a nationwide effort to violate the 54-year-old ban on political preaching and endorse or oppose a candidate from the pulpit. The effort is called the Pulpit Initiative.
Two weeks ago, more than 100 pastors squeezed into a hotel meeting room in Washington, D.C., to learn about the Pulpit Initiative, a brain child of the conservative legal group, Alliance Defense Fund. Attorney Erik Stanley walked them through it.
"If the IRS chooses to come after these churches, we will sue the IRS in federal court," Stanley said.
Stanley says pastors are fed up. In the past four years, the IRS has stepped up its investigations of clergy. It sent letters to 47 churches, including some liberal ones — not just for explicit endorsements, but also for using code words like pro-choice or pro-life in relation to candidates.
"What's been happening is that the government has been able to go into the pulpits of America, look over the pastor's shoulder, and parse the content of their sermon. And that's unconstitutional," Stanley said. "No government official should entangle itself with religion in that way."
Stanley says the pastors will try to take their challenge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that the current conservative-leaning composition of the court, headed by Chief Justice John Roberts, will strike down the ban. He says the law infringes on the religious speech of ministers.
Celia Roady disagrees. Roady, a lawyer and expert on charities law, says there's nothing to stop pastors from talking about issues in light of scripture. But, she says, "You simply cannot say to your congregation, you should not vote for Candidate X because of Candidate X's position on this one issue. That's simply the line that has been drawn."
Roady says if a church can endorse a candidate, it is using tax-free dollars — taxpayer money — to subsidize a political campaign.
But it's not merely tax deductions that are at stake here, says Ohio Pastor Eric Williams. He says it's also the attempt of some churches to move aggressively into politics.
"I ask myself, 'Hmm. Why would a religious leader want to oppose a candidate? Why would a religious leader want to stand up and ask for my support for a candidate who's running for office?' They want to gain influence in the governmental process," Williams said.
Williams is senior minister of North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus. He says he's seen this before. Two years ago, he reported two conservative megachurches for allegedly endorsing a Republican candidate for governor. The IRS investigated one of the churches. Williams is also concerned that pastors in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia will be telling their congregants how to vote.
"My concern is that an extreme segment of the Christian faith today is seeking to establish themselves as the public religion of our nation," Williams said.
Williams and some other ministers have filed a formal complaint with the IRS about the Pulpit Initiative. Several tax attorneys said they believe the churches will ultimately lose. They point out that in 1983, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on political endorsements by charities.
So what will happen if Booth's church in Minnesota loses its tax-exempt status?
"Big deal," he said. He added that he can get it back the next day because churches are automatically tax-exempt.
Besides, he said, electing "Godly people is more important than money."
From Fox News:
Pastors Preach Politics, Risk Tax-Exempt Status
WASHINGTON: Pastors in 22 states participate in "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" -- a protest of the 54-year-old Supreme Court ruling that spelled out the separation of church and state -- by telling parishioners what they expect from their presidential candidates.
For more than half a century, members of the clergy in the United States have been prevented by federal law from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit. But now, with five weeks to go until Election Day, some clergy are saying the 2008 presidential election is too important to remain publicly impartial, and they are openly breaking the ban.
On Sunday, the Rev. Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, California, put his congregation at risk of losing its tax-exempt status by endorsing third-party candidate Alan Keyes for president.
"If I've been asked once, I've been asked a dozen or more times, why are you doing what you are doing," said Drake, who was once targeted by the IRS for supporting political candidates from the pulpit.
"Well I'm doing what I'm doing because I'm angry, I'm mad.
He is not alone. Thirty-two other pastors across the country participated over the weekend in a campaign called "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium based in Arizona.
"Pastors have a right to speak about Biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley.
"If you have a concern about pastors speaking about electoral candidates from the pulpit, ask yourself this: Should the church decide that question, or should the IRS?"
"ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit," Stanley continued. "Churches can decide for themselves that they either do or don't want their pastors to speak about electoral candidates. The point of the Pulpit Initiative is very simple: The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church tax-exempt status. We need to get the government out of the pulpit."
More information on the campaign can be found at www.telladf.org/church.
But not everyone agrees.
The Interfaith Alliance has launched a nationwide campaign to prevent clergy from endorsing political candidates. So far, nearly 200 members of the clergy have signed a pledge agreeing not to back a candidate on behalf of their house of worship.
"On the day after the election, whoever is in the White House will need a unified nation in order to accomplish his goals and to have the nation fulfill it's responsible role internationally," sad C. Welton Gaddy, president of the alliance, told FOXNews.com.
"Religion historically has been able to bring people together in that kind of unity.If religions in the United States are as divided as politics itself, they will not be able to make one of their greatest contributions to the nation."
The law against politics from the pulpit was introduced in 1954 by then Texas Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson. Wiley says Johnson introduced the bill to silence his critics and never intended to stop churches from supporting candidates.
"It is time for us to challenge the IRS and to challenge this law that has been interpreted that a pastor cannot personally endorse somebody," Drake said. "That is an interpretation and it is a wrong interpretation, in my opinion."
Gaddy, who is also a pastor of a Baptist church in Louisiana, expressed disappointment in the clergy members who participated in the protest.
"They seem to have ignored completely what politicking would do to compromise the credibility and lessen the integrity of religion," he said."They would seem to place more emphasis on getting a particular candidate elected to office than on preserving the historic ability of religion to reconcile people's differences."
I think its about time!
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