Politics from the pulpit

Over the last seven years or so I've heard lots of stories of churches being investigated for possible violations of their non-profit status by the IRS because they endorse candidates from the pulpit. Alas, the stories I usually hear are the ones about conservative churches that violate the rule and are not investigated (sheesh, the IRS doesn't even have enough manpower to keep up with audits), and liberal churches that criticize Bush and are harassed with an investigation.

Now for another step along that line. The Alliance Defense Fund (a very conservative organization) is asking as many churches as possible to blatantly make candidate endorsements from the pulpits on Sunday, September 28, a bit more than a month before the election. They intend either of two possible outcomes.

(1) Get so many churches to do it (they are hoping for at least 40) that the law becomes unenforceable. I've seen similar kinds of things, such as 67 pastors of the United Methodist Church in California officiating at a lesbian commitment ceremony, an action which is grounds for dismissal. The reasoning was that the district couldn't afford to fire that many pastors.

(2) Create a "showdown" test case bound for the Supreme Court in an attempt to declare that particular tax law unconstitutional.

The purpose of this particular tax law is to make sure your tax dollars are not used to fund someone else's free speech.

This is part of an ongoing effort to define the role of religion in public life (to put it politely). It is being done through ignorance of the law by disrupting confidence in government and creating an atmosphere of persecution.