Should IRS target churches?

By Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk

Tribune News Service

Although the first primaries of the 2016 election season are still months away, the Internal Revenue Service appears to be already gearing up to investigate churches that participate in politics.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group based in Arizona, sued the IRS this week to learn more about the agency’s election year plans. The lawsuit alleges the IRS is refusing to disclose details of an agreement it made with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, an atheist group, to enforce a law that would strip a church of its tax- exempt status if it were involved in obvious political activity.

Should the IRS crack down on politics from the pulpit? Or is the prospect of government abuse of power too great? Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, the RedBlue-America columnists, debate.

BEN BOYCHUK

Well, of course the IRS should crack down on churches! Everyone knows that churches are supposed maintain a strict separation between what the pastor tells his congregation on Sunday and how the congregants actually live for the rest of the week.

The First Amendment clearly states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof, except when churches wish to engage in political speech. The Constitution also enshrines freedom of speech and freedom of the press, except for Baptist preachers, Catholic priests, Episcopal bishops, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Who could possibly disagree?

In reality, what “everyone” thinks is true, isn’t. In 2012, the Freedom from Religion Foundation sued the IRS to ensure the agency was complying with the 1954 Johnson Amendment. That odious little add-on to the Internal Revenue Code came about to ensure its sponsor, then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, cruised to re-election that same year. The law was an easy way to silence Johnson’s organized opposition in Texas.

Before 1954, churches and preachers were free to say anything they wished about candidates, politics and other pressing events of the day. The movement to abolish slavery in the 19th century was as much religious as it was political. Imagine what would have happened to abolitionist preachers in the 1840s and ’50s if the IRS had been around.

Laws born of political corruption naturally lead to abuses of power. It’s a bipartisan affliction. The IRS under George W. Bush spent two years investigating the very liberal All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., over a 2004 sermon that was critical of the war in Iraq. Although nothing came of the probe, the IRS sent a powerful message: watch what you say, or we will make your lives hell.

Right now, the IRS is refusing to comply with lawful Freedom of Information Act requests to disclose how it plans to make churches comply with the tax code next year. But a renewed crusade against conservative churches — really, what else would it be? — would be an affront to the First Amendment.

Why wait for the courts to sort all this out? Perhaps it’s time for Congress to repeal Lyndon Johnson’s nasty amendment, and leave churches to preach freely.

JOEL MATHIS

If we’re going to discuss issues of church and state, let’s start with one of the church’s first principles: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Whoops! Looks like we’re too late to stop that. Let’s try to clear up the distortions, shall we?

Yes, it’s true that most churches are not allowed to advocate for specific candidates during election season — and we’ll talk about that in a second — but it’s not true and never has been that those rules keep churches or religious organizations from lobbying for issues they care about. Otherwise, you’d never hear a pastor mention abortion or the environment or gay marriage from the pulpit, and you’d never see the supposedly nonpartisan “voter guides” that many churches distribute to their members. The 19th century abolitionists, it seems, are safe from the tyranny of 21st century laws.

(Let’s also be clear: It’s not just churches that have to abide by this restriction, but all nonprofit organizations. The head of your favorite United Way charity is just as burdened by the law as your preacher, bishop or rabbi.)

Really, the only thing that’s really prohibited to churches and nonprofits is clear activity for or against a specific candidate. No endorsements allowed. That’s about it.

Even then: If your pastor wants to preach, say, the merits of Ted Cruz from the pulpit, he can do so all day long if he likes — all he has to do is give up your church’s tax-exempt status.

That’s the deal that every church that accepts tax exemption has made: Each and every one has agreed to refrain from endorsing candidates to get the privilege of not paying taxes. And individuals who donate to churches and nonprofits get to write those donations off their taxes! That’s a great deal! More to the point, it’s a profound privilege — not a right.

Ben Boychuk is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Joel Mathis is associate editor for Philadelphia Magazine. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.