In the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

, Pulpit Freedom Sunday is an annual event which is held in churches. It was founded in 2008 by

Alliance Defending Freedom Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF, formerly Alliance Defense Fund) is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group that works to curtail rights for LGBTQ people; expand Christian practices within public schools and in government; and ...

(ADF) to challenge the prohibition on places of worship from endorsing political candidates. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ADF's campaign has become "perhaps its most aggressive effort."

Background

In 1954 then Senator

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

was running for re-election to the U.S. Senate. In order to neutralize opposition from two nonprofit groups who accused him of being a communist, Johnson introduced an amendment to the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

code–the

Johnson Amendment The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are the most common type of nonprofit org ...

–which prohibited non-profit groups from endorsing political candidates. This legislation had far reaching effects not only on non-profits, but churches,

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

s, and other houses of worship. Before enactment of the Johnson Amendment, religious leaders were free to endorse or oppose candidates for office. Churches registered as 501(c)(3) organizations under the tax code are subject to revocation of their tax-exempt status should the IRS rule that they violated the political speech prohibition.

opposes the Johnson Amendment. Its position is explained: "Churches are not tax-exempt because of some bargain they make with the government. Being tax-exempt is part of freedom of religion; otherwise the government could tax churches out of existence. Now the government is telling churches you can be tax-exempt if you don't speak out on a certain topic". In 2017 the Free Speech Fairness Act was introduced in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

. The legislation proposes to permit political speech in churches. ADF supports passage of the bill.

History

In 2008 ADF launched Pulpit Freedom Sunday with 35 churches—including several mega-churches–to directly challenge the Johnson Amendment. In acts of

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...

, pastors give sermons on "blatantly political" topics, which may include providing "biblical perspectives" on or endorsements of particular candidates, in defiance of IRS regulations and in hopes of triggering a

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

court challenge to the provisions. The 2008 event included Minnesota reverend Gus Booth, who encouraged his congregation to vote in the

2008 United States presidential election The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from ...

for Senator

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...

, and prohibited them from voting for Senator

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

because of his position on abortion. By 2014 participation in the event had grown to over 1,800 pastors. That brought total participation since 2008 to more than 3,800 pastors. At the same time the IRS indicated that it would ramp up enforcement of the prohibition against candidate endorsement at churches.

References

External links

Pulpit Freedom Sunday
official 2008 press release {{Alliance Defending Freedom Unofficial observances Alliance Defending Freedom Observances in the United States

Background

History

See also

References

External links