Jim Garlow has an article on MinistryToday.com entitled Preach It! His article is well worth the read.

Jim talks about how for “57 years, people have believed a cultural myth that “pastors cannot speak out about politics.” Such is the nature of the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which suddenly stripped way from American pulpits what they had enjoyed for more than 160 years—no governmental intrusion in the pulpit. Not only is this “pastors-can’t-talk-about-politics” myth unconstitutional—check out the First Amendment—but it flies in the face of biblical authority.”

He rightly makes the observation that “If I would have said 40 years ago that tearing up a baby in a womb was wrong, everyone would have said, “Of course.” Say it today, and you are too political. What has happened? Caesar demanded that which is God’s. Tragically, some pastors have retreated as the line was moved.”

Last year 539 pastors participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday and spoke bold, biblical truths from the pulpit.

As Jim put it: “Congregations are hungry for true biblical preaching—and that includes preaching that has clear implications for the political arena. Ultimately it is not really political, but it is biblical. Gratefully, many people are coming to realize this truth.”

If you are a pastor, please sign up now to be a part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  For everyone else, forward this to your pastor and encourage them to sign up for Pulpit Freedom Sunday as well.  Standing together, we can and will make a difference.

Earlier, Kevin Theriot blogged about the Supreme Court’s decision in EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor.  The case was a phenomenal win for religious freedom and has far-reaching implications.  In analyzing the opinion, one important implication is that the Supreme Court has announced heightened protection for the internal affairs of a church and for situations that affect the faith and mission of the church.

In a court decision from 1990 called Employment Division v. Smith, the Court allowed the government greater latitude to restrict the free exercise of religion.  The Court held in Smith that if a law was neutral as to religion and if it was generally applicable to all people, then the government was allowed to burden the free exercise of religion.  The Smith case marked a drastic departure from the Supreme Court’s earlier precedents which uniformly held that any law, even if that law was neutral and generally applicable, could not burden the free exercise of religion unless the law was justified by a compelling governmental interest that was advanced in the least restrictive means available.  This test is the strongest test available under the constitution.  In applying this test over the years, the Court candidly acknowledged that the test was strong medicine and that many laws burdening the free exercise of religion did not meet this test and were invalidated because they violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Critics of Pulpit Freedom Sunday frequently cite to Smith and say that the Johnson Amendment is a law that is neutral and generally applicable so churches have no valid legal argument that the Johnson Amendment violates the Free Exercise Clause.  The Hosanna-Tabor decision changes that analysis, though.  In Hosanna-Tabor the Supreme Court retreated some from its analysis in the Smith case.  It stated: “Smith involved government regulation of only outward physical acts.  The present case, in contrast, concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.”  Essentially, the Supreme Court created a “church exception” to the Smith case.  This means that a law that may in fact be neutral and generally applicable will now have to meet the pre-Smith compelling interest standard if it interferes with internal church matters that affect the faith and mission of the church itself.  The Supreme Court, in effect, broadened and strengthened the Free Exercise rights of churches.

This is good news for pastors chafing under the unconstitutional restriction of the Johnson Amendment.  What affects the faith and mission of the church itself more than a governmental restriction on a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit?  By allowing the government to punish pastors for preaching a certain way from the pulpit, we are allowing the government to drive and change the faith and mission of the church itself.  By allowing the IRS to declare certain topics to be off-limits or to prohibit the application of biblical truth to elections and sermons, we are allowing the government to dictate what the faith and mission of the church is and how it should be applied and proclaimed from the pulpit.

The Hosanna-Tabor case means that the IRS will now have to demonstrate a compelling reason for restricting a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit.  They cannot do so.  In fact, there is no legitimate reason for the Johnson Amendment.  And if you take a moment to understand the history behind the adoption of the Johnson Amendment, you’ll understand just how true that is.  Hosanna-Tabor is one more indication that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional and should be struck down at the earliest opportunity.

Pastors should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent decision.  Now is the time to seize the opportunity and reclaim the right of pastors to speak freely from their pulpits without fearing governmental censorship or intimidation.  If you are a pastor, please sign up now to be a part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  For everyone else, forward this to your pastor and encourage them to sign up for Pulpit Freedom Sunday as well.  Standing together, we can and will make a difference.

Sixty days have now come and gone since Pulpit Freedom Sunday 2011.  That day is when 539 pastors from across the United States stood in their pulpits and proclaimed biblical truth about candidates and elections.  The participating pastors recorded their sermons and sent them to the IRS in the hopes of generating a legal challenge to overturn the Johnson Amendment.

As of the time I write this blog, the IRS has not responded in any way to any of the pastors who participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  In fact, pastors have been participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday since 2008 but no pastor has ever been punished or censored by the IRS for a Pulpit Freedom Sunday sermon.

There is no way we can know exactly what is happening at the IRS and why it has not responded.  In a previous blog, I listed some possible reasons why the IRS has not responded.  But the IRS’ lack of response is really not the important issue.  Instead, what is important is that Pulpit Freedom Sunday is growing into a nationwide movement of pastors who are unafraid to speak the truth from their pulpits no matter the consequences.  And that is what America needs right now.

For too long, pastors have shied away from things that are deemed by society as “political.”  But as I pointed out previously, society continues to label biblical issues “political” in an attempt to keep pastors and churches from talking about them.

It is encouraging to see pastors awakening to the need for bold, biblical preaching from the pulpit on the vital issue confronting our country.  And I hope that more pastors will see this need and join Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2012.  If you are a pastor, you can sign up now at www.pulpitfreedom.org.  Pulpit Freedom Sunday will be October 6-7, 2012.

Oh, and if the IRS ever does decide to investigate or punish a pastor for something said from the pulpit, ADF will be there to represent the pastor free of charge and we will seek to have the Johnson Amendment declared unconstitutional.  Whether we have to wait 60 days, 60 months, or even longer to determine whether the IRS will respond, we will not quit until every pastor has the right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing any governmental censorship or punishment.

Every time I mention Pulpit Freedom Sunday, I generally get two basic objections to the concept of Pulpit Freedom.  Yet these objections in some way are either misguided or just flat out wrong.

1.  Pastor should not preach politics from the pulpit

This is a common objection to Pulpit Freedom Sunday since we are asking pastors to evaluate the candidates running for political office in light of Scripture.  Some respond by saying that pastors should not preach about politics from the pulpit.

The main problem with this objection is that the definition of what is political keeps changing.  Thirty years ago, a pastor could preach a sermon from Scripture that marriage was between one man and one woman and no one would have been concerned or would have even thought to complain to the IRS that the Church was violating the Johnson Amendment in the tax code by speaking politically.  Yet today, if a pastor were to stand in the pulpit and preach a sermon that says marriage is between one man and one woman, that sermon would be instantly deemed “political,” and somehow church-goers, and the culture at large, would assume that the Church was wrong and should stay out of “politics.”

Some of this is, of course, a function of the culture war over fundamental issues such as the definition of marriage, the sanctity of human life, and religious freedom.  As these issues are fought in the public square, they frequently become politicized by a culture that increasingly turns to government to demand answers to these most fundamental of questions.  Yet a pervasively darker consequence of these fundamental cultural conflicts is that the Church is frequently told that when culture deems an issue “political,” it somehow becomes off-limits for the Church to address without someone screaming that the Church has violated the Johnson Amendment and is endangering its tax-exempt status.

Ultimately, when people say that pastors should not preach about politics, they are making a theological argument.  No one can deny that Scripture has direct application to all of life, including the realm of politics.  What those who argue that pastors should stay out of “politics” really mean is that Scripture should not be specifically applied to the positions held by candidates or their parties.  That is, at base, a theological argument that Pulpit Freedom Sunday is not designed to address.  Rather, Pulpit Freedom Sunday is designed to answer the question of who gets to make that decision for churches.  Should it be the government or each individual church?  You see, when we allow the government to make that decision for churches, we are ceding control of what is God’s to “Caesar.”  That is a role the government is specifically prohibited from playing.  Even if people can disagree over whether a pastor should favor or oppose political candidates during a sermon, everyone should at least agree that decision should be left to the individual church and pastor to make.  We set a dangerous precedent when we allow the government to choose sides and pick a winner in an ongoing theological debate.  That’s not the free exercise of religion.

2.  Pastors can favor or oppose candidates – they should just give up their tax exempt status if they want to do so.

Some have argued the Johnson Amendment, contained in 501(c)(3) of the tax code, is a good idea because it prevents tax-exempt charitable organizations from engaging in election activity.  In reality, though, there are 29 categories of organizations considered exempt from federal income taxes under section 501(c) of the tax code.  Yet only organizations that fall within section 501(c)(3) are subject to the speech restriction of the Johnson Amendment.  All of the other categories receive the benefit of exemption from income taxes and can endorse or oppose political candidates if they so choose.  Why?

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are only subject to this restriction because Lyndon B. Johnson inserted this amendment into section 501(c)(3) in 1954 as a way of silencing two secular non-profit organizations that were opposing his reelection to the U.S. Senate.  The amendment to section 501(c)(3) was not a reasoned approach to anything.  It was a revenge-motivated bill by a powerful senator bent on silencing his political opponents.

Additionally, tax exemption is not a matter of legislative grace for churches.  It is a constitutionally protected right.  The Supreme Court stated as far back as 1819 that the power to tax involves the power to destroy and that there is no surer way to destroy the free exercise of religion than to begin to tax it.

The Johnson Amendment foists upon churches an unconstitutional choice:  surrender your constitutionally protected rights to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion for a tax exemption.  Clearly, though, the government is not allowed to condition tax exemption (which is something to which churches are constitutionally entitled) on the surrender of a constitutionally protected right.

To understand just how ridiculous this actually is, imagine a statute that conditioned receipt of a tax exemption on a church giving up its constitutionally protected right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, or giving up its right against self-incrimination, or requiring a church to quarter troops in its pews if it receives a tax exemption.  That would be absurd.  Why then do we tolerate allowing the government to condition a tax exemption on a church giving up its precious rights protected by the First Amendment?

Pulpit Freedom Sunday is designed to protect a simple, but fundamental idea – that pastors have a right to speak freely from their pulpits and not be subject to government censorship or threat of punishment when they do so.  Pulpit Freedom Sunday is simply about pulpit freedom, no more, no less.  Because we do not have the free exercise of religion in any meaningful sense if the government is allowed to punish a pastor for something he says from the pulpit.

We want every pastor to sign up to participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday 2012.  Go to www.pulpitfreedom.org to learn more and sign up to participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday next year which will be held the weekend of October 7, 2012.

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By Alan Sears

On Sunday, October 2, hundreds of pastors all over the country did something an astonishingly large number of their fellow Americans had forgotten they had the God-given right to do: namely, address political issues and candidates during a worship service.

Across the nearly 60 years since then U.S. Senator Lyndon Johnson pushed through an amendment to the IRS code threatening any church or pastor who gets involved in politics with IRS reprisals – specifically, the loss of the church’s tax-exempt status – conventional wisdom has congealed around the idea that pastors must stay out of politics. As extraordinary as that assertion is to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of our nation’s history, it’s a theme that’s been hammered home unrelentingly for decades by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Click to read the remainder of this article on Townhall.com