The Internal Revenue Service reprimanded 37 churches for prohibited politicking during the 2004 elections, according to a report issued last week.
The Associated Press said churches and charities were reprimanded for endorsing candidates from the pulpit, in literature or on a Web site, and for giving preferential treatment to a candidate (Read: politician in the pulpit), or even planting political signs in the church lawn. Some even gave money to campaigns. I don't know why some things still shock me, but they do.
As egregious as these violations are, both in terms of religious freedom and American politics, what is most upsetting to me is that churches would confuse the gospel for a political agenda.
To be fair, only 37 churches (or 39 if you read the Washington Times) did. Considering there are nearly 400,000 congregations in this country, that's not a lot. But the perception was out there thanks to the news grabbers such as Jerry Falwell's unabashed Bush endorsement and the East Waynesville Baptist Church, North Carolina, preacher, Rev. Chan Chandler, who may have made a Republican vote a prerequisite to church membership.
There were cases on the other end of the political spectrum as well. Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, rode the circuit with Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson in order to, "seek support in Black churches," the Washington Post reported in October, 2004. Kerry spoke at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in the Miami area and the pastor there, Rev. Gaston E. Smith, is quoted as saying: "To bring our country out of despair, despondency and disgust, God has a John Kerry."
Sounds like endorsement to me. But was it worth the tax-exempt status risk? Political analysts know what pollsters and social scientists knowâ€â€that people who attend church regularly also vote. According to a 2004 CNN poll, the majority of weekly church attenders voted for Bush (61 percent), while the majority of non-church attenders voted for Kerry (62 percent).
This may be the one strong correlation drawing North Carolina's Republican party into the church sanctuary again. The Nation's editor reported last week about the GOP there attempting to again co-opt the church rolls for boosting attendance at the polls this mid-term.
This go ‘round churches are further armed with advice from a new IRS bulletin that details the extent to which the pulpit can preach politics. According to the IRS fact sheet, "Many of the types of political intervention activities addressed in the fact sheet were those that came under scrutiny during the 2004 election cycle."
The Baltimore Sun reported this week on more than 100 area churches that had made contributions to political candidatesâ€â€a clear IRS no-no. So what will the mid-term elections hold? It won't be as exciting as a presidential election, so Al and Jesse probably won't be hosting another road show. And Rev. Falwell may have learned his heavily fined lesson about voicing an opinion as a pastor.
Ministers who have doubts about what they can and should say, especially when it comes to the issues, should consult the IRS fact sheet. Ministers who have doubts about what they can and should say when it comes to the sermon, should consult the Bible and see the faces in the pews as Republicans, Democrats, Independents and a plethora of unregistered voters who came to church seeking a bigger answer than politics can ever provide.
