Should Pastors Have the Right to Endorse From the Pulpit?by
Bill Barnwell An interesting article appeared in the Washington Post this week about a group of renegade pastors who are purposely trying to provoke the IRS regarding the issue of political endorsements from the pulpit. Should pastors be able to endorse from the pulpit? This group of ministers believes that they should and they are willing to risk the judgment of the federal government in the process. They are bold, but are their aims Biblical and practical in 21st-century America? These pastors are not trying to lose their tax-exempt status. They feel they should be able to keep it and endorse from the pulpit anyway. As most know, churches are forbidden from making political endorsements from the pulpit or from getting overly partisan and political in official publications and pronouncements. Failing to adhere to federal guidelines on these issues will cause a church to lose its coveted tax-exempt status and/or face other federal penalties. Tax exemption is an issue that riles up many outside the church (and a handful inside), as it's perceived as being unfair and preferential treatment from the government to "organized religion." Churches pay no property taxes, ministers who buy or rent their own homes (such as myself) have some federal tax advantages, and much church consumption is exempt from sales taxes. One of the questions in this discussion is whether all this is worth the federal strings, but that issue merits its own attention. (As a side-note, I find it interesting that some faith-hating libertarians are outraged that low-paid ministers receive some tax relief and demand that they pay more taxes to the government instead of being more concerned about lowering the tax burden on all individuals in general.) Regarding the political issue, I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, I think it's silly that the federal government silences churches on such big issues, and I find it even odder that churches allow this to happen for fear of losing their privileged status in the eyes of the State. Why shouldn't churches be able to speak out for or against different candidates and be more direct in their support or condemnation of people who politically play important and often disastrous roles in the course of our country, state, and communities? Then the other side of me kicks in. Do we really want or need churches to be more predictably annoying and obnoxiously partisan than they already are? It's pretty much an open secret amongst just about anybody who attends a given church where the pastor or general membership stands on an issue or particular candidate. If you go into the 90% of Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, Nazarene, and Wesleyan churches, you can pretty safely assume which party and crop of candidates that crowd supports. Likewise, if you go into a United Church of Christ, an East-Coast Episcopalian, or "Unity" church you can be almost as certain as to what and who are the favored causes and candidates amongst that group. And come on, have you ever seen these not-so-subtle "voter guides" that are allowed in churches that all but endorse a candidate? "Voter X has chosen not to respond to this blatantly biased questionnaire, so we can only assume that he wants to personally abort babies and have a same-gender tryst with Leonardo DiCaprio." Or, "Candidate Y has voted 5 times to trample on the rights of women and seeks control over their bodies. He also drinks Saudi oil for breakfast and would like to send the jobs of ordinary blue collar Americans like yourself to Nicaragua." That's only a slight exaggeration of how obvious many of these "non-partisan" voter guides are. Politics often tends to bring out the worst in people, and Christians are not excluded from that. It's a completely "Us vs. Them" mentality and I see it amongst many in the pews. People are not seen as people, but as "The Liberals," "The Secular Humanists," "The Radical Right," "The Christian Reich" and so on. It's very hard to love your neighbor when you believe that you are in a "Culture War" and that the other side needs to be completely smashed. People are more than just the sum of their opinions on issues like abortion or the economy. They are people with hopes, dreams, lives, families, jobs, and so on, and it wouldn’t even hurt us to see them as more than just "stupid neocons" or "liberal humanists" even while strongly opposing their philosophical framework. Since the Clinton Impeachment, the nation has been getting more and more polarized and politics has been getting nastier. Politically active Christian conservatives are not particularly known for their love of the other side. Do Christians really want to get much deeper in the mud than they already are? So my conclusion, is that yes, pastors and churches should technically have the right to endorse, and that having freedom from the government's strings in general is worth losing tax exempt status over if such a choice had to be made. However, doing so ironically would probably create even more strings onto the government than already exist and pastors and churches would become bigger puppets for politicians and political causes than they already are.
While all church leaders should be informed and naturally should have their own opinions, they would better serve the nation by being a watchdog and prophetic voice towards both parties and all political figures from the pulpit, not being a shill or propagandist on behalf of a given party as apparently many aspire to be. September 10, 2008 Bill Barnwell [send him mail] is a pastor and freelance writer from Michigan. He holds both a Master of Ministry degree and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree from Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Prior to entering the ministry he studied Political Science and Social Science at Michigan State University and Wayne State University and was actively involved in local and state campaigns and consulting. Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com
|
Even
if there was a hypothetical day when pastors were able to exercise
this right, I would still say in the vast, vast, majority of cases
they should choose not to. While the church can respect governmental
leaders, pray for them, and so on, it ultimately needs to be a check
against the State, not its cheerleader.