Cal Thomas views this relaxation of what was called the Johnson rule after then-Senator and future president Lyndon Johnson with a bit of caution. First, though, he explains the Johnson rule:
The root of the ban extends back to 1954. Then-Senator Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) was running for re-election and faced a primary challenge from a wealthy rancher and oilman. A nonprofit conservative group published materials that recommended voters support Johnson's challenger.Thomas proceeds to explain why the new freedom to broach politics from the pulpit is fraught with pitfalls:
In what many believed to be retribution, Johnson introduced an amendment to Section 501 (c)(3) of the IRS Code, prohibiting organizations that are tax-exempt from trying to influence political campaigns.
Many took this as an attempt to muzzle preachers.
The measure was rarely, if ever enforced. Many Black and white liberal preachers invited mostly Democratic candidates to their services close to elections, giving them tacit, if not outright, endorsements. Their tax-exempt status was never canceled.
On one level this is a freedom of speech issue, but not all freedoms are necessarily worth exercising. The larger question is: who benefits the most and least from the IRS ruling? Some politicians will benefit, but churches that see this as an opportunity to jump into the political waters will be harmed as they will dilute their primary mission.Here, though, lies a difficulty. Thomas is right to urge pastors to refrain from endorsing candidates, but no pastor should refrain from preaching on issues that touch on morality or on social policy that affects the church. Yet, in doing so an implicit endorsement of one or another candidate will be unavoidable.
Besides, many churches have members who hold different political views. For the pastor to engage in partisan politics runs the risk of having some of them leave. I would.
There has always been a presumption among those advocating for more political involvement by churches that members are ignorant about politics and can't form their own opinions without instructions from their preacher. Organizations - liberal, but mostly conservative - have raised a lot of money promoting a fusion between church and state.
I don't attend church services to hear about politics. Neither do I wish to hear theological pronouncements from politicians, many of whom misquote Scripture, or take it out of context to fit their political agendas.
....Politicians and preachers should mostly stay in their own lanes. Where Scripture speaks clearly to a contemporary issue, including marriage, gender, abortion and the wisdom found in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, I'm ready to listen. But don't let me hear who the pastor prefers in the next election. I am not without information and neither is anyone else if they take the time to do research.
Social issues are inextricably knotted up with politics and to explicitly preach on the former is to tacitly preach on the latter. This has always been the case as a reading of the Gospels and the book of Acts makes clear. If a pastor takes a strong stand against abortion or in favor of open borders, he's tacitly taking a strong stand against the Democrats in the first case and against the Republicans in the second.
Toward the end of his column Thomas says, "One of the reasons cited for the decline in church attendance in America is that many, especially young people, believe churches are already too political and identified with the Republican Party."
This is doubtless true, and it should serve as a warning to pastors to not assume that everyone in their audience is going to be sympathetic to their opinions, but that applies to almost any topic that a preacher might sermonize on whether moral, theological, or political. A pastor who preaches on abortion, climate change, gay marriage, or the role of women in the church, for instance, is just as likely to antagonize members of his congregation as a pastor who endorses a political candidate from the pulpit.
Pastors have a difficult job. They need to walk a tightrope, avoiding needless offense on the one hand while being faithful to Scripture on the other. It's often not an easy task, and a pastor who ventures out on the tightrope is an intrepid soul, indeed.
Moreover, the members of his or her congregation should have the maturity to be able to disagree with their pastor with grace and love, and not take offense just because they heard something from the pulpit that conflicts with their own moral, theological, or political convictions.
We need wisdom in the pulpit and grace in the pews.
