{"id":7984,"date":"2011-10-01T22:27:32","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T02:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7984"},"modified":"2011-10-02T21:46:43","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T01:46:43","slug":"pastors-nationwide-to-defy-irs-sunday-address-politics-on-pulpit-freedom-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/pastors-nationwide-to-defy-irs-sunday-address-politics-on-pulpit-freedom-sunday","title":{"rendered":"Pastors nationwide defy IRS regulation, address politics on &#8220;Pulpit Freedom Sunday&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of preachers across America were politically disobedient Sunday, following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as they\u00a0publicly defied a 1954 law that gags them from preaching about politics.<\/p>\n<p>The law was authored by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, angry that he had been denounced from the pulpit of two churches.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday is referred to as &#8220;Pulpit Freedom Sunday.&#8221; Here Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in California explains what it&#8217;s all about.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/26878246?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>How many pastors participated? The Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group, sponsors the annual event, which started with 33 pastors in 2008. This year spokespersons have called on 1,000 religious leaders to sign on.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the pastors participating say that they only rarely speak out on political issues. However, they are uncomfortable with the IRS regulation &#8212; which they say violates First Amendments rights to free speech and freedom of religion. The regulation basically says that if churches are going to be exempt as non-profits, they give up the right to participate in the political process. It was wrong to make the rule in 1954, it is only enforced selectively often because someone with a grudge lodges a complaint with IRS &#8212; and it needs to come off of the books.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere should be no government intrusion in the pulpit,\u201d said the Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., who led preachers in the battle to pass California\u2019s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. \u201cThe freedom of speech and the freedom of religion promised under the First Amendment means pastors have full authority to say what they want to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garlow\u00a0told the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/01\/business\/flouting-the-law-pastors-will-take-on-politics.html\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0he planned to inveigh against same-sex marriage, abortion and other touchstone issues that social conservatives oppose, and some ministers may be ready to encourage parishioners to vote only for those candidates who adhere to the same views or values.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI tell them that as followers of Christ, you wouldn\u2019t vote for someone who was against what God said in his word,\u201d Mr. Garlow said. \u201cI will, in effect, oppose several candidates and \u2014 de facto \u2014 endorse others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two Republican candidates in particular, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, would presumably benefit from some pulpit politics on Sunday, since they have been courting Christian conservatives this year.<\/p>\n<p>Participating ministers plan to send tapes of their sermons to the I.R.S., effectively providing the agency with evidence it could use to take them to court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defense. \u201cThe law is on the books but they don\u2019t enforce it, leaving churches in limbo.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of preachers across America were politically disobedient Sunday, following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as they\u00a0publicly defied a 1954 law that gags them from preaching about politics. The law was authored by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, angry that he had been denounced from the pulpit of two&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,976],"tags":[2204,2248,1667],"class_list":["post-7984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-free-speech","tag-christian","tag-free-speech","tag-pulpit-freedom-sunday"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pastors nationwide defy IRS regulation, address politics on &quot;Pulpit Freedom Sunday&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/pastors-nationwide-to-defy-irs-sunday-address-politics-on-pulpit-freedom-sunday\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pastors nationwide defy IRS regulation, address politics on &quot;Pulpit Freedom Sunday&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hundreds of preachers across America were politically disobedient Sunday, following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as they\u00a0publicly defied a 1954 law that gags them from preaching about politics. 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