The IRS has thrown in the towel after a 71-year battle between pastors who have brought the Bible into politics, and Uncle Sam. This is a huge victory for religious freedom in America.

The outcome is centered on a suit that was filed last August against the IRS by a few faith-based advocacy organizations and churches, claiming the 1954 John Amendment – which restricts tax exempt churches from interfering in elections – violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.

Instead of battling in court, the Trump IRS agreed to a settlement–clarifying that “when a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation . . . “When viewed through the prism of religious faith in electoral politics, it does not ‘participate[]’ or ‘intervene[]’ in a political campaign.” Preaching on political issues is not in violation of the Johnson Amendment.

As of this writing, the Texas district court had not yet issued a formal judgement. Its position is a codification of an order from the Trump administration (E.O.) issued in 2017. The Treasury Department (which oversees the IRS) is prohibited from taking “any negative action” against individuals, houses of worship or other religious organizations who speak out on political issues which would normally conflict with the Johnson Amendment. This order was in effect throughout the Biden Administration.

J.P. De Gance is the president of Comuno, a faith-based non-profit that helps churches to share the Gospel through renewing healthy marriages. He considers the IRS position as “a bold move in the right way to restore and protect free speech in America.”

J.P. De Gance

He told Restoration News that while the government is often aggressive in promoting progressive morality, pastors must be able to speak truthfully to their congregations.

The Johnson Amendment, which was meant to silence both sides of the debate, only stopped conservative churches from supporting Republicans. It never stopped liberal churches who support Democrats.

This was clearly demonstrated in Georgia’s bitterly contested 2020 Senate election and runoff 2021, when black churches rallied around radical Democrats Raphael Warnock – a senior pastor of Martin Luther King’s Baptist Church – and Jon Ossoff. “Let’s maintain Georgia blue.” African Methodist Episcopal bishop Reginald Jackson shouted through loudspeakers at an Atlanta church event: “Elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock for the United States Senate.” According to New York Times , Bishop Jackson turned the “disjointed Democratic Party” of the state “into a machine” by mobilizing Black believers.

After 2020, it is not surprising that the IRS has never conducted an investigation into potential Johnson Amendment violations by these churches.

Conservatives who are focused on bringing out the Christian vote could not be happier.

We lost 502,000 conservative churchgoing voters who stayed at home in 2020. John Pudner is the president of the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition. He told Restoration News that we can’t afford to be silent again. His group is a part of a nationwide network of grassroots faith turnout organizations targeting Evangelicals. They will be knocking on doors and handing out fact-focused educational pamphlets during the 2024 elections. This is a major breakthrough that will allow thousands of churches to engage in the future.

This is also the right thing.

A Long-Awaited Victory

The law dates back to Lyndon B. Johnson who, as a senator in 1954, added the measure bearing his name to Eisenhower’s Revenue Act of 1953. Johnson’s opinions are unclear because there was no discussion on the floor, nor any indication of his intent.

Scholars suggest that it was Johnson’s clever political maneuvering. In 1954, the Texas Senator was facing strong opposition from two tax exempt 501(c),(3) nonprofits – Facts Forum and Committee for Constitutional Government – who were disseminating materials critical of Johnson. His measure explicitly prohibited this. He was, in other words, helping himself. This is why many academics argue that there’s little reason to believe Johnson intended to suppress churches which fall under IRS 501(c).

The Trump IRS is in agreement.

John Pudner

Leftists, of course, have criticized the result as a violation of separation between church and state. National Council of Nonprofits , a left-leaning organization, argues that it “protects’ churches from the “caustic partisanship” that plagues our country. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat from California, slammed the IRS for its “politically convenient” and “cynical” position. Newsom made several campaign stops this month at prominent South Carolina churches, in preparation for his anticipated presidential run in 2028.

The IRS’s move restores the most important provision of the First Amendment: the right of clergymen to criticize government policies and to mobilize Christians into action. The American Revolution would not have been possible without that right.

For two-and-a-half centuries, historians have recognized the central role pastors–overwhelmingly Anglicans, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians–and their red-hot political sermons played in mobilizing colonists to the patriot cause and later shaping our new government. One British officer famously dismissed the patriot cause by saying that it was “nothing less nor more than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian rebellion.” Horace Walpole jokingly told Parliament that “Cousin America is now with a Presbyterian pastor.”

In his collection of political speeches from the founding period, historian John Wingate Thornton wrote: “To the Pulpit and the Puritan Pulpit we owe our moral force that won us independence.”

Preaching what they Practice

After two centuries of progress, the Johnson Amendment has been abolished. This is a strong ecumenical cause that unites Catholics and Evangelicals.

“We have worked for more than 30 years to get the churches to be vocal about abortion, including politics,” said Fr Frank Pavone. He is a laicized Roman Catholic Priest and national director of Priests for Life. We, along with top constitutional lawyers, made the same argument about the Johnson Amendment being unconstitutional decades ago as the IRS is making it now.

When a pastor preaches the Word of God from the pulpit, not only is he exercising his right to freedom of speech, but also his right to freedom of religion. “He’s not only preaching the Word but actually applying to the lives of those he’s addressing,” explained Fr Pavone. “So, if he said, ‘As Catholics, we must vote against pro-abortion Democratic Party’, he is performing an act worship. The IRS appears to agree.”

Pudner is in agreement, calling the result “the most dramatic change for churches over decades.”

He explained that after 70 years we can now reassure pastors speaking up won’t harm their church. This turns an hour long legal discussion into five minutes of green light and opens up outreach to thousands of churches.

Fr. Frank Pavone

Although the Johnson Amendment is rarely enforced, Father Pavone tells me that the IRS audited Priests for Life in the 1990s for his anti-abortion sermons. This is the greatest fear of every pastor. He said that the IRS went through his sermons to look for any violations, before concluding they had not broken the law.

This is why Fr Pavone considers the result “very important” in countering “fear mongering by misguided church officials who don’t wish to deal with difficult political issues”, because they view it as “bringing the pulpit into politics”.

He told me that “they like to hide behind the tax guy” as an excuse for their cowardice, and “exaggerate the limitations imposed by Johnson Amendment, which prevents priests and lay people from “indirectly disparaging” the positions of any political party. This includes the LGBT agenda and abortion.

How can I teach and preach a pro-life message, or a pro-marriage one, if I cannot criticize the Democratic Party?

Of course, there’s more work to do. There’s still work to be done, of course.

It depends on the seriousness with which Christians approach national restoration…and making disciples amongst the nations.