Pastors to challenge IRS

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/07/pastors-to-take-on-irs-in-plan-to-preach-politics-from-pulpit/

Is the 1954 law prohibiting tax-exempt organizations from making political endorsements fair? It must not be actively enforced as many churches ignore it.

Jim J

Hopefully, I've demonstrated well enough that I'm a social conservative so I can give my answer. IMHO all of these pastors should absolutely refrain from endorsing anybody. On the level of civics, its a bad move since it looks like the Church(es) getting too much into the affairs of civil government. More importantly to me, it's a bad move from a Christian perspective in general because it links the Church(es) to individual politicians who may or may not have hidden aspects of their lives that are not Godly or have hidden agenda that may be disappointing to them.

OTOH, I have absolutely NO problem with the Church(es) speaking out on political issues, many of which cross over into religious governance. For example, this ad promulgated by the Catholic Church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9vQt6IXXaM

is fair game for pulpits such as ours. Our PCA pastor played it as well he could AND should. FYI, somewhat to my surprise (my understanding is that PCA Presbyterians don't think much of Catholicism), the congregration gave spontaneous applause to the film and the pastor spoke well of it. I may have been the one bringing it to his attention, having been made aware of it here on AM (thanks, Herb)....

That slick political ad, which must have cost a bundle to produce, should be titled "The Catholic Church, 1,900 years of guilt-tripping people into submissiveness".

George