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Newsom in South Carolina: New IRS rules on churches ‘politically convenient’ for Trump
UNITED STATES, JUL 10 – The IRS reversed a 70-year-old ban after a Texas lawsuit, allowing churches to endorse political candidates without losing tax-exempt status, officials said this removes previous legal risks.
- In 2024, the National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America filed a lawsuit in Texas challenging the Johnson Amendment's ban on churches endorsing candidates.
- This legal action followed decades-old federal rules from 1954 that prohibit tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from political endorsements, which some argue silenced religious speech.
- The IRS recently reversed its enforcement stance, agreeing in court filings to treat church endorsements as private speech, effectively allowing churches and rabbis to endorse political candidates.
- President Trump expressed his approval on Wednesday of the IRS allowing churches to openly support political candidates, emphasizing that they now have the freedom to speak out.
- This shift may increase political activism within religious groups and energize evangelical voters while prompting Republican lawmakers to seek formal Johnson Amendment repeal this year.
40 Articles
40 Articles
Should clergy endorse political candidates? If congregants are listening, they won't have to.
(RNS) — What has gone from couldn’t, to wouldn’t, to can and now, perhaps, to shouldn’t? The answer is setting the religious world on fire. Last week, the Internal Revenue Service decided to essentially set aside its long-standing prohibition of religious leaders and institutions endorsing or opposing political candidates. The so-called Johnson Amendment was a provision in the United States tax code that prohibited 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizat…
First Amendment Triumph: IRS Recognizes Pastors’ Right To Free Speech
By Zack Smith via The Daily Signal | July 11, 2025 Surely, in today’s America, the federal government can’t punish pastors for preaching from the pulpit about how to apply God’s Word to everyday life. And yet, for 70 years, the Internal Revenue Service did just that.It used a provision of the Internal Revenue Code called the Johnson Amendment — inserted in 1954 by then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson to stymie his political opponents — to chill free spee…
IRS Finally Recognizes That the First Amendment Permits Pastors To Speak From the Pulpit
Surely, in today’s America, the federal government can’t punish pastors for preaching from the pulpit about how to apply God’s Word to everyday life. And yet, for seventy years, the Internal Revenue Service did just that. It used a provision of the Internal Revenue Code called the Johnson Amendment—inserted in 1954 by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson to stymie his political opponents—to chill free speech in churches. The amendment uses nebulous la…
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