“Decisions about what is preached from the pulpit of a church should not belong to the government but to the individual pastor and church itself,” wrote Chuck Colson…

Participants of the third annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday, which was held nationwide yesterday (9/26), organized by the Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, used the Bible’s teachings to preach on the positions of electoral candidates or current government officials in defiance of an IRS rule proposed by then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson and passed by Congress in 1954.

The rule states that a non-profit organization with tax exemption cannot “participate in, or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.” The penalty for violating the rule is the loss of tax-exempt status.

“Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government – in this case, the IRS,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley.

“ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit; we want to get government out of the pulpit.”

ADF noted that pastors spoke about politics, including specific candidates and elections, from the pulpit without worrying about their churches’ tax exemption status being revoked until 1954. Since the Johnson Amendment to the Federal Tax Code, many pastors have ceased to talk about politicians’ stances on social issues from a biblical perspective.

The IRS rule, ADF contends, has in effect “muzzled” pastors from speaking freely in the pulpit.

Read More: http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100926/pastors-to-challenge-irs-by-talking-politics-from-pulpit/index.html