Shortly before the day that votes were to be cast in the 2004 Presidential election, an Episcopalian church in Pasadena, California invited its former rector back for a guest sermon. His sermon compared the views and actions of George Bush and John Kerry regarding the war in Iraq with those of Jesus Christ. He encouraged those listening to remember Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, when they went into the voting booth to cast their ballot.
Soon after, the Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) launched an investigation into whether this sermon violated its restrictions against involvement by religious and other nonprofit organizations in political campaign activity. A few months later, media reports that two central Ohio churches were featuring only one of several candidates for Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial primary election led to calls for an I.R.S. investigation of those churches as well.
This summer, the I.R.S. announced that it has noticed an upturn in politicking on the part of tax-exempt organizations, and that it was initiating its Political Activity Compliance Initiative to investigate the mounting allegations of wrongdoing. Anticipating that numerous complaints of potentially prohibited political activity by religious and other nonprofit organizations will be made during the 2006 election season, procedures have been put in place to enable the I.R.S. to respond more quickly than has been the case in the past. The agency’s Fact Sheet 2006-17, “Election Year Activities and the Prohibition on Political Campaign Intervention” is available at www.irs.gov.
These developments have led some to call for a change in the law to permit greater involvement by religious organizations in partisan political campaigns. Focusing only on what the law restricts can lead us to overlook the great freedom that currently exists under the law as it is for Christian churches and other faith communities to raise their voices to address the public issues of the day.
There is complete freedom for religious organizations to address public, political issues, however controversial, in most contexts. Sermons, newsletters, study groups, discussion groups, guest speaker events, web sites and all manner of other faith-related communications can take place within and outside of church walls without restriction as to their subject matter, or to the views expressed, with only two exceptions.
The first exception has to do with attempts by religious organizations to influence legislation. If the communications deal with legislative activity, then there is a limit on the amount of money and time that religious organizations can spend trying to get a law passed, or to stop a law from being passed. If only an insubstantial portion of the religious organization’s budget and its staff time are spent trying to influence legislation, then there is nothing that the I.R.S. can say. The “rule of thumb” is that it is completely permissible for religious organizations to spend about 5-15% of their money or time trying to influence legislation.
The second exception is the one that was involved in the activities of the Pasadena and central Ohio churches mentioned above. Religious organizations are prohibited from spending any money or time on political campaign activity. The question with respect to the Pasadena church is whether the guest preacher was trying to influence how the congregation would vote for President. The question with respect to the central Ohio churches is whether they were trying to benefit only one candidate for Governor by featuring him at their events. The prohibition against political campaign activity by religious organizations also relates to involvement by religious organizations in voter registration and voter education efforts, which must be nonpartisan and unbiased for that involvement to be free of concerns about I.R.S. scrutiny.
But otherwise, under the law of this nation faith communities are completely free to raise their prophetic voices on the issues of the day. And from a faith-based perspective, that freedom is at times also an obligation. Apart from attempts to get someone elected, or from concerted efforts involving significant organizational resources to try to influence legislation, religious organizations are free to fulfill their duty to speak out on issues of the day.
David T. Ball is Associate at the law firm of Schottenstein Zox & Dunn Co., LPA. He has a dual background in theology and law, with an M.Div. and a Ph.D. in theology, and a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to several years of experience assisting religious organizations with a wide variety of legal issues, David has been a pastor and college chaplain. He may be reached at (614) 462-2700 or dball@szd.com.