Americans don't go to church for politics

I’ve changed my mind. It is possible, even for aging column writers.

Last year I wrote a piece in which I pretty much trashed something called the Johnson Amendment. If you followed the debate over the tax reform measure that Republicans in Congress approved in December, you might have heard it mentioned once or twice.

The Johnson Amendment involves churches and donations, keeping them tax-deductible and what that means politically. It really isn’t as confusing as it sounds.

Basically, the Johnson Amendment is a provision in the tax code enacted in 1954. Its sponsor was then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Yeah, that Lyndon B. Johnson, the guy who became president after John F. Kennedy’s assassination and who waged war against poverty and the Viet Cong. Neither ended well. But that’s another story.

Johnson’s amendment applies to all nonprofit organizations, churches included, that claim 501(c)(3) status. That status makes donations tax exempt and lets donors deduct them from their taxes.

The amendment does not muzzle such organizations from speaking out on political issues. What it does is prohibit these organizations from endorsing candidates.

Johnson pushed his amendment strictly as a way to go after a primary foe back home who claimed LBJ was a communist. Not much altruism there. It was a political hack job. Since hardly anyone ever has been charged with running afoul of the amendment’s provisions, what good is it, you might ask? 

As it turns out, that tells only part of the story. What the Johnson Amendment also did was install a firewall against churches becoming funnels for political donations if they endorsed specific candidates.

President Trump campaigned in 2016 on a promise to get rid of the amendment as a way to give churches the freedom of expression he claimed the amendment had taken away. That’s how a provision to repeal it got in the tax reform bill the House of Representatives passed.

The Senate wisely did not jump on this Trumpian band wagon. According to an article in Sojourners magazine, nonpartisan analysts testified that letting churches and charities endorse candidates would encourage wealthy donors to funnel political contributions through churches to get a tax deduction. The repeal provision did not survive in the final bill Congress approved and Trump signed.

Without the amendment, churches faced the threat of becoming nothing more than partisan political tools. The last time I checked the four gospels and the rest of the New Testament, that’s not the rock on which Jesus wanted to build his church. It also is not what saints Peter and Paul sacrificed their lives to establish.

The amendment says nonprofits can talk about issues all day long. They just can’t tell you to vote for Candidate X or Candidate Y. That’s not what church is all about anyway, and that’s what the Johnson Amendment effectively clarifies.

Recent polling shows most of America’s Christian community agrees. They don’t want politicians trying to get an endorsement from Jesus or the apostles. Politics for most believers stops at the sanctuary doors.

The church exists to proclaim the Christian message of salvation by grace through faith. That’s why it’s called a sanctuary. It is sacred space, set apart from the rest of the world for the benefit of believers who want some holy time with their God.

Unless they come to pray as well, office seekers need to take their message elsewhere.

Jim Ketchum is a retired Times Herald copy editor. Contact him at jeketchum1@comcast.net.