<\/p>\n
A legal fight over what pastors can say from the pulpit is heading to a federal appeals court. The case centers around the Johnson Amendment, a law that critics say limits free speech in churches.<\/p>\n
The National Religious Broadcasters, Intercessors for America, and two Texas churches are challenging the amendment, which bars tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, including churches, from endorsing or opposing political candidates.<\/p>\n
Last year, those groups and the IRS proposed a settlement to protect pastors and church leaders from IRS penalties for speaking to their congregations about candidates and elections in the context of ministry and from biblical perspectives.<\/p>\n
In March, however, a federal judge in Texas rejected that agreement and dismissed the case, saying the court did not have the legal authority to approve it under federal tax law.<\/p>\n
Now the fight moves to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department wants the lower court ruling reversed, citing constitutional concerns.<\/p>\n
Johnson Amendment supporters say it keeps churches from becoming political campaign platforms while opponents counter that it silences biblical teaching on issues that shape how people vote.<\/p>\n
Last June, Dr. Ben Carson, the Vice-Chairman of President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, voiced his opposition.<\/p>\n
“Protect religious Americans from government-led litigation targeting their free exercise. Repeal the Johnson amendment,” Dr. Carson said.<\/p>\n
The case is proving to be an important test of free speech, religious liberty, and the role of churches in public life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A legal fight over what pastors can say from the pulpit is heading to a federal appeals court. The case centers around the Johnson Amendment, a law that critics say limits free speech in churches. The National Religious Broadcasters, Intercessors for America, and two Texas churches are challenging the amendment, which bars tax-exempt nonprofit organizations,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[744,221,401,3247,91,318],"class_list":["post-32632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-battle","tag-free","tag-legal","tag-liberty","tag-religious","tag-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}