Below is an Excerpt. Read the full article at https://restoration-news.com/churches-should-never-have-been-barred-from-endorsing-candidates-trump-just-righted-that-wrong
The IRS has ceased silencing Christians from speaking out in the pulpit in a major victory for religious freedom and free speech.
A 71-year running battle between pastors bringing the Bible into politics and Uncle Sam has ended with the IRS throwing in the towel—a tremendous victory for religious liberty in America.
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Preaching What They Practice
Fast forward over two centuries, and abolishing the Johnson Amendment altogether has become a powerful ecumenical issue uniting Catholics and Evangelicals alike.
"We've worked for over 30 years to get churches to be more vocal on abortion, and that includes being more vocal on abortion politics," Fr Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life and a laicized Roman Catholic priest, told Restoration News. "We, and top constitutional lawyers with us, were making the argument decades ago that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional that the IRS seems to be making now."
"When a pastor's preaching the word of God in the pulpit, he's not only exercising his freedom of speech but his freedom of religion. He's not just preaching the Word, but actually applying it to the lives of the people he's preaching to," Fr Pavone explained. "So if he says, 'as Catholics we must vote against the pro-abortion Democratic Party,' he's performing an act of worship. And the IRS seems to agree with that."
Pudner agrees, calling the outcome "the most dramatic game-changer for churches in decades."
"Now, after 70 years, we can finally reassure pastors that speaking out won't jeopardize their church," he explained. "That turns an hour-long legal discussion into a five-minute green light, unlocking outreach to thousands more churches."
Though the Johnson Amendment was rarely enforced, Fr Pavone told me the IRS audited Priests for Life two decades ago for his aggressively anti-abortion sermons—every pastor's greatest fear. "They went through all my sermons looking for violations before concluding we hadn't broken the law," he said.
Because of this, Fr Pavone believes the outcome "very significant" for countering the "fear-mongering of misguided church leaders who don't want to deal with tough political issues" because they see it as "bringing politics into the pulpit."
"They like to play 'hide behind the tax guy' as an excuse for cowardice," he told me, "exaggerating the limits imposed by the Johnson Amendment to block priests and laity from 'indirectly disparaging' the positions of a particular political party, even on abortion and the LGBT agenda.
"How am I supposed to teach and preach the pro-life, pro-marriage message if I can't criticize the Democratic Party's own positions?"
There's still work to be done, of course. In March, 20 Republican legislators led by Rep. Mark Harris (NC) and Sen. James Lankford (OK) introduced a bill to alter Internal Revenue Code to allow all 501(c)(3) organizations to engage in campaign speech, ending the Johnson Amendment for good.
Whether it becomes law one day depends on how seriously Christians take national restoration… and making disciples of the nations.