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- Presented By
- Religious Freedom Coalition
- P.O. Box 77511
- Washington, D.C. 20013
- (202) 543-0300
- www.rfcnet.org
- Copyright 2003-Religious Freedom Coalition
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- Today pastors do not have freedom of speech from behind the
pulpit. The current law in the
form of an IRS code is the cause of this lack of freedom. This law was
inserted into the tax code by Senator Lyndon Johnson in 1954. Until that
time there were no restrictions on the church’s role in politics.
Although it probably was not “intended to target houses of worship,”[1]
the law was intended to restrict organizations that opposed Johnson’s
reelection to the Senate. The reasons for this ban were never properly
debated or voted on as a separate issue.[2]
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- The code specifically says that, “Corporations, and any community
chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for
religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary,
or educational purposes” is exempt as long as “…no substantial part of
the activities of which is carrying on
propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation
(except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not
participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or
distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in
opposition to) any candidate for public office.”[3] In other words, if a
church attempts to influence legislation or makes any statements that
can be considered promotion for a political campaign, it can then lose
its tax exemption. If this happens, it must pay taxes on its income
consisting of donations, and contributors are not allowed to count their
contributions as tax deductions. Thus speech within the church has been
suppressed.
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- This current law even restricts the discussions on issues within the
church. Congressman Walter Jones who represents North Carolina says that
“[T]he churches in many places, in my opinion the priests, the rabbis
and the clerics, have not had the freedom to speak about the moral and
political issues of the day. And many times the moral issues become
political issues, and the political issues moral issues, and we all know
that.”[4] The problem is that moral issues cannot be discussed in a
church if they are also political issues. For example, a pastor’s church
can be penalized if he states his position on abortion during a campaign
season.[5] Walter Jones says that churches are “so chilled [by this law]
that they refuse to make important moral, ethical or scriptural
statements that may touch on current political campaigns.”[6]
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- The law tends to be
enforced in a partisan
matter. The Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, New York lost its tax-exempt
status for running a
single newspaper ad just
four days before the Presidential election between Clinton and
George H. Bush saying
that Clinton’s support for government backed abortion and homosexual
preferences was contradicting the Bible.[10] However, Democratic
Presidential candidate Gore
campaigned from the pulpits of
inner-city churches, none of which lost their
tax-exemption.[11] House Majority Whip Tom Delay from
Texas
commented, “I don’t know that [selective
enforcement takes place] for a fact, but it
certainly seems to be that way.”[12]
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- The government is thus able to obtain influence over the church
because the churches have to report all their activities to the IRS when
filing taxes. The IRS than has to “approve” of a church’s activities. If
not approved, than the church is punished. The Indianapolis Baptist
Temple church building was seized in 2001 for not withholding a portion
of every employee's paycheck for federal taxes. The church refused to
withhold taxes from its employees’ checks, because it would be “acting
as an agent for a secular government agency.”[14] This is despite the
fact that IBT would refuse tax benefits available for being a religious
organization and many of their employees paid full taxes that the IBT
had not withheld.[15] The principle of the matter was not the fact that
the money was not paid but that the church would not act as a tax
collector for the government. This IRS code gives the government
authority over the church that should not be permitted under the Constitution.
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- The original intent of the Fore Fathers from the Declaration of
Independence to the Constitution and its First Amendment has Christian
overtones. The government is originally based on Christian teaching. The
Revolution was the birth of the United States. There were many pastors
and godly men such as Samuel Davies and the Muhlenburg brothers that had
important influences at that time.
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- George Washington prayed with his troops for the protection of God.
The men at Valley Forge had a long winter during which three thousand
out of twelve thousand died due to sickness.[19] As a godly man,
Washington would obviously turn to Him for protection of his troops. On
May 1, 1777, he asked God to “Bless us with Thy wisdom in our counsels,
success in battle, and let our victories be tempered with humanity.”[20]
One can also see by his prayer that he meant for America to be a Godly
nation as he said “...if it is Thy holy will that we shall obtain a
place and name among the nations of the earth, grant that we may be
enabled to show our gratitude for Thy goodness by our endeavors to fear
and obey Thee.”[21] When fighting for the independence of America,
Washington believed he was fighting for a nation that would “fear and
obey” God.
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- When the Second Virginia Convention was moved to St. John’s Church in
Richmond from the House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry
delivered his famous speech that ended with the words, “give me liberty
or give me death.” This well-known speech mentioned God numerous times.
Patrick Henry said that “we shall not fight alone. There is a just
God…who will raise up friends to fight our battle for us.” [22] He
believed that God was an important element in their fight for liberty
and essential to their victory. He is also known for stating that, “It
cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation
was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions,
but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other
faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship
here.”[23] He felt that the reason this country has so many religious
freedoms is because it is based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Even if
people of other religions are to be welcome, the country’s foundations
were still to be based on Christianity.
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- God had an important role in the Constitution as well. Benjamin
Franklin believed it impossible to write a constitution without divine
intervention. When the delegates reached an impasse in formulating the
Constitution, Benjamin Franklin declared that divine help should be
sought before each day’s assembly.[25] He said “that without His
concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better
than the builders of Babel.”[26] He also said that “[W]ithout His
concurring aid…we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to
future ages.”[27] Benjamin Franklin believed that the creation of this
new government was completely in vain if it was not divinely influenced.
He stated that without God’s influence, they would become a mere
disgrace to future generations.
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- George Washington mentioned the importance of religion as part of a
democracy in his farewell speech on September 19, 1796. He said “Of all
the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion
and Morality are indispensable supports…Reason and experience both
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle.”[28]
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- On October 11, 1798, President John Adams told assembled military
leaders, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[29] In
other words, the Constitution is for a country based on the ethics of
the Bible. When that is lost in the people, the Constitution is
completely inadequate because right and wrong cannot be measured by
humans. He also once wrote in his diary that if a nation had the Bible
as their only law book it would be a “Eutopia [and a] Paradise.”[30] He
states that his purpose in helping birth this country was to found it
upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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- The Northwest Ordinance is proof that even after the Founding Fathers
wrote the Bill of Rights, religion’s importance still played a role in
the laws they passed. This Ordinance, which set forth the requirements
for statehood, was signed by President George Washington on August 7,
1789 and is considered one of the four foundational laws.[36] Article
III says, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of
education shall forever be encouraged.”[37] The men who passed the
Ordinance into law, who also authored the Constitution, believed that
“Religion, morality, and knowledge [should be taught in schools because
they are] necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”[38]
Religion was considered to be just as important as knowledge and
morality. It is essential to the well-being and growth of this country.
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- This Amendment is also used to keep religion from influencing the
government. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in Strength to Love that “the
church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the
state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and
the critic of the state, and never its tool.”[41] Martin Luther King Jr.
understood that the church had an undeniable influence on the state that
is elemental. It is this influence that the state is trying to demolish
so it can function without moral restraint. According to Stephan Carter,
author of God’s Name in Vain, “The separation of church and state, in
its contemporary rendition, represents little more than an effort to
subdue the power of religion, to twist it to the ends preferred by the
state.”[42] The government does not want Christianity to have influence
but rather to stay inside the church on Sunday mornings.
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- Further misinterpretations have led to unnecessary restrictions. The
Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified to guarantee state citizenship
to recently emancipated slaves, is now used to prohibit religious
activities in public affairs of the state. The words of the Fourteenth
Amendment can easily be misinterpreted if they are separated from their
original purpose. This misinterpretation usually occurs when one takes
the Fourteenth Amendment and couples it with the First. By doing so, the
First Amendment is made applicable not only to the federal government,
which is its original intention, but to the state governments. This new
intent was created through decisions such as Cantwell v. Connecticut in
1940, Murdock v. Pennsylvania in 1943, and Everson v. Board of Education
in 1947.[43]
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- Jefferson’s letter written to the Danbury Baptists concerning the
First Amendment is used as law to keep church and state completely
separated at the expense of the church. Many forget that Jefferson’s
letter to the Danbury Baptists is in response to a letter they had sent
to him. In their letter they
congratulated his inauguration but also expressed concern about the
First Amendment: “Among the many million in America and Europe who
rejoice in your election to office; we embrace the first opportunity…to
express our great satisfaction in your appointment to the Chief
Magistracy in the United States…Our sentiment are uniformly on the side
of religious liberty—that religion is at all times and places a matter
between God and individuals—that the legitimate power of civil
government extends no further
than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But sir, our
Constitution of government is not specific…therefore what religious
privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors
granted, and not as inalienable rights”[44] They feared that their
religious rights were government –given and could easily be regulated
rather than God-given or inalienable.[45]
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- Jefferson’s response was to reassure them that the First Amendment was
only meant “to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has
no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”[46] By “natural
rights” he refers to God-given rights. He is assuring them that their
religious rights are not government-given but merely being restored by
the government and that those rights would not be in opposition to
social duties. When he mentions “building a wall of separation between
Church and State,”[47] he is stating that the First Amendment’s intent
is to keep the state out of churches’ affairs. Despite the fact that the
phrase “separation of Church and State” does not appear anywhere in the
Constitution, it is today treated as law by many courts. A hundred and
fifty years after Jefferson wrote his letter, modern courts turned that
wall of separation into “an impregnable wall” in the Everson v. Board of
Education case.[48]
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- Misinterpretations have led to further changes, of which some are just
absurd. One man with no legal standings sued to remove “under God” from
the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Michael Newdow, an atheist, is
seeking to have “under God” removed from the Pledge because he claimed
it would offend his daughter, of whom he did not even have custody. In
fact, the mother who has full custody is a Christian and says that
neither she nor her daughter was offended by the words “under God.” She
is against Newdow’s desire to have the pledge changed.[49] President
Dwight David Eisenhower said that by adding "under God" to the
pledge in 1954,only twelve years after it was established as the
official pledge, they were “affirming the transcendence of religious
faith in America’s heritage and future [and that it would] strengthen those
spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful
resource in peace and war."[50] “Under God” is part of the
spiritual history of this country. Newdow is trying to eliminate the
very thing that unites this country and constantly reminds the
government that there is something greater than it. If this is removed,
who has greater power than the government?
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- People are demanding to change traditions of this country because of
the Christian origin of those traditions. The challenge to the motto of
the State of Ohio is an example. “With God, all things are possible,”
was ruled as an establishment of religion because they are the words of
Jesus discussing salvation. About a year later, the Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit held that it did not violate the establishment clause
because, according to Judge Nelson, "The Ohio motto legitimately
serves a secular purpose in boosting morale, instilling confidence and
optimism, and exhorting the listener or reader not to give up and to
continue to strive."[51] The motto of Ohio was not establishing a
religion and it is part of Ohio’s identity, but some want it removed
purely because of its origins.
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- Change needs to be made through church activism, recognition of
Christian morality, and the passing of a new law. A change in direction
is needed to return to the foundations on which this country is laid.
Church activism is an important place to start. Church activism has
played an important role in the development of this country and in many
important issues. Just as many of the Founding Fathers were men of God,
so were those who headed the abolition movement. One American editor,
abolitionist, and clergyman who greatly influenced the country was Henry
Ward Beecher.[52] He addressed many issues of his time, including
slavery, from behind his pulpit.
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- There is a continuing need for church activism such as in the
anti-abortion movement. There are many similarities between abortion and
slavery. This can be seen by observing the similarities between Dred
Scott v. Sanford in 1857, which said that slavery was legal because
blacks were nonpersons owned by their masters, and Roe v. Wade in 1973,
which stated that abortion is legal because unborn babies are nonpersons
owned by their mothers.
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- Christian morality also plays an important role, because Christians
view the economy and the government through their faith. This becomes
evident in a study by Barna Research on a national representative sample
of 1003 adults concerning abortion and homosexuality.[60] Only one
percent of evangelicals said abortion should be legal in all situations
as opposed to forty percent of atheists. Ninety four percent of
evangelicals said that abortion should be illegal in all instances or in
all but a few special circumstances. Only thirty percent of atheists
share this belief.
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- A person’s moral judgment and decisions concerning the society he or
she lives in are based on the person’s religious convictions. According
to an article in the National Review, many Baptists would compare
separating religion from politics to separating morality from any other
part of their lives.[61] Religion is important to many Christians when
it is time to vote. A Barna survey completed by February 15, 2000
showed, “that born again voters are likely to represent close to 60
million votes in the general election. Of the 83 million born again
adults, more than four out of five are registered - one of the largest
proportions among all demographic segments in the nation.”[62]
Obviously, voting is important to those in the Evangelical Churches. If
their beliefs inspire them to vote, one can only assume that their
beliefs also affect what they will vote for. Religion brings hope and
meaning into people’s lives, so what kind of democratic government can
ask them to leave that behind in order to be allowed into the world of
politics?[63] People decide what is best for their society and
government based on their beliefs. Therefore, it is only logical that
those who represent those beliefs should be allowed to speak on
political issues.
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- A law giving pastors and churches the right to speak needs to be
passed. Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) proposed a bill that would
restore freedom of speech to pastors. The Houses of Worship Free Speech
Restoration Act (HR-235) would strip the Internal Revenue Service of
their authority to punish a church or temple for speaking out on issues
that could be deemed political. Some see this as a danger because it
would mix religion and government. In reality the bill would release
religious organizations from the government’s grasp, because it will no
longer be able to punish them for their opinions. This bill, if passed,
gives pastors the chance to speak without worrying about the government
punishing them. Marci Hamilton says that she supports this bill because
it “does not give religion a special privilege to speak; rather, it
restores religion's right to speak. And that should not be controversial
at all - for the voices of religious entities are crucial to a free
society.”[64] Organizations such as Americans United think that it is
dangerous to mix religion and politics.[65] The truth is that religion
has had a positive impact on politics and the government throughout
America’s history.
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- Pastors should have the right to promote legislation and endorse
politics from behind the pulpit. The lack of freedom of speech from the
pulpit is due to current law and is the cause of suppression of speech
and government intervention in the church. The original intent of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the First Amendment
has Christian overtones. Misinterpretation of the First Amendment leads
to laws and court decisions that do not coincide with what the Fore
Fathers intended. Change needs to be made through church activism. Christian morality needs to be
recognized, and a new law needs to be passed. Once people are able to
recognize religion’s place in history and in the government, they will
understand the importance of its freedom for which this country stands.
Once this is understood, people can work together to make sure that
those who stand behind pulpits can have the same freedoms as those who
do not.
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- Presented By
- Religious Freedom Coalition
- P.O. Box 77511
- Washington, D.C. 20013
- (202) 543-0300
- www.rfcnet.org
- Copyright 2003-Religious Freedom Coalition
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