By Crystal Garcia
Churchgoers may hear an additional message today from their pastors, priests or ministers: Vote.
Though federal law prohibits preaching on behalf or in opposition to a political candidate, church leaders can still preach about issues and encourage parishioners to vote.
“What we have done is encourage people to pray about their decisions and encourage them to vote,” said Mark Fleschner, a pastor at the First Church of the Nazarene.
Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson in 1954 to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which include charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. While the ban has been strengthened over the years, the most recent change was in 1987 when language was amended to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates, according to the Internal Revenue Service’s Web site.
The Rev. Ryan Berryhill, of First Southern Baptist Church in Terre Haute said he plans to remind his congregation to vote Tuesday because it’s their civic duty. However, preaching is bigger than politics, he said.
“Really and truly, our goal is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, not to make Republicans or Democrats,” he said. “I don’t take a public stand on a candidate, I’ll talk about an issue if it comes up, but I don’t make an effort to do a sermon about an issue that’s on the table.”
Federal law does not prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations from advocating for or against issues and, to a limited extent, ballot initiatives or other legislative activities, the IRS Web site stated. Should these organizations violate the law, they run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.
Earlier this year, the IRS released its 2006 Political Activity Compliance Initiative, a report outlining investigated allegations of political campaign activity by these types of organizations. The IRS received 237 referrals and selected 100 — 44 churches and 56 nonchurches — for examination, according to the Web site.
In 2004, 110 cases were selected for examination, which resulted in 69 written advisories, five organizations losing their tax-exempt status and a proposed revocation of status for two other groups.
This law isn’t an issue for the Rev. David Smith of Greenwood Baptist Church, who said if pastors did a better job of preaching the Bible, there wouldn’t be too many problems.
“I wasn’t called to be talking about politics, I was called to preach the Gospel, so that’s what I keep it to,” he said, noting that he will tell his parishioners his personal opinion outside of church if they ask and want to talk about it. “… I just don’t see anywhere biblical where we’re supposed to talk about one candidate or another because we know how we believe, it’s each voter’s responsibility to check the candidates out and then compare them to the Bible and then they’ll know how to vote.”
Pastor Jeffrey Harpole of New Life Fellowship echoed those sentiments, stating it’s not hard for a pastor to stay out of politics as long as he or she remains focused on the Bible.
“… We have both Democrats and Republicans at our church, we have union workers and we have non-union workers. We have a wide variety of people, and so I don’t tell them how to vote, but I have no compulsion to withhold the Scriptural concepts,” he said. “I don’t just do that at election time, I do it throughout the year because I preach the whole Bible. It’s not an election sermon.”
Harpole ran as a Republican for an at-large seat on the Vigo County Council during the primaries but was defeated. Still, he said there wasn’t a conflict with his job and running for the position because the seat wasn’t based on moralities, but budgeting.
“… I think the worse thing we can do is remove ourselves from the political scene,” Harpole said, noting that people with integrity and budget knowledge need to be in those positions.
While Smith said he’s also encouraging his congregation to vote, he has been spending a lot of time “trying to calm people’s fears over Wall Street” because some of his parishioners are losing many things.
“God gives us a word from the Bible of what we should be preaching about,” Smith said, “and I don’t see John McCain or Barack Obama, neither one of their names in the Bible.
Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.
