Churches and Tax Exemption

Organizations that are seen as non-profit organizations that have, as a mission, a goal to serve the community are given tax-exempt status. When donations are made to these organizations, these donations are tax deductible. Churches, because they are churches, also receive this. Part of the presumption is that the churches are a benefit to the community by serving the spiritual and hopefully temporal needs of many people within the community.

In the IRS code, Section 501 3C it states:

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.

Churches are, by design and intent, not political organizations. They do not exist to dictate to the population on how to vote and who to vote for. A church, by design, does not see the government as its authority, but God. The church can and should speak TO the government on issues of justice and ethics, but not for the government.

Churches can have positions on issues. Within American Christianity different denominations and churches have contrary issues to one another. Issues such as capital punishment, abortion, LGBT rights, etc., may have churches standing in opposition to one another. American Christianity is very much a group divided and no group can claim that they have the ‘Christian’ answer to anything. They have, and are entitled to their opinion, but no one speaks for anyone else.

But as mentioned before, churches and do have positions on issues. They may not, however, make those positions translate into anything that resembles, “Vote for...”
They also cannot make any candidate of any party their de facto favorite candidate. In preaching, ministers may say how they feel about, let’s say, capital punishment, but never take the next step to say that they are going to vote this way or that way because of this-----and encourage others to do likewise.

Well, they can do this, but if they do this, they are subject to lose their tax exempt status. Ministers can have opinions on a wide variety of subjects, but we are not allowed to preach to the congregation, leading people to believe that XYZ is the ‘candidate of choice,’ for this church.

In reality, people to not attend church to hear political speeches or sermons. If they want to hear about politics, they can stay home and watch the news. Frankly, if they come to church to listen to a political lecture, they are leaving church needing a sermon. Jesus did not ‘play nice’ with the political authorities of his day and I suspect he wouldn’t ‘play nice’ now. Jesus would never be invited to speak at either party’s convention. Both our major parties would hear blistering comments on their policies and their antics.

I read many people concerned about churches and their tax exemption status. Frankly, if churches want to be political organizations, let them be. But do not allow them to use the word ‘church’ in their name, because they are no longer churches, and remove their tax exempt status. Political organizations are fine and churches are fine. They don’t belong in the same place.