The Internal Revenue Service has withdrawn an audit of a Minnesota pastor's sermons.
Under the Johnson Amendment of 1954, pastors are not supposed to be able to endorse candidates from the pulpit. But last year, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) backed more than 30 pastors who offered endorsements prior to the November election -- and the IRS has taken no action against any of them. The most recent to receive that news is Pastor Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church in Minnesota. The audit of Booth's church by the IRS began in August 2008, but ended last week when the federal agency closed its examination of Booth's sermons due to a procedural problem. According to ADF attorney Erik Stanley, that leaves churches "in limbo," that pastors still have nothing firm on what they can and cannot do -- and that his legal firm is going to continue to push the issue. "We're going to hold another 'Pulpit Freedom Sunday' this year, September 27," he explains. "We're going to continue to seek to have this issue clarified -- either by the IRS clarifying the issue itself and admitting that what a pastor says from the pulpit does not violate the Johnson Amendment, or seeking clarification of the issue by federal court." Lyndon Baines Johnson, who at the time was a leading Democratic senator from Texas, got the amendment to the Federal Tax Code passed to protect himself from conservative pastors in his home state. He eventually became president.
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