Johnson Amendment
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Search complete. 38 mentions across 15 episodes found for "Johnson Amendment".
Sep 11, 2026
Paul EngelHOST
They're saying, if you're going to use race in your scholarship, your admission programs, then you don't get your tax-exempt status.
Paul EngelHOST
It's kind of the same way that a church That says if you're going to be Very political active It's not There's a misunderstanding to the Johnson Amendment But if you're going to be a church And you're just going to be overly political active You don't get your Tax exempt If you're a 501c3 A tax exempt entity But you politic You become a partisan hack A partisan group You lose that tax It's kind of the same scenario So I'm not all I'm not all bent out of shape about this one.
Paul EngelHOST
Okay, here's one more scenario that I want to get to.
Paul EngelHOST
And this really gets to a question I ask a lot.
Melissa WitteGUEST
If the church, if this is, if they read this into the Bible, right, that Christians have to dominate government, education, entertainment, family, all of these things, right? Well, then, um...
Melissa WitteGUEST
there's really nothing that Christian pastors can't advocate for from the pulpit, right? And when you're talking about the Johnson Amendment, okay, which tells, you know, before Trump essentially revoked it last summer, but, When it did exist, pastors weren't allowed to advocate for dominance of government, dominance in politics and things like that.
Melissa WitteGUEST
But in 2006, there was actually a private letter ruling that came down for an organization that had played a pretty, big role in George Bush's reelection in 2004 and this was ran out of Harvest Church in Ohio which was ran out by a man named Brad Parsley or Rob Parsley and the IRS ruled at a private letter ruling which means only for Rob Parsley's organization nobody else's it's just his they said all of his advocacy and politics was rooted in his faith ergo it's legal does that make sense
Leonard GoodmanHOST
yeah it's kind of like when when the american indians are allowed to to use peyote for their rituals you know like an exception in the
David FiorazoHOST
And one follow-up question real quick, and I want to talk to you about the salt and light concept and pastors unnecessarily self-censoring from the pulpit when it comes to political issues.
David FiorazoHOST
We're going to talk about the Johnson Amendment in a minute.
David FiorazoHOST
You suggested that, and I've got some background with that.
David FiorazoHOST
But the pastor... that when you came forward and you were four years old, I'm sure you had a follow-up conversation with him or a relationship with him.
David FiorazoHOST
And that means, I think, was it in this conversation? I'm sorry, I do a lot of different podcasts, but we talked about politics and the affairs of the city and being...
David FiorazoHOST
you know, influential outside of church walls.
David FiorazoHOST
Can you talk about why you brought that up? Because I wrote an article on this about, was it 11 years ago? And Jeff, I don't know if you can bring that up, but the Johnson Amendment and the agenda to silence Christians.
David FiorazoHOST
Now, this was in the 1950s.
James ParkerHOST
Why are the Christian preachers so quiet on the Muslim takeover? Let me play just like 30 seconds of this.
Keith SelfSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Now, the Johnson Amendment says that you cannot preach politics from the pulpit.
Keith SelfSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It's been tried once.
Keith SelfSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Only once has it gone to court.
James ParkerHOST
And So we're talking with Shannon Murphy, works at Dallas Express, the Let's Talk Local show.
James ParkerHOST
So what else did Keith self bring to the forefront that you hadn't heard before?
Shannon MurphyGUEST
You know, I'm ashamed to say that I had never really heard of the Johnson Amendment before that is supposed to keep pastors from talking about politics on the pulpit.
Shannon MurphyGUEST
And that kind of made sense to me why they would avoid doing such.
Chris StarinHOST
And we'll just play a little bit of this.
Nick StarinHOST
He also mentioned the Johnson Amendment, so I had to ask him about that.
Chris StarinHOST
Speaking of the Johnson Amendment, what is it about the Johnson Amendment that you would like to...
Chris StarinHOST
Why would you like to have it repealed? And you can tell I was getting nervous.
Nick StarinHOST
Would there be a better way to do that? Because I think one of the concerns
Chris StarinHOST
that a lot of people have had about removing the Johnson Amendment is that then wealthy donors would be able to funnel money into political candidates through the church.
Chris StarinHOST
Well, that
Richard LandSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
would depend on the church.
Loren PiretraHOST
Legal experts are pretty blunt.
Loren PiretraHOST
Sam Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University in Chicago said, what they were doing almost definitely violated the Johnson Amendment, which was the 1954 law that bars churches and other tax exempt groups from directly supporting candidates.
Loren PiretraHOST
Philip Hackney, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and former IRS official, said using congregations for openly partisan campaigns and campaign work went beyond anything he'd ever seen.
Loren PiretraHOST
So five nonpartisan legal experts in total told NBC that this could cost churches their tax-exempt status.
12 MINS LATER
Loren PiretraHOST
What's the difference? What's the mechanism keeping those two things apart? I can't find one.
Loren PiretraHOST
The IRS needs a treasury.
Loren PiretraHOST
senior person in the treasury department to sign off to audit a church congress won't touch the johnson amendment because voting scrutinizes churches and when you scrutinize a church that's a career-ending move in about 40 states literally 200 years of american politicians have looked at this and been like i'm not touching that they decided it was easier to just let it be So the courts run the real First Amendment limits and the press can't report on filings that don't exist.
Loren PiretraHOST
So when Erica Kirk saying it's not political, it's biblical.
James ParkerHOST
Why aren't more Christian preachers speaking up about this? Why are Christian preachers so quiet on what appears to be a Muslim takeover?
Keith SelfSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Now, the Johnson Amendment says that you cannot preach politics from the pulpit.
Keith SelfSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It's been tried once.
Keith SelfSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Only once has it gone to court.
Danielle BuckGUEST
... that they actually can speak about voting biblical values.
Danielle BuckGUEST
They, they all quote the Johnson Amendment, and they're gonna think they're gonna lose their tax-exempt status.
Danielle BuckGUEST
Well, that is actually not true.
Danielle BuckGUEST
You actually can talk about the civic duty to vote your values, your biblical values, your constitutional values.
Jenny StoryGUEST
That's exactly right.
Jenny StoryGUEST
So as you know, in 1954, the Johnson Amendment was put in place and it basically quelled the strong pastors.
Jenny StoryGUEST
Our country was founded as a Christian country.
Jenny StoryGUEST
That's our heritage.
Seth GruberGUEST
Right.
Seth GruberGUEST
Yeah, the Johnson Amendment and all that stuff.
Lisa BevereHOST
Right.
Seth GruberGUEST
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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