Tag Archives: ADF: Pulpit Initiative

ColoradoConnection.com (Fox21News) (includes ADF video): The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) organization has protested the amendment with an annual ‘Pulpit Freedom Sunday’ in which it encourages pastors across the country to openly engage in political-related sermons. The organization says the Johnson Amendment violates the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which includes freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The ADF launched the idea in 2008 during the presidential election, and 33 pastors participated. In 2009 the number grew to 83, then 100 in 2010 and 539 in 2011. Sunday was 2012′s Pulpit Freedom Sunday, and more than 1,000 pastors are estimated to have participated.

Rob Boston at Americans United for Separation of Church and State: The ADF says it wants to see this matter in court. I’m confident that the organization will lose that case, just as TV preacher Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice lost a church politicking case in the 1990s. Why the hold-up? To the IRS I say: You know what happened this weekend. It’s time to get the ball rolling by stripping some of these politicking churches of their tax-exempt status.

Eric Stanley appeared on the Victoria Taft Show to report on Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 4:23 mins

One News Now: Stanley says that as in previous years, ADF is in a wait-and-see mode. “… We’re still waiting to see whether the IRS is going to react, and we’ll continue to wait,” he comments. “So if they do, we will be prepared to represent these pastors and churches and to seek to have the Johnson Amendment declared unconstitutional and removed from the books once and for all.” [more]

LifeSiteNews: “America’s founders would have agreed, a pastor is the one who should determine what he says from the pulpit, not the federal government—and that is as it should be,” said Erik Stanley, who headed the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Pulpit Initiative. Participating churches ranged from Baptist, Pentecostal, and Church of Christ to Anglican, Lutheran, and United Methodist. Only 10 institutions appeared to be affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, including . . .

LifeNews: “Pastors should decide what they preach from the pulpit, not the IRS,” said Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “It’s outrageous for pastors and churches to be threatened or punished by the government for applying biblical teachings to all areas …

Joe Carter at Acton Institute Power Blog: I should clarify, however, that while I may have religious objections to preachers endorsing candidates during church services, I believe they have the right to do so. Indeed, they should be able to freely exercise those rights without having to endure government intimidation. As Stanley says in a recent op-ed, “Just as with those other rights, free speech is a constitutionally protected freedom, not a privilege that the government can grant or revoke while dangling the tax-exempt status of the speaker’s church over his head.” [more]

Article 3 Blog: The Alliance Defending Freedom hopes that these premeditated violations will provoke the IRS to take notice, and hopefully bring the issue to court. To garner attention, pastors sent send videos and text copies of their politically charged sermons directly to the IRS. Eric Stanley, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, said: The IRS has the ability and the authority to regulate [pastors’] sermons. We are giving them the opportunity to do that and if they challenge that, we will challenge that in court. It is all about creating a test case to find the Johnson amendment as unconstitutional.

Accounting Web: Now several tax-exempt organizations are taking a bold, proactive stance. The vocal Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian ministry based in Arizona that organized the first Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2008, believes the law violates First Amendment rights by muzzling the clergy. It wants to press the matter until it’s decided in court. “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group.

WorldNetDaily: Preaching about scriptural principles and applying them to the positions of candidates for public office is not “political” speech, it’s “core religious expression from a spiritual leader to his congregants.” That’s according to Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which reported today that nearly 1,600 pastors of churches across the nation participated in its Pulpit Initiative this past weekend. [more]

KCRA (CNN): Johnson’s anti-Obama sermonizing likely violated the so-called Johnson Amendment, an Internal Revenue Service rule that forbids churches that receive tax-exempt status from the federal government to intervene in “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” But Johnson appears comfortable with defying the IRS. His sermon was part of a national campaign by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization that has organized Pulpit Freedom Sunday since 2008, encouraging pastors to flout the Johnson Amendment with political endorsements from the pulpit. The IRS has the ability and the authority to regulate their sermons. We are giving them the opportunity to do that, and if they challenge that, we will challenge that in court,” said Erik Stanley, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel. “It is all about creating a test case to find the Johnson Amendment as unconstitutional.”

Non Profit Quarterly: The ADF plans to “actively represent any church or pastor who has been threatened or punished for actively speaking from the pulpit.” This event is intended to provoke the IRS into taking action so that the ADF can challenge and try to overturn the Johnson Amendment (the 1954 change in the U.S. tax code which prohibited tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates). Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for ADF, told Fox News, “The purpose is to make sure that the pastor — and not the IRS — decides what is said from the pulpit. It is a head-on constitutional challenge. We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened. We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.” . . . The final list of churches that participated in this year’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday action will soon be released by ADF.

Christian Post: Pastors and Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, who organized Pulpit Freedom Sunday, are in fact hoping to provoke the IRS and take the amendment to court so that it can be declared unconstitutional. Participating pastors recorded their sermons on Sunday to send to the IRS. “Our line is very simple – no governmental intrusion into the life of the church at all,” Garlow said on “The Colbert Report.”

CBN (includes video):
Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is behind the Pulpit Freedom Sunday, spoke more about why he believes the current law is wrong. Click play for his comments, following this report

Huffington Post (Reuters): Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, said the group was not pushing any particular political agenda and participants came from both conservative and liberal churches. However, the event in past years has tended to be dominated by evangelical fundamentalist churches and conservative causes such as opposition to abortion and gay-marriage. [more]

Nearly 1,500 pastors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have registered to participate in Alliance Defending Freedom’s fifth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Religion Clause Blog: In Zastrow v. Bullock, (D MT, Oct. 2, 2012), a Montana federal district court entered a permanent injunction with the consent of all parties barring enforcement of a Montana statute, MCA § 13-35-218(2) which provides . . .

Erik Stanley at Townhall: In other words, the arguments against Pulpit Freedom Sunday fail because the premise for those arguments is all wrong . . . But pastors who participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday are not engaging in a “political crusade.” Instead, they are simply applying Scripture and theological doctrine to the positions held by the candidates running for office. Pastors have been applying scriptural teaching to circumstances facing their congregations for centuries. This is not “political” speech. Rather, it’s core religious expression from a spiritual leader to his congregants. That kind of expression is at the very center of the freedom of speech and religion protections in the First Amendment.
The real question is this: When has the government ever been allowed to condition any government-recognized status (such as tax-exempt status) on the surrender of a constitutionally protected freedom?

Matthew J. Franck at National Review: But the historic tax exemption for churches is not predicated on their being held to some standard of apolitical conduct. It is predicated on the proposition that freedom of religion is so fundamental, and individual and institutional conscience so precious, that the state has no jurisdiction over churches, the setting in which free consciences find their space and vitality to act. At least one finds this argument strongly present in a prominent strain of the founders’ thought on freedom of religion. The state cannot tax churches, in short, because churches make a higher claim on their members than does their allegiance to the state as citizens, and the government of a free republic is formed on a recognition of this principle.

Christian Post (Oct. 5): Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) has sent out a letter purporting to explain the law regarding “electioneering by nonprofit organizations.” Those who receive it need to know it’s full of inaccuracies and misstatements and is plainly intended to intimidate churches and pastors and to sideline their voices during this election season.

Beaumont Enterprise (includes poll): On Sunday, however, at least 1,000 pastors across the nation participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an annual protest of the federal tax law that limits some political speech by religious leaders. Alliance Defending Freedom, the group organizing the event, said participants mail the IRS video or printed copies of their sermons in which they endorse candidates or parties. Alliance Defending Freedom hopes to incite a lawsuit . . .

World Mag: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) launched Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2008. They did so because it has been illegal for pastors to endorse candidates from the pulpit since Congress passed the Johnson Amendment in 1954. ADF legal counsel Erik Stanley said pastors should be able to apply “biblical teachings to all areas of life, including candidates and elections. The purpose [of this event] is to make sure that the pastor, and not the IRS, decides what is said from the pulpit.”

Examiner.com: Pastors took this move to prompt the IRS to enforce a 1954 tax code known as the Johnson Amendment proposed by the then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson that prohibits tax-exempt organizations, charities and churches from making political endorsements. “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” was organized by the conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom. The organization wants the IRS to press the matter so it can be decided in court. It believes the law violates the First Amendment by banning preachers from preaching politics from the pulpit. According to Fox News , Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group said: “The purpose is to make sure that the pastor and not the IRS decides what is said from the pulpit. It is a head-on constitutional challenge.”

Lilly Fowler at the Christian Century (Religion News Service) (Oct. 7): New procedures for conducting church audits have been pending since 2009, which has left the IRS virtually impotent in conducting any kind of new investigations. The IRS did not respond to questions seeking comment. Despite the lack of manpower, organizations such as Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal ministry that first launched “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” in 2008, say they take the IRS restriction seriously — even as they disagree with it. “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund. | Report also at the Washington Post

KOAA.com (NBC – includes video): The IRS could take it to court, and the church may have to pay their own taxes. They don’t think that will happen because of the group Alliance Defending Freedom. “To date, no churches have been challenged, but were there to be a challenge then ADF stands ready to defend,” said Pastor Cowart. Several church goers agree. “You can’t really separate church and politics because I think it’s so meshed in together,” said TJ Hanway, a church member who supports Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Randall Lord at The Town Talk: According to Erick Stanley with the Alliance Defending Freedom, “The purpose is to make sure that the pastor — and not the IRS — decides what is said from the pulpit.” As a Libertarian candidate, I’m all for their liberties, too, religious and otherwise, but these pastors are misguided. | —Randall Lord of Shreveport is a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 4th District of Louisiana.

WTVR.com: When Ron Johnson takes take his pulpit on Sunday, he will willfully break the law. After presenting his views on President Barack Obama’s handling of religious issues — like abortion, gay marriage, and religious freedom – Johnson will ask his congregation a question. “In light of what I have presented,” Johnson says he will say, “How can you go into that election booth and vote for Barack Obama as president of the United States?” . . . “The IRS has the ability and the authority to regulate their sermons. We are giving them the opportunity to do that and if they challenge that, we will challenge that in court,” said Eric Stanley, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel. “It is all about creating a test case to find the Johnson amendment as unconstitutional.”

Reuters: “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” has been staged annually since 2008 by a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom. Its aim is to provoke a challenge from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in order to file a lawsuit and have its argument out in court. The event has grown steadily in size, but the IRS has yet to respond – even though the pastors tape their sermons and mail them to the agency . . . Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, said the group was not pushing any particular political agenda and participants came from both conservative and liberal churches . . . Stanley said that if the IRS continued to ignore the speeches, it could become clear it was not enforcing the ban and hand preachers the de facto right to do as they wish from the pulpit . . . But experts who spoke to Reuters said they do not expect the agency to move against Pulpit Freedom Sunday this year, chiefly because of the absence of a new audit procedure for churches.
“If the IRS wanted to get serious about this, there are already plenty of blatant violations they could pursue,” said Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based group that monitors and informs the IRS about tax-code violations

Houston Chronicle: I live my life from a biblical perspective and God is not silent on any issue in this year’s election,” Associate Pastor Fernando Ruata told the audience. It is the fifth year Encourager has participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an annual protest of federal tax law that limits some political speech by religious leaders. Alliance Defending Freedom, the group organizing the event, said nationwide about 1,000 pastors from almost 30 denominations signed up to preach about politics, including about 65 in the Houston area.

NewsMax: Baptist Pastor Mark Harris stood before his flock in North Carolina on Sunday and joined hundreds of other religious leaders in deliberately breaking the law in an election-year campaign that tests the role of churches in politics . . . Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, said the group was not pushing any particular political agenda and participants came from both conservative and liberal churches. However, the event in past years has tended to be dominated by evangelical fundamentalist churches and conservative causes such as opposition to abortion and gay-marriage. [more]

The Blaze (includes video): “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund. [...] Today’s parishioners, he said, are starving for religious leaders to act as “the moral compass of society.” [Pastor Jim Garlow] said he’s witnessed pastors who boldly speak on political issues receive standing ovations.

WSET.com (ABC 13 includes video): A group called Alliance Defending Freedom has sponsored the movement for the past five years. The goal is to challenge a law dating back to the mid 1950s, called the Johnson Amendment.

Fox News (Oct. 7): “The purpose is to make sure that the pastor — and not the IRS — decides what is said from the pulpit,” Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group, told FoxNews.com. “It is a head-on constitutional challenge.” Stanley said pastors attending “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” will “preach sermons that will talk about the candidates running for office” and then “make a specific recommendation.” The sermons will be recorded and sent to the IRS. “We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.”

Wayne Grudem at the Christian Post: This Sunday I have agreed to join nearly 1,500 pastors nationwide and participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom. In my sermon, I plan to recommend that people vote for one presidential candidate and one political party that I will name. We will then all send our sermons to the IRS . . . I fully understand that many pastors might never want to endorse a candidate from the pulpit (I have never done so before and I might never do so again). But that should be the decision of the pastors and their churches, just as it was in 1860 when many pastors (rightly) decided they had to tell citizens to vote for Abraham Lincoln in order to end the horrible evil of slavery. When the government censors what pastors can preach, I think it is an unconstitutional violation of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/why-i-am-participating-in-pulpit-freedom-sunday-82838/#ymKj3kGtMOKhmdT6.99

GalesburgPlanet.com: In recent years, some have voiced strong oppo­sition to these limits, espe­cially as they are applied to reli­gious groups, arguing that they amount to an unfair abridgement of free speech. Indeed, since 2008, the conser­v­ative Christian advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) has orga­nized Pulpit Freedom Sunday, a date on which the group encourages pastors to speak out on election-related issues.1 | Links to the Pew Report

Journal Gazette (Bloomberg Editorial View): “No pastor has been punished or threatened with punishment by the IRS for participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” wrote Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group backing the protest. And that, Stanley told FoxNews.com last week, is precisely the problem. “We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. “We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.” Stanley might be surprised. This is not a battle for free speech – in the pulpit or out.

Daily Beast: Boosted by dutiful Fox News coverage and an always-zeitgeisty endorsement from Mike Huckabee, the fifth annual “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” will culminate in copies of hundreds of illegal sermons being mailed to the IRS to challenge its restriction on tax-exempt organizations endorsing political candidates. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian-right group behind the protest, “the future of religious freedom” depends on your pastor being allowed to tell you how to vote . . . The pointlessness of the Johnson Amendment does not, however, make Pulpit Freedom Sunday a righteous cause. Contrary to the ADF’s apocalyptic rhetoric, the electioneering restriction does approximately zero harm to religious freedom. In fact, it might as well not exist: in the five years since Pulpit Freedom Sunday began, the IRS has been essentially saying, We don’t give a damn what you say in your sermon. The agency has ignored the protest, and its officials have consistently downplayed its interest in prosecuting churches for illegal campaigning. The IRS’s internal bar for beginning an electioneering-related audited is extraordinarily high. Ironically, IRS action against electioneering churches has been so nonexistent that the Pulpit Freedom pastors are complaining about how little the agency enforces the law. “It’s frustrating,” an ADF lawyer told The New York Times in 2011. “The law is on the books but they don’t enforce it.”

The Town Talk (Oct. 7): That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom started Pulpit Freedom Sunday, to protect a pastor’s right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing government censorship or control,” the response letter states. “After all, it’s the job of the pastor and the church leadership not the IRS to decide what is said from the pulpit. No pastor should ever fear IRS censorship or punishment when he stands in the pulpit to preach.”

IBTimes.com: The Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, began organizing its “Pulpit Free Sunday” in 2008 in response to the IRS regulation. The ADF is a Christian legal ministry that specializes in taking cases where they believe “religious liberty” is at stake, most notably in defense of businesses or organizations that discriminate against gays and lesbians . . . “The IRS has the ability and authority to regulate their sermons. We are giving them the opportunity to do that and if they challenge that, we will challenge that in court,” Stanley told CNN. “It is all about creating a test case to find the Johnson amendment as unconstitutional.” . . . CNN reports ADF, which some critics have accused of being a Republican front group, was unable to put them in touch with a church that plans to endorse President Barack Obama this Sunday.

Kelly Phillips Erb at Forbes: So far, this election has been tame by comparison. That may change this weekend: this Sunday, October 7, marks “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” The event, which is the brainchild of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Alliance Defending Freedom (previously called the Alliance Defense Fund), is a call for pastors to speak from the pulpit and to address specific candidates, issues and politics head on. The sermons will be taped and sent to the IRS – kind of like a big dare. ADF is not only hoping for but seeking a response from the IRS. The goal is to challenge a revocation of status in the courts as against freedom of speech and freedom of religion. [more]

U-T San Diego: “My confidence is not in Republicans or Democrats. My confidence is not in Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. I don’t believe either party or either person can provide ultimately to America what is needed,” Garlow said. “I have strong confidence, extremely strong confidence, that biblical principles, if they are followed, can turn a nation in deep trouble around. And we are in a moral and economic free fall.” He added: “My energy is going to be talking about what are the biblical issues at stake in this year’s election. It will include the national debt, economic principles, concern for the poor, the definition of marriage, abortion and the understanding of productivity in free enterprise.” . . . Representatives for the Alliance Defending Freedom and others said they believe the provision violates the First Amendment. The organization hopes the IRS will take action, ultimately landing the issue in court, where it could be challenged as unconstitutional.

TheTownTalk.com: The alliance responded with a letter, signed “Erik W. Stanley, Senior Legal Counsel,” which states that Americans United’s letter is “intended to intimidate churches and pastors into silence.” “That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom started Pulpit Freedom Sunday, to protect a pastor’s right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing government censorship or control,” the response letter states. “After all, it’s the job of the pastor and the church leadership not the IRS to decide what is said from the pulpit. No pastor should ever fear IRS censorship or punishment when he stands in the pulpit to preach.”

STLToday: About 1,400 ministers draw a line at their pulpits to bring down tax collector’s decree that penalizes churches daring to talk politics or endorse issues . . . “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund.

KJRH.com: When Ron Johnson takes take his pulpit on Sunday, he will willfully break the law. After presenting his views on President Barack Obama’s handling of religious issues — like abortion, gay marriage, and religious freedom – Johnson will ask his congregation a question.
“In light of what I have presented,” Johnson says he will say, “How can you go into that election booth and vote for Barack Obama as president of the United States?” . . . The goal: Force the IRS to come down on these churches so that the Alliance Defending Freedom, whose network includes 2,200 attorneys, can test the Johnson Amendment’s constitutionality. “The IRS has the ability and the authority to regulate their sermons. We are giving them the opportunity to do that and if they challenge that, we will challenge that in court,” said Eric Stanley, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel. “It is all about creating a test case to find the Johnson amendment as unconstitutional.”

KSN.com (includes video): The fifth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday is being organized by the Alliance Defending Freedom. “Many morale indicators show that our nation is going down the tubes in a lot of ways,” said Word of Life Church pastor Rob Rotola. “If the church can’t be the moral voice of the nation, than who’s going to do it” . . . “The concept of separation of church and state meant that the state was to keep out of the affairs of the church, not that the church was supposed to be silent about things about the state,” said Rotola.

The Christian Post: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released a guide for religious bodies regarding the extent to which politics can be propagated from the pulpit. Entitled “Preaching Politics From the Pulpit” and released on Tuesday, it is the third guide on the topic that Pew has released . . . “The First Amendment prohibits the government from enacting laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. A pastor preaching a sermon from the pulpit is one of the core activities of the free exercise of religion,” wrote Erik Stanley of ADF on a blog. “Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a head-on constitutional challenge to the Johnson Amendment, which is blatantly unconstitutional. This unjust law, which never should have been applied to churches and pastors, has had a devastating effect on their constitutionally protected rights.”

Zack Plair at Paragould Daily Press: Politics in general have no place in the pulpit, and I was encouraged, if not a bit surprised, by the number of local pastors representing churches from diverse denominations who clearly took that stance during interviews this week with The Daily Press about the national Pulpit Freedom Sunday movement . . . In fact, all of the pastors interviewed for Thursday’s story expressed unwillingness to participate in the mass movement scheduled to make landfall this Sunday, and the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is sponsoring the pulpit event, never provided any information indicating that any Greene County churches would participate. One local minister, acting First United Methodist Church pastor Angie Gage, told The Daily Press she thought there needed to be a line between religion and politics, and endorsing a candidate in the pulpit would be a misuse of her position . . . But the government in this case is misusing its position, too, and violating the First Amendment by trying to dictate to a certain degree what can be said in church pulpits.

Salon: This Sunday, around 1,400 pastors plan to make political endorsements in defiance of IRS laws about tax-exempt institutions, in an effort called “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.”

Philantropy Today: Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona group backing the effort.

Tim Suttle at Patheos: This Sunday morning hundreds of pastors will participate in what is being called, “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” The program is the creation of a conservative political action group called the Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund (you can read a little bit about them here). The agenda behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday is to entice pastors to openly endorse a presidential candidate from their pulpit during a Sunday morning worship service, then to send evidence of the endorsement to the IRS, hoping that the IRS will bring a case against the church to revoke their non-profit status . . . I think Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a really bad idea. For one thing, it’s a rude intrusion of Pharaoh’s government into the sacred space of the worship of the one true God.

Raymond Billy at Daily Progress: The Alliance Defending Freedom has encouraged pastors to contact them for legal counsel if their political speech comes under IRS scrutiny. Rev. R.G. Ericson, pastor of First Christian Church, said ministry leaders should avoid speaking on campaign issues unless they and their organizations are willing to accept the penalty for doing so. “If pastors do choose to speak out in violation of those IRS requirements, I think that the consequences for any kind of civil disobedience are that you have to deal with the ramifications,” Ericson, 63, said. “The churches pay no income tax. If they want to start paying taxes on their income, they can speak out the way any other business person can speak out.”

Huffington Post: “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund.

CBN (includes video): “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” the ADF attorney Erik Stanley said.

Gerald L. Zelizer at Livingston Daily: Clergy are becoming more aggressive in publicly endorsing political candidates in this year’s election, a trend that has no place in our churches. On Sunday, many pastors will endorse political candidates from their pulpits. They will be part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday, sponsored by the conservative, nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom.

One News Now: Erik Stanley, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, supports the event. “Pulpit Freedom Sunday has really become a nationwide movement of pastors who are reclaiming their constitutional right to decide what is said from their pulpits — and to not be intimidated when they stand and proclaim biblical truth, even in the realm of politics and in candidates and elections,” says Stanley. “These pastors are believing that politicians should not get a free pass from moral and biblical scrutiny during election season.” [more]

Anugrah Kumar at the Christian Post (Oct. 8): “Pastors should decide what they preach from the pulpit, not the IRS,” Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley said in the statement. “It’s outrageous for pastors and churches to be threatened or punished by the government for applying biblical teachings to all areas of life, including candidates and elections. The question is, ‘Who should decide the content of sermons: pastors or the IRS?’”

Erik Stanley on GraceNet Radio’s Vocal Point with Jerry Newcombe to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday.| MP3 audio 27:13 mins

Erik Stanley appeared on The Greg Davis Show to discuss the Pulpit Initiative. | MP3 audio 20:35 mins

WBRZ.com (video embedded): The group called Alliance Defending Freedom is asking preachers to deliver a political sermon this Sunday. The Family of Faith Church of Baton Rouge is one of 32 churches that have already signed up; even though the pastors know that they could see trouble come tax time. “All through college and all through seminary that’s what I heard. You can’t speak on political issues because if you do, you lose your tax exempt status for your church and your members can’t take their tithes,” says Family of Faith Church pastor Joel Davis.

Fox 5 San Diego (video embedded): Hundreds of local pastors plan to break the law. record their actions and then send the proof to the authorities. “We feel this is totally the right thing to do,” said Pastor Chris Clark with East Clairemont Baptist Church.

WorldNetDaily: The Alliance Defending Freedom contends the AU letter is misleading and disingenuous, explaining that the church in New York had its “determination letter” revoked, not its “tax exempt” status. The distinction is crucial, ADF told WND, because there was basically no effect on the church from this IRS action. Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for Americans Defending Freedom, told WND that churches don’t need a determination letter from the IRS to be considered tax-exempt. “IRS section 508(c)1 (a) automatically exempts churches, and no advance determination letter is necessary,” he explained.

Bloomberg Editors: No pastor has been punished or threatened with punishment by the IRS for participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” wrote Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group backing the protest. And that, Stanley told FoxNews.com last week, is precisely the problem. “We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.”

LifeSiteNews (video embedded): Pastors of America are “not instructing people about how the bible applies to the national life of the voting electorate,” says Pastor Jim Garlow in a video about Pulpit Freedom Sunday featured at iPledgeSunday, an event held last month by the Family Research Council in Charlotte, North Carolina. Garlow, who has been involved in the event since its inception, is the pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego, California.

Speak Up Movement has embedded the short clip.

Eric Stanley appears in the short video embedded at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog. | PulpitFreedom.org

Erik Stanley on the Bill Post Radio Show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 15:35 mins

Erik Stanley on Called2Action with Steve Noble to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 15:36 mins

Steve Siebold at the Huffington Post: An army of more than 1,000 pastors from around the country will take on the IRS this coming Sunday by participating in what’s being called “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” Under the Johnson Amendment, tax-exempt organizations, including churches, are not allowed to endorse any candidate running for elective public office. The real issue behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday is whether or not free speech reigns irrefutably over tax-exempt organizations, or should groups such as churches be permitted to make political recommendations to its members? And beyond that, the even larger question is why are churches still classified as tax-exempt? . . . It’s time for the government to stop subsidizing religion and phase out this special privilege of tax-exemptions to churches. Pastors and church leaders need to make a choice: feel free to talk politics all they want from the pulpit, but be willing to pay the consequences.

Maureen McDermott Gill at Journal Tribune: This Sunday, Oct. 7, is “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” a nationwide event sponsored by the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization providing legal services to churches and individuals who want “greater religious freedom,” as they say. What these churches really want, however, is the unbridled freedom to influence American politics. Unlike the rest of us, who are allowed to express opinions about American politics, work for certain candidates, and attempt to influence others to our way of thinking, churches want to do it without making any monetary contributions to actually run the government that protects their freedoms. Pursuant to the IRS, churches are exempted from taxation – provided they stay the hell out of politics. The churches don’t like that . . . As far as I’m concerned, the clergy of any denomination can say whatever they want, but I don’t want to subsidize them to do so.

Pastor Jim Garlow and Erik Stanley appeared on Wallbuilders Live to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 21:54 mins | What is the Black Robed Regiment?

Erik Stanley on WYDE with Lee Davis to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio mins 21:27

Erik Stanley Appeared on Stand Up for the Truth Mike LeMay and Amy Spreeman to discuss the Pulpit Initiative. | MP3 audio 21 mins

More than 1,200 pastors to dispute unconstitutional tax rule
as part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday

Jim Garlow appeared on Koinonia (KPXQ) with Tom Brown to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 12:37 mins

Erik Stanley appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 6:12 mins