If nothing else it would keep them from actually saying "You must vote for X" and diplaying electoral posters.
It could even happen that somebody high in a decision chain ends up claiming "we don't care they can do whatever they want" which could be a minor scalndal.
From the size of a parking lot to whether a browser can be included in an OS. To express an opinion on such things is an act of political activism.
Abortion, gun contol, vim. Which one is not political? Which one is not a matter of religion?
I'm also open to discussions of a flat tax and abolishing food tax and lots of other tax ideas. Including allowing tax deductions for charitable giving and tax exemptions for lots of things. I'm ok with allowing some, but I see the room for abuse. We'll never eliminate all abuse and we'll never get everything exactly fair. But we can keep making tweaks in the never-ending pursuit.
You can’t, because the IRS steadfastly refuses to pursue these violations. I’m an active lifetime member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; and through our organization these near-constant occurrences of political endorsement by churches have been reported numerous times. To no avail.
To make matters worse, clergy in the U.S. often receive a large portion of their income as a housing allowance which is not taxable, as I understand it. But the majority of course still take their mortgage interest deduction. It’s a racket.
The question becomes: Are the umbrella organizations paying the ministers just the bare minimum to keep them on? So if the tax breaks are stopped, will the church organization cover the new difference, or lose the ministers?
It might still be a racket where the ministers are also getting screwed. The benefit of the tax breaks may not go to the minister who receives the tax break, but instead benefit the archdiocese/convention/council/conference/synod/assembly/convocation/etc who pays
(Some Protestant churches do have national structures, true, but you’re not often hearing about Lutherans doing things)
But even if everyone tollerates the authorities turning a blind eye to the issue many would not tollerate the autorities making it an official policy or slipping up and saying stuff like "a church could run for office for all I care".
The state is protecting churches in ways it should not; you likely cannot defeat this protection, but you can put pressure on the state so that it will be harder/riskier to keep doing it.[1]
[0] at a trend level, or at least for the well connected churches with armies of lawyers.
[1] I must warn that this is close to declaring a war (on a very small scale) and as such you could come out in a worse position than when you started.
I grew up in the south and have been in different churches for most of my life. Outside of supporting soldiers and an occasional American flag in church I’ve only seen a preacher get political once in my entire life. Even that was roundabout too.
Yep.
Anti-Trump Example #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtrxQyf4XrM
Anti-Trump Example #2 (church leader was correctly fired for this): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h098Z6g6pCE
Anti-Democrat Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1AlrvZr95k (Threatens to exile people who vote Democrat from the church)
Anti-Biden/Harris Example: https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-greg-locke-says-biden-demon-...
Pro-Trump/Pence Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d24BfefW8M
Local politics example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAcHN-dqpSc
I picked a variety for illustrative purposes. But there's a bit more to the stories: https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/29320-ffrf-sues-tru... This type of "using the official church to endorse/condemn specific candidates and parties" happens all the time, and isn't limited to national politics.