Back in January, thirty-one Columbus-area clergymen signed a letter addressed to IRS commissioner Mark W. Everson. The letter asserted, with massive supporting documentation, that two central Ohio megachurches -- Rod Parsley's World Harvest Church and Russell Johnson's Fairfield Christian Church -- were in gross violation of IRS rules governing political activity by non-profit organizations.
Not only had they repeatedly endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell from the pulpit, they had also created two de facto political action committees (Reformation Ohio and the Ohio Restoration Project), that enjoyed the legal status of churches thanks to rulings by the Ohio Secretary of State, who not so coincidentally happened to be Ken Blackwell. The event made national headlines, Parsley and Johnson affected to be victims of persection, and Blackwell urged them not to be intimidated by "those thirty-one bullies."
Parsley and Johnson continued their tactics, even after the IRS commissioner showed up in Ohio to offer a thinly-veiled warning that they were out of line. In April the clergy -- now numbering fifty-six -- filed a second complaint. As this second complaint, like the first, was prepared with the help of attorney Mark Owens, former Director of Exempt Organizations for the IRS, it almost certainly triggered an IRS investigation. But since the IRS has a policy of not commenting on on-going investigations, and since the two Christian Right PACs are still steaming full speed ahead, it's hard to be sure.
I'm in kind of a unique position to watch this drama unfold. I happen to attend the church that organized the initial complaint and my pastor, Eric Williams, was and continues to be the main spokesman for what Parsley et al. must regard as the Gang of 31, now the Gang of 56. The issue remains important, despite Ken Blackwell's apparently flagging fortunes, because the partisan political abuses of churches on the Christian Right are quite substantial and widespread. But none are as blatant as World Harvest/Reformation Ohio and Fairfield Christian/Ohio Restoration Project. If these groups are curbed, it'll send a decisive signal to cease and desist. If not, the IRS proscriptions against churches engaging in partisan political activity are a dead letter.
Maybe they deserve to be. The rule came into being in the first place not because of reasoned debate, but because in the mid-1950s Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson was getting hounded by a non-profit organization and managed to get the proscription shoe-horned into the IRS code. But for the present, the law is the law and ought to be enforced.
Apparently it is -- selectively. From the April 29 Boston Globe:
But now that the IRS is cracking down, some observers say enforcement is politically motivated.
Marcus Owens, the former head of tax-exempt division of the IRS, said he believes the agency is cracking down on groups that help Democrats, and he questioned whether it is also going after those that benefit Republicans.
Owens represents two organizations that have acknowledged being audited by the IRS for political activity: the NAACP and a California church.
The NAACP said the IRS is investigating the civil rights organization because its chairman, Julian Bond, condemned the president's policies on Iraq, education, and the economy. Bond has maintained that he did not violate the prohibition on political activity, saying in a statement that ''We've criticized, condemned and/or praised every president since Theodore Roosevelt and we'll continue to speak truth to power."
Similarly, the All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, Calif., has said it is being audited because its former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, gave a sermon in October 2004 titled ''If Jesus debated Senator Kerry and President Bush." Regas said during that sermon, ''Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine."
The IRS sent a letter to the church that announced an investigation on grounds that ''a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church" because of political statements. The letter was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
The IRS declined to comment on both cases, which are pending.
Owens questioned whether the IRS is being as aggressive in going after churches or other charities that helped Bush. ''Certainly the Republican Party was very aggressive in using charities to marshal voters in the last election," Owens said.
A number of "mainline" or "liberal" churches in my area -- choose your label -- have begun to adopt the same politically activist stance as Reformation Ohio and the Ohio Restoration Project. Early this year Rev. Tim Ahrens, pastor of one of Columbus' most venerable Congregational churches, launched We Believe, which basically exists to battle RO and the ORP at their own game while remaining within IRS guidelines.
My own church, North Congregational United Church of Christ, has gotten involved with We Believe. It has also become engaged in having a dialogue about the appropriate relationship between religious faith and partisan politics. At the moment some of its members are organizing a forum on the subject to be held in a capacious downtown theater on October 8.
This forum will examine all sides of the rising debate over church involvement in political campaigns, within the strategic swing state of Ohio and nationally. There will be six panel participants, and they're pretty heavy hitters. They include:
Phil Burress, Executive Director of Citizens for Community Values, a Cincinnati-based grass roots organization whose stated mission is: "to promote Judeo-Christian moral values, and to reduce destructive behaviors contrary to those values, through education, active community partnership, and individual empowerment at the local, state and national levels." Mr. Burress and CVS led the successful 2004 Ohio constitutional amendment ballot initiative that bans same-sex marriage.
John Green, Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. He also serves as Director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron. Dr. Green has done extensive research on American religious communities and politics.
Barry Lynn, Executive Director, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a non-partisan, non-sectarian organization which since 1947 has defended separation of church and state in the courts, educated legislators, and worked with the media to inform Americans about religious freedom issues and organize local chapters all over the country.
Marcus Owens, counsel to All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, California and -- as I mentioned -- the former Director, Exempt Organizations, Internal Revenue Service, who was instrumental in formulating a recent complaint to the IRS concerning questionable partisan political activities by two central Ohio churches.
Jay Sekolow, Director of the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based organization that specializes in constitutional law and has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Through its work in the courts and the legislative arena, the ACLJ is dedicated to protecting religious and constitutional freedoms.
And finally my pastor, Eric Williams, the lead spokesperson for the fifty-six central Ohio religious leaders who sent those letters of complaint to the IRS.
If you're a purely secular person, this may strike you as no big deal. But if you're at all faith-based, I think you can probably see why this matters -- why the abuse of the law and selective enforcement of the law must cease, and why people of faith need to figure out how to participate collectively in the political issues of the day while retaining the features that give their faith integrity.