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Should Churches Endorse Political Candidates?

Should Churches Endorse Political Candidates?

Last updated on: October 8, 2026 at 11:07 pm by Richard Ostling

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Should Churches Endorse Political Candidates? 2026-10-08T23:07:49-04:00 Richard Ostling

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THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER graphic

Amid a highly charged election season, federal court filings last month will help define what could develop into a landmark decision on what American law allows on this question. And we have good 2026 polling on what the American populace thinks about this.

President Eisenhower signed a law 72 years ago that included the “Johnson Amendment,” named for Senator and later President Lyndon, which Congress had passed without controversy. It changed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) policy by granting tax exemption to a church or other non-profit organization only on the condition that it “does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” That does not forbid distributing voter information or taking stands on public issues.

Johnson’s concept is popular across the board. A Pew Research Center poll last April asked whether churches and other houses of worship should openly favor a candidate for public office. A decisive 79% said no, replicating the 77% and 76% saying the same in two prior Pew polls. There was a modest partisan difference, with 84% of Democrats and those “leaning” Democratic holding that view versus 74% among Republicans. Among religious groups, 66% of white evangelical Protestants and 65% of Black Protestants opposed endorsements, compared with 84% or higher marks among non-evangelical Protestants, Catholics, and those without religious affiliations. (Note: This poll featured a large sample of 3,592, a high response rate, and a low 1.9-point margin of error.)

Violations

Yet violations persist. A 2022 investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune complained that “the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen about publicly backing candidates,” reporting they identified 18 congregations that backed candidates without consequence. Then again, Black churches may avoid explicit endorsements but often invite Democratic candidates to appear at Sunday worship during campaigns.

An activist faction among conservative evangelicals has long objected that the Johnson ban improperly limits the freedoms of speech and religion. National Religious Broadcasters, the trade group for evangelical media ministries; Intercessors for America, which sponsors local prayer meetings on behalf of the nation; and two Texas congregations jointly filed a protest lawsuit and won a partial victory last year. The Trump Administration’s IRS settled the case with a consent decree that removes the ban “when a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation, through its customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith.” In other words, preachers gained a Sunday morning carveout.

Last March, a judge in the federal district court for eastern Texas rejected that settlement on technical grounds of jurisdiction, keeping the Johnson ban in place. That decision is now on appeal to the federal Fifth Circuit court based in New Orleans. On September 21, civil tax specialists with the Trump Department of Justice filed a brief asserting among other things that IRS enforcement of the endorsement ban “would run headlong into the church autonomy doctrine, which prevents civil courts from adjudicating ecclesiastical matters.”

Interference

That doctrine was established by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1871 Watson v. Jones decision involving a property dispute among Presbyterians over a split on slavery. It declared that secular courts deal only with neutral contractual matters and cannot interfere with a religion’s beliefs and governance. That was decided on the basis of common law, but the High Court later made it a Constitutional principle. A recent application came in 2012 with the Court’s unanimous Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. E.E.O.C. ruling that secular employment laws cannot interfere with the internal business of religious groups.

A September 28 filing by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a major player supporting the Johnson ban, argues vigorously that the church autonomy principle should not apply. This group believes “tax exemption is a privilege, a matter of grace rather than right,” and Johnson “does not restrict political speech; it simply does not subsidize such speech with tax benefits.” It says activist churches can either surrender their right to tax-deductible donations under tax code section 401(c)(3) or else form a separate 401(c)(4) advocacy group that’s free to campaign but without deductible donations.

Simultaneously, Americans United sent a protest letter to the nominal defendant, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, joined by, among others, the National Council of Churches, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Reform Judaism’s synagogue union, and the League of Women Voters. This coalition believes the IRS bid to weaken Johnson “ threatens to erode public trust, risk policy capture by special interests, and dilute regulatory oversight. . . . Houses of worship are spaces where members of communities can come together, not be divided along political lines.”

Backlash? Backfire?

If federal courts, and potentially the Supreme Court, allow candidate endorsements by tax-exempt charities, religious bodies must then decide whether intensified political partisanship would be healthy for their own missions. No doubt certain zealous churches whose partisan devotion functions as dogma will participate. But many will no doubt fear a backlash in light of public feeling seen in the poll reported above. Individual religious figures would remain free to sound off on candidates if disclaimers make clear they are not speaking for their organizations, which remain strictly non-partisan.

There’s the possibility that a victory would backfire on conservatives. Whatever the voting pattern among the members, white evangelical Protestant churches traditionally focused on spiritual matters and criticized activism by more liberal Protestants. That heritage remains strong, according to intensive research on 5,333 U.S. religious congregations by Duke University sociologists. Leaving aside candidate endorsements, other political activities were engaged in as follows by local congregations in the main Christian categories: 82% of Black Protestant churches, 81% for Catholics, 52% for “Mainline” (non-evangelical) Protestants, and only 43% for the evangelicals — the least politicized segment despite endless news articles on their politically minded preachers.

Technicalities: The Johnson ban raises central questions on churches’ role in society, government control over churches, free speech and religious “free exercise.” But in addition, this case involves the Administrative Procedure Act, Anti-Injunction Act, standing to sue, whether claims are “ripe” enough for court treatment, the clear-statement test, sovereign immunity, subject-matter jurisdiction, and the 1962 Williams Packing case precedent regarding the likelihood a legal claim will prevail.

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