Growing up, I went to a politically active church that frequently had politicians visit. My pastor recognized them as visitors during the announcements, but he did not invite them to speak. He usually said the same thing: “I have my political opinions, but I won’t say them here. Ask me outside of church.” His stance was in line with an IRS regulation dating to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, which said nonprofit organizations, including churches, could not endorse political candidates. The IRS recently changed its rules to allow houses of worship to make such endorsements. But as a pastor of a church and a professor who teaches future ministers at a divinity school, I hope my fellow clergy won’t act on this new freedom.
This is not to say that churches should remain altogether silent on politics. I was raised in the southern Black church tradition, which did not have the luxury of separating spiritual and political matters. Our churches came into existence when slavery was the law of the land. My ancestors were forced to answer the question: Were the laws of enslavement what God intended for our people? I am grateful for those who said that God willed abolition and liberation, for those who took a political question—how to understand slavery—and answered it theologically. “The Church should concern itself solely with spiritual matters” can be uttered only by those whose ancestors never felt the sting of the whip and the chain.
Bearing witness against unjust laws is essential. Endorsing candidates, however, is likely to be destructive. Over the past two decades, I have served in churches on three continents and weighed in on political issues in print and from the pulpit. But I have never felt that making direct affirmations of political candidates was necessary to serve my congregations well. I don’t want my members to believe that being faithful to God entails voting in exactly the same way as their pastor.
The difference between making moral judgments and endorsing candidates may seem slight, but it respects the conscience and liberty of laypeople. Very few candidates tick all the moral boxes of any religious tradition. Voting involves considering the office to which a person is elected and the types of influence that they could have on a given issue. Christians of goodwill can weigh these matters and come to divergent conclusions. Believers may decide to refrain from voting or choose a third party because, in their view, neither majority candidate is acceptable. To believe that churches can direct the laity on how to vote, whether for members of the school board or for the president of the country, is to deny the Christian teaching that all humans are made in the image of God and can understand and follow his will themselves.
The IRS justified its change by saying that pastoral endorsements are “like a family discussion concerning candidates.” Although the Church often describes itself as a family, the analogy does not hold when it comes to endorsements. Many churches livestream their services on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. The only families that broadcast their dinners to thousands of people are on reality TV. If a large, influential church endorses candidates, it will not be a family matter; it will be national news. This in turn could put pressure on other churches to issue counter-endorsements. Remaining neutral might be seen as a stance in itself. Pastors of churches large and small run the risk of being drawn into endorsement wars.
Pastoral endorsements heighten American political divisions. Studies have long shown that Democrats and Republicans tend to get their information from separate media outlets and to run in different social circles. Churches are among the few places attempting to gather people from across the political spectrum. Endorsements, however, may lead congregants to attend churches that support their favored candidates, turning a previously neutral gathering space into a politically charged one.
Because of these risks, some Christian denominations resist making political endorsements regardless of what the government allows. The Catholic Church, for example, teaches that the Church, “because of her commission and competence, is not to be confused in any way with the political community.” To keep that distinction clear, Catholic clergy are usually prohibited from running for political office. Nonetheless, priests and other church officials are free to make “moral judgments” on political matters.
Endorsing candidates would be not an expansion of the Church’s work, but a reduction. When the Catholic saint Thomas More was martyred for running afoul of King Henry VIII, he was credited with saying, “I die the King’s good servant and God’s first.” The point being, the Church is most useful to the state when it reminds the government of the limits of its authority.
I do not believe that Donald Trump’s IRS, with its regulation change, was motivated by a desire to help the Church serve God and love our neighbors well. Instead, I believe that the government thinks the new policy will be politically useful, even if it weakens relationships and threatens the health of our communities. The change is an attempt to get pastors to use the pulpit for ends for which it was never intended—a temptation we would do better to resist.
