Rats in the Pews

WASHINGTON BUREAU: Terry Mattingly’s religion column for 9/29/04

Call it church-state espionage.

Unitarians and other activists on the religious left have been slipping into evangelical pews to endure altar calls, praise songs and sermons against gay marriage. The Kansas-based Mainstream Coalition has a simple reason for doing this. If preachers openly endorse President Bush, its agents can report these crimes to the IRS.

Reacting to these watchdogs on the left, the Religious Freedom Action Coalition promptly launched Big Brother Church Watch — www.ratoutachurch.org — to infiltrate churches that might back Sen. John Kerry. Big Brother agents will, for starters, target Unitarian Universalists, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church.

The good news is that this strategy may increase church attendance, quipped the Rev. James L. Evans of the First Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala.

“Reports from both groups seem to indicate that the monitors will be going out two by two,” said Evans, in a satirical essay for the University of Chicago’s Martin Marty Center. “Monitoring pairs could easily become monitoring teams. We could witness the rise of monitoring communities. …

“Liturgies will most surely be altered: Monitor your neighbor as you would have your neighbor monitor you.”

That’s one point of view. Obviously, activists on both sides are pushing the legal envelope in a campaign bathed in religious disputes since day one. Both sides are, for example, paranoid about White House strategist Karl Rove’s favorite statistic — 4 million Christian conservatives failed to vote in 2000.

Lawyers on left and right have issued guides for clergy who want to know what they can and cannot do without provoking the wrath of the IRS.

“Lots of people are trying to walk the razor’s edge,” said Melissa Rogers of Wake Forest University, who helped guide the “Politics and the Pulpit” project at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “They may think they’re just on the safe side of the line. But when you take such an aggressive stance, you’re sure to raise eyebrows. …

“Church leaders have to ask themselves, ‘Do we really want to be the case that proves precisely where the line is?’ ”

One thing is clear. Since 1954, the Internal Revenue Code has said that religious leaders and organizations have every right to speak out on moral and religious issues and to do so using religious language and images, she said. Where they may cross the line is connecting these doctrinal pronouncements to specific political parties and candidates. The same laws apply to non-religious 501(c) (3) groups that are tax exempt.

Pastors can preach on biblical issues such as homosexuality and abortion and urge their flocks to be politically active. Churches can lead voter-registration efforts, if they do not discriminate, and host multi-candidate forums. Pastors can personally endorse political candidates, as long as they do not do so on behalf of their churches.

What is forbidden? Days before the 1992 election, the Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, N.Y., ran a full-page USA Today advertisement that said, “Christians Beware: Do not put the economy ahead of the Ten Commandments.” It cited scriptures about sexual morality and noted the Democratic candidate’s support for abortion rights, gay rights and the distribution of condoms in public schools. The church also appealed for tax-exempt donations.

The punch line was blunt: “How then can we vote for Bill Clinton?”

The IRS said this attack on a specific candidate clearly constituted forbidden political activity.

Nevertheless, a major voice in debates about politics and the pulpit has infuriated the church-state legal establishment by challenging churches to test these laws.

“Although the IRS states that a pastor may not personally endorse a candidate while in the pulpit, I believe such a restriction is unconstitutional,” said Liberty Counsel President Matthew Staver, an advisor to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. “No pastor has ever been targeted by the IRS for giving a personal endorsement from the pulpit. My recommendation is that if the pastor wants to personally endorse a candidate, he should feel free to do so.”

After all, the Church at Pierce Creek is the only congregation that has been punished in any way under this IRS code, said Staver, in a set of clergy guidelines.

“This history alone should alleviate unfounded fear,” he said.

Terry Mattingly teaches at Palm Beach Atlantic University and is senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. He writes this weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

* * For a CARTOON illustrating this report, go here.