6 hours ago
3
Before it went wrong, The Rev. Jonathan Barker’s plan was to stand up last Sunday at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wis. and do something that had been off limits for 70 years.
He would endorse a political candidate from the pulpit.
Federal law bars churches from making endorsements, but last month the I.R.S. appeared to create an exception, saying the law should not apply to preachers speaking to their own congregations.
Pastor Barker, an outspoken liberal, was ready for the change. He had written a sermon urging Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, to run for president in 2028.
His denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was not so ready.
As a result, when Sunday came, Pastor Barker was no longer the pastor of Grace Lutheran.
He still gave his sermon, saying Ms. Ocasio-Cortez would be a “what-would-Jesus-do candidate.” But he was speaking to nine people in a borrowed event space, after abruptly resigning his post last Thursday. His former church went on without him — and without any endorsements — across town.
Image
The odd battle that played out last week over one sermon for one Lutheran congregation in Kenosha, an industrial city on Lake Michigan, was an illustration of the sharply different ways that American churches have responded to the I.R.S.’s surprise reinterpretation of the decades-old law. It may have also foreshadowed many similar fights to come.
The fight was set in motion by a lawsuit that two Texas churches and a group of religious broadcasters filed against the I.R.S. last year, seeking to invalidate a 1954 law called the Johnson Amendment. That law, introduced by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, said that churches and charities could lose their tax-exempt status if they endorsed candidates for office. The plaintiffs said it was an unconstitutional limit on free speech.
After President Trump took office, the I.R.S. agreed to settle the case, and gave the plaintiffs a partial victory. It said the ban should no longer apply if churches endorse candidates to their own congregations, in connection with a worship service.
The statement was vague, and lacked the force of law. But because the I.R.S. is the agency that enforces the ban, many regarded it as a clear signal that churches could now endorse from the pulpit.
Some conservative churches, urged on by Mr. Trump, interpreted the statement as a green light to plunge into political activism. An arm of the Southern Baptist Convention said the I.R.S. statement would allow “religious leaders to minister more effectively to their congregations.” The Family Research Council, an advocacy group that promotes conservative values, is already trying to organize 18,000 pastors for next year’s midterm elections.
But leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and some mainline Protestant denominations, including the Evangelical Lutherans, have told their pastors to refrain from endorsements, maintaining their earlier practices. Many said they worried that endorsing candidates would drive away members, and drag their divine lessons into the mud of earthly politics.
“It’s never been about whether or not I’m going to lose my tax-exempt status,” said The Rev. Bonnie A. Perry, an Episcopal Bishop overseeing the Detroit area. “It’s whether I’m going to lose my prophetic status.”
Bishop Perry told her churches that the old no-endorsements policy was still in place. “Let’s not be wussy about this. When we see sin, then name it,” she said. “But I think it limits me, if somebody believes that I am tied to a candidate or political party.”
Last month, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also said its church would still not endorse or oppose political candidates. An agency of the United Methodist Church also said it still strongly opposed endorsements.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the more liberal of the two main American Presbyterian branches, as evidenced by its ordination of female ministers and its support for gay marriage. The denomination has not issued new guidance about endorsements. The Rev. Jihyun Oh, the chief ecclesial officer of the denomination, said its longtime goal has been to talk about issues, not candidates.
The power of the pulpit should not be used to make free debate feel unsafe, Rev. Oh said. She added: “Just because we can would not necessarily mean that we should endorse.”
Many denominations also had legal worries.
The I.R.S. statement was vague, and left many questions unanswered. Who exactly counts as a church’s congregation? What about endorsements made in televised worship services, or sermons posted on YouTube for the world to see?
The I.R.S. did not respond to questions about when or if it would provide more clarity.
“The law has not changed,” said Philip Hackney, a former I.R.S. lawyer who now teaches at the University of Pittsburgh law school, adding that “any church that wants to comply with the law would not endorse a candidate.”
Because so many denominations have told pastors to stay out of politics — and because it is the summer of a quiet electoral year — there has not been a rush of pulpit endorsements. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit advocacy group, said it had not identified any so far.
In Kenosha, Pastor Barker wanted to be among the first.
He had spent the last nine years as pastor of Grace Lutheran, a congregation that had shrunk from 1,500 attendees in the 1950s to 20 or 30 people on most Sundays. The congregation had already been considering closing for good.
Image
Pastor Barker, 41, said he had tried to rejuvenate the church by focusing on liberal causes. He wrote a book about climate policy, and brought then-candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the church for a listening session in 2020 after Kenosha police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake.
Outside church, Pastor Barker was more aggressive. He had tried to disrupt two Trump rallies and a Republican primary debate by super-gluing his feet to the floors of the venues and a parking lot outside.
Now, after the I.R.S. statement, he said he felt like liberal Christians were about to lose a political battle, by refusing to play.
“There’s 18,000 that’s ready to go,” he said, referring to the ranks the Family Research Council is trying to organize on the right. “And there’s none of us ready to go.”
But his denomination had already affirmed its opposition to endorsements, in a vote taken after the I.R.S. statement. Though the denomination’s leaders have supported liberal positions on climate change and gay marriage, its members are about 55 percent Republican, according to the Pew Research Center.
Rev. Barker did not warn the denomination’s leaders of his plan to endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. But he sent out a news release to reporters.
“I said, ‘Jon, we just agreed as a group that this is not a good idea,’” said Bishop Paul D. Erickson, who oversees churches in southeast Wisconsin. He was recounting a conversation with Pastor Barker, urging him to reconsider, and warning that he could jeopardize the tax exemption for most of the denomination’s other churches.
“You are putting them at risk without their knowledge or consent,” he recalled saying.
That is because most Evangelical Lutheran Churches share the same tax exemption, dealing with the I.R.S. as a single entity rather than church by church.
Image
Pastor Barker resigned, both from his church and from his denomination, and made the endorsement. Even though the 2028 election was years away, and even though Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had not said she would run in it, he believed that her policies supporting universal health care, a higher minimum wage and the fight against climate change embodied Christian values.
“I am very proud, as a pastor, to endorse A.O.C. to be the love-your-neighbor presidential candidate,” he said in the event space.
He wore clerical garments and a priest’s collar, despite the denomination’s view that he no longer qualified as a pastor. But it was a one-man show: After his endorsement, he cued up a YouTube video to stand in for a choir.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to a request for comment about the endorsement.
The crowd was bigger across town at his former church, where more than 20 people had gathered for a meeting with Bishop Erickson to discuss Pastor Barker’s abrupt resignation.
Their questions were not about politics. Who had keys to the front door? Who knew the Facebook password? Would the diaper bank be discontinued? Was the church going to survive?
Bishop Erickson said they would figure the answers out together.
“Pray for us!” one of the congregants said.
David A. Fahrenthold is a Times investigative reporter writing about nonprofit organizations. He has been a reporter for two decades.
Elizabeth Dias is The Times’s national religion correspondent, covering faith, politics and values.
