Page 43 – Family Council

IRS Finally Agrees Churches, Pastors Can Engage in Political Speech

Jul 10, 2025Jerry CoxReligious FreedomElections, IRS, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty

On Monday the IRS filed a motion in federal court acknowledging that churches and ministers are free to address social and political issues from a biblical point of view.

The motion helps bring clarity to the First Amendment freedoms of pastors and churches.

Many people believe state and federal law prevents churches and pastors from addressing “politics,” but churches and ministers actually have always had tremendous leeway to talk about legislation, campaign issues, and even candidates.

Churches and ministers are free to address social and moral issues — even if some people consider those issues “political.”

That means they are free to stand up against abortion, promote biblical marriage, encourage responsible citizenship, support laws that protect children from sex-change procedures, and so forth. Churches can spend an insubstantial amount of money lobbying for or against legislation or ballot issues as well.

Historically, churches have hosted voter registration drives. They have been free to hold candidate forums and educate voters about candidates and elections.

Legal experts generally have agreed the IRS rules — also known as the Johnson Amendment — let ministers support or oppose candidates.

However, on Monday the IRS filed a court motion reinforcing that churches have tremendous leeway when it comes to free speech and religious liberty. The motion says,

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, it neither “participate[s]” nor “intervene[s]” in a “political campaign,” within the ordinary meaning of those words. . . . Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates. Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted.

The IRS says this is in keeping with its traditional interpretation of federal tax rules governing churches.

Our friends at Liberty Counsel say this means that “if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the agency would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like ‘a family discussion concerning candidates.'”

All of this underscores that churches and ministers have tremendous freedom when it comes to talking about morality, social issues, candidates, and political campaigns.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Lessons from the Rise and Faltering of Transgenderism: Guest Column

Jul 9, 2025John StonestreetTransgenderLGBT, Transgender

Many “inevitable” social movements turned out not to be so inevitable. The most notable recent example is transgenderism. In the latest development of this fast-moving story, earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that prohibited so-called “transgender care” for minors, including hormone therapy and sex-reassignment procedures.

Predictably, the American Psychological Association threw a fit about the ruling, scolding the court for disregarding “decades of psychological research and clinical consensus,” and jeopardizing “the health and wellbeing of transgender youth.” Aside from further eroding their public credibility, the APA statement ignores the obvious fact that any consensus around transgender “care” and identity is collapsing. It’s not 2016 anymore. First, there was the Cass Report, which questioned key claims of transgender medicalization. Then there was the closing of Britain’s only gender clinic. Also in recent days, L.A. Children’s Hospital announced it would close its center for transgender youth, one of the largest and oldest clinics of its kind and a hub for “gender reassignment” surgeries on children for years.

Public opinion has shifted as well. Earlier this year, Pew Research reported that about two-thirds of adults now support policies requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their biology. Most adults also support outlawing gender identity curriculum in elementary schools. Compared to just three years ago, more Americans now support laws that require people to use the bathroom corresponding to their sex and favor banning transgender surgery on minors. And just last week, the University of Pennsylvania signed an agreement with the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education about men competing in women’s sports. Penn will now strip Lia (born William) Thomas of his swimming wins against women, reinstate the integrity of women’s athletic teams and spaces, and apologize to the women whose rightful athletic “records, titles, or similar recognitions” were stolen by a male athlete.

Now somewhat on the other side of this cultural confusion, there are two crucial lessons to be learned about how culture changes, and how to fight future battles. First is how unpredictable and fragile supposedly “inevitable” cultural progress is. A few short years ago, corporations, government, higher education, entertainment, science, and medical establishments were being aligned in support of the idea that boys can become girls, and vice versa. But then a few courageous athletes, artists, filmmakers, de-transitioners, and a handful of public figures like J.K Rowling and Jordan Peterson spoke out. Unfortunately, many Christians and high-profile pastors were unwilling to do the same.

And yet, remarkably, it was enough to start the resistance. The momentum of the trans movement has now slowed and faltered. Though Irreversible Damage was inflicted on too many individuals, especially children, the mutilation of bodies and poisoning of minds turned out to be not inevitable, culturally. This should embolden us all to be willing to break the “spiral of silence” sooner and to stand courageously against false ideas in the future. After all, the worst ideas flourish when people are convinced that resistance is futile.

The second lesson to learn is how quickly social contagions spread. How an observably absurd and unscientific idea like transgenderism took over the West should humble us all and highlight the danger of losing a high and shared view of the human person. Until we can agree broadly on what it means to be human, what sex is for, what male and female mean, what marriage is, and why there are givens to our embodied nature, we remain susceptible to other absurd and dangerous notions.

And so, we should ask, even as this particularly bad idea is in retreat, what “inevitable” bad idea might take its place? How can we as Christians be better prepared and willing to respond?

As neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, a likely (but tentative) guess is that we will encounter new and dangerous forms of transhumanism. Just as transgenderism began with the belief that the body is merely a vehicle for the “authentic self,” so will visions of biological enhancement, AI relationships, new forms of “designer baby” eugenics, and attempts at immortality. And anyone who believes that there are created givens to the human person and moral boundaries that limit the expression of our “true selves” will be castigated and accused of hate, bigotry, and anti-science. Christians who understand that humans are made in the image of God must speak early and often, and especially clearly, no matter the cost.

Thank God that trans ideology, though far from defeated, is faltering. However, short of a cultural revolution in which our createdness is embraced and the myth of self-creation rejected, the West will continue to be vulnerable to the next bad idea that claims to be inevitable.