The Johnson Amendment and a Diverse Church Life

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Yesterday at a National Day of Prayer ceremony, President Trump signed an executive order directing the government to "honor and enforce" protections for religious liberty. He also said this order would make it easier for churches and pastors to engage in politics so their free speech would not be "bullied" or "punished." These comments were in line with others Trump has made in the past about discarding the Johnson Amendment and telling the IRS to use "maximum discretion" before penalizing churches that get involved in political campaigns.

Trump signing his "religious freedom" executive order on May 4, 2017. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Admittedly, the actual text of the executive order does not actually change the application of the Johnson Amendment, but nonetheless, the general trajectory of this administration does seem to be to minimize or do away with it. And it's not too much of a stretch to think that Congress may act on this issue as well between the urging of Trump and the voices of some swooning conservative religious leaders. As such, Christians need to think intentionally about what such moves might actually mean for their congregations.

First, Christians need to recognize that the Johnson Amendment really does not pose a serious threat to their churches. The IRS has only investigated a few church violations of the Johnson Amendments in its history. There have been even fewer negative results as only 1 church has ever lost its tax-exempt status. One main reason for this is because the Johnson Amendment does NOT prohibit political speech from the pulpit or for pastors and ordinary Christians as Trump has often characterized it as doing. Rather, the Johnson Amendment simply prohibits any registered, tax-exempt non-profit (which many churches are) from endorsing a political candidate or participating in political campaigns of candidates (activities like donating church money to a political campaign). However, pastors and Christians are more than free to discuss political issues and positions. You can take positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, war, taxes, and other political issues from the pulpit all day long. You just can't say "this candidate is horrible" or "I endorse this candidate" or give congregants' tithe money to a campaign.

It's also important for Christians to note that the few investigations that have occurred have been opened against both conservative and liberal churches. So, when you hear Republicans like Trump depict the amendment as an attack on conservative religious values, please remember that this is simply not true. In fact, the original intent of the law was to target supposed communist funds flowing from non-profits into the campaign of Lyndon B Johnson's campaign rival.

The Johnson Amendment was proposed by then Texas Sen. Lyndon Johnson

In short, churches have little to fear from this amendment. It's unlikely an actual violation will even get investigated (especially if you don't attend a megachurch with a famous pastor), and even if your church or pastor got investigated, it's even less likely that anything will come of it. But if it did, Christians would do well to remember that this would really only impact their tax-exempt status, not their ability to gather, worship, teach, preach, evangelize, or anything else.

All that aside, Christians need to think about this from another angle, namely the role of politics from the pulpit. After all, that's really what this debate is about.

Personally, even if Trump succeeds in repealing the Johnson Amendment, I strongly believe churches should still abide by its restrictions. Here's why:

When we allow pastors to start going beyond teaching general Christian principles or worldviews and let them begin advocating for specific candidates, parties, and policies, we run the risk of doing incredible damage to the health of that congregation. Let me give you an example.

A few months ago, I visited a church where the pastor decried "liberalism" as evil and as a sin in the middle of his sermon. This immediately turned me off for several reasons. First, his usage of "liberalism" was really nothing more than a scare word as the word "liberalism" is incredibly vague. What do you mean by "liberalism"? Are we talking theological liberalism, political liberalism, economic liberalism? Each of those are very different concepts and don't always go hand in hand. The use of that phrase was not substantive but simply a way to energize the rest of the congregation, who by-and-large held to conservative theological and political views, which leads to my second concern.

My second concern with the pastor's denouncement of "liberalism" is that it only served to further the uniformity and lack of diversity within his congregation. I don't personally consider myself a "liberal" or "progressive," but I tend to be a moderate who does happen to share a number of perspectives with liberals on some issues. As I listened to that sermon, I immediately felt excluded because the sermon's assumption (at least what seemed to be communicated) was that any liberal ideas (including political ones) were sinful. As such, I was to be viewed as an outsider to faith.

Now, if I felt that way, imagine how any number of my sincere, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, Christian friends who are much more liberal than myself would have felt sitting through that sermon. That pastor might as well have said, "Your faith is wrong and invalid. You don't really love Jesus or believe the Bible. You're not welcome here unless you repent."

Take that another step further. If we start having pastors condemn or praise specific candidates or politicians (haha, I said "start," when in reality I've sat through too many such sermons already), how is that good pastoral care or good church practice when a healthy church will hopefully have members who sit on both sides of the political aisle and who will vote for different candidates. Those members with different opinions will feel uncomfortable or maybe even be driven away from the congregation.

Even worse, what if a church donated tithed money to a political campaign. If there are members of the congregation who plan on voting for an opposing candidate, do you think they want the money they gave to the church to be used for a candidate they don't support?

At this point, I can hear some Christians say, "Well, if they want to believe differently they should just find a more liberal/conservative church to attend." But this is not how it ought to be! As we look at the book of Revelation, we see a picture of the people of God united together from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. The Kingdom of God is diverse. A few years ago, I heard a saying that aptly describes what the Church should look like: "Unity without uniformity; diversity without division."

Thankfully, many Christians agree with me that pastors should avoid becoming too political. According to Kimberly Winston of the Religious News Service, "A 2016 LifeWay poll found that only 19 percent of Americans agree with the statement 'it is appropriate for pastors to publicly endorse political candidates during a church service,' and a 2013 Pew Research Center survey that found two-thirds of Americans think clergy should not endorse political candidates." Nonetheless, according to research done by the Barna Group presented in the book UnChristian 10 years ago, one of the top perceptions of churches by those outside the church was that churches are "too political." Given the intensification and polarization of the political arena recently, I suspect that perception has not changed much in the past 10 years. It may be even worse now.

But this goes so much beyond the Johnson Amendment and politics. A few days ago, I blogged about how our lack of a corporate theology in the act of baptism reinforces homogeneous churches and potentially feeds racism in the midst of the Church. We so desperately need more diversity in our congregations!

Sadly, much of the way we teach and preach in churches is both the cause and symptom of this lack of diversity. Pastors and teachers within a church make polarizing, one-sided statements because there is no differing opinions within the congregation to put a check on them or to help those leaders think about different perspectives. At the same time, when such statements are made from positions of leadership, it also drives away any diversity that might happen to come through the door for a visit. It's an endless cycle of confirming uniformity, and this creates an echo-chamber of group-think.

So, if you are a pastor, teacher, or church leader (or even just a congregation member), please think abut your public speech within the church. How would your comments be interpreted or accepted by a Christian of a different political viewpoint, or a different race, or a different social class or country? Too much of what gets confidently declared as "truth" is actually more influenced by the micro-cultures we create within our congregation and community than it is by the Bible or God. So, whatever happens to the Johnson Amendment, let's be careful in our words and find way to increase cross-cultural dialogue and diversity within our congregations.

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Baptism and Racism

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I recently started reading Jim Wallis' newest book "America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America." I'm only part way through it, but so far there has been lots of good food for thought for white Christians and white churches who often neglect issues of race in our liturgy and worship, preferring to pretend that racism is a "political issue" not a "faith issue."

However, early on, there is one quote that jumped out at me. In the opening chapter, Wallis writes:
"The political and economic problems of race are ultimately rooted in a theological problem. The churches have too often "baptized" us into our racial divisions, instead of understanding how our authentic baptism unites us above and beyond our racial identities."

I think Wallis is onto something here. In American Christianity, particularly the white evangelical variety, we tend to preach and adhere to what Scot McKnight calls the "soterian (or 'salvation') gospel." The "gospel" that gets preached from our pulpits is that you are a sinner, Jesus died for your sins, and so you must believe these truths and put your faith in Jesus and you will be saved from hell and death. Frequently this gospel is also accompanied by a gnostic over-emphasis on heaven as the final destination of the saved, rather than an emphasis on bodily resurrection.

As McKnight and others point out, this "soterian gospel" ends up being extremely individualistic. The "Gospel" is good news for me. Jesus died for my sins. The point of Jesus' life and death was so I could get into heaven. Even within more Reformed traditions that point back to God's glory as the purpose for His actions, the center of the narrative still remains focused on God's actions for individuals.

To bring this back to Wallis' quote, if we are believing an individualized gospel, then it naturally flows that we are also practicing individualistic baptisms. In most baptism services I have seen, the focus of the moment is almost always on the personal profession of faith and the salvation of the one being baptized. Don't get me wrong, that focus is good, but it's incomplete.

Usually absent from modern baptisms is any language of being baptized into a community or of entrance into a new kingdom and people that crosses cultures, race, and language. This is unfortunate because the early church understood this concept.

Certainly, such an individualistic gospel and baptism will cause (and is causing) countless theological and practical problems for our churches, but I had never really made the connection between this watered-down baptism (pun not intended) and racial problems we face within the church. This is likely because of my own white privilege. For us white Christians, we simply don't think about race and racism enough and so it's natural never to ever bring such communal aspects into our baptismal liturgies. But, we would if we were paying attention to the Gospel found in the New Testament and to the modern realities around us.

There's good evidence to suggest that Paul's words on baptism and community in Gal. 3:26-29 were actually part of an early baptismal liturgy used during baptisms. In contrast, we reduce the baptism moment into only a celebration of that individual and their own personal salvation. But what would it look like if we used language similar to Gal 3?

"For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise." (Gal. 3:26-29)

For the early church, baptism was less about a symbol of personal conversion to a religious or psychological belief. It was more about an initiation into an entirely new people, culture, and society. Being submitted under the water was not just a symbol of death to sin (as we commonly approach it). It was a ritual depicting death to one's entire old way of life, including one's cultural, racial, and social identities. All those old identities were washed away and you were raised up into Abraham's family, into the people of God. Imagine what it would look like if we recaptured that essence? What if we too disposed and repented of our racial, cultural, and national identities at baptism and allowed ourselves to truly take on a new identity in Christ?

It's no secret that, as Dr. Martin Luther King used to say, that Sunday morning is "the most segregated hour in this nation." Perhaps one reason for this is because the gospel we preach and baptize into falls short of the gospel and baptism of the New Testament. Central to the Bible's Gospel is the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the story of Israel, and that He is creating for Himself a new people drawn from every tongue, tribe, and nation.

Paul reiterates this Gospel truth in many of his writings, including when he writes in 1 Corinthians:

"For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit....But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it." (1 Cor. 12:12-13, 24-27)

Central to our baptism is the truth that all other identities are submerged beneath our identity in Christ. We are no longer defined by nationality, gender, race, language, or social status. We are all part of Christ. Perhaps if the Church in America could better grasp and preach this communal truth from both the pulpit and the baptismal, then maybe the Church could be the one to finally lead our country toward the racial equality and healing we so desperately need.

In the words of William Stringfellow, "The issue here [of racism] is not equality among human beings, but unity among human beings....The issue is baptism. The issue is the unity of all humanity wrought by God in the life and work of Christ. Baptism is the sacrament of that unity."

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