CeleryKills

The Johnson Amendment is one of those pieces of law that almost no one remembers approving and suddenly many people are convinced they have always opposed. I didn’t think much about it for years, which I suspect is the point. It works best when it is boring. When it is background noise. When it quietly does its job and allows everyone else to fight about louder things.

The reason it exists is disarmingly simple. In 1954, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson introduced a short amendment to the tax code barring tax‑exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates (Johnson, Congressional Record, 1954). The immediate context was not a culture war against churches but Johnson’s own reelection campaign, where allegedly tax‑exempt groups were being used as covert political weapons. The solution was structural rather than moral. If organizations want the public subsidy of tax exemption, they cannot act as political machines. No sermonizing. No sanctifying candidates. No laundering money through consciences.

The Internal Revenue Service was given the unenviable job of enforcing this boundary. The IRS is not supposed to police belief. It is supposed to administer the tax code neutrally, ensuring that organizations receiving public benefits meet the conditions attached to those benefits (IRS, Publication 557, rev. 2023). Churches were not singled out for restriction. They were treated, unusually, with deference, exempted from filing requirements altogether. The Johnson Amendment does not regulate religious speech. It regulates tax status. That distinction matters, although it is often glossed over on purpose.

For decades, enforcement was uneven but real. Churches generally avoided explicit candidate endorsement not because pastors suddenly loved the IRS, but because the boundary was understood. That understanding has eroded. The IRS has effectively stopped enforcing the Johnson Amendment against churches, even as explicit partisan endorsements from pulpits have become increasingly public (IRS Treasury Inspector General, Report 2019). Complaints are filed, investigations stall, consequences evaporate. A rule without enforcement becomes performance. A law without teeth becomes a prop.

What does that silence mean? It means the Johnson Amendment is being hollowed out without repeal. It means religious institutions can increasingly operate as political actors while retaining charitable tax status. It means donor anonymity and deductibility can be weaponized under the cover of faith. The public subsidy remains. The restriction fades. This is not neutrality. It is selective blindness.

Efforts to formally destroy the amendment have failed repeatedly in Congress, not because lawmakers are deeply committed to it, but because repealing it outright would look exactly like what it is: a special interest carve‑out that turns pulpits into political pipelines (Pew Research Center, “Money in Politics,” 2019). Instead, opponents have turned to courts and commissions. If legislation is risky, litigation is quieter.

The Religious Liberty Panel, convened in recent years under the banner of expanding religious freedom, has become part of this strategy. Panels like this do not repeal laws. They create stories. They construct injury. They frame compliance with generally applicable laws as persecution (U.S. Department of Justice, Religious Liberty Task Force Report, 2018). The Johnson Amendment is recast not as a tax condition but as a silencing mechanism. The goal is not immediate victory but a judicial opening. Get the right plaintiff. Get standing. Get the issue into a sympathetic court. Let doctrine do the rest.

The irony is striking. Removing the Johnson Amendment would not free churches. It would turn them into something else entirely. Functionally, religious nonprofits would become shadow versions of 501(c)(4) organizations. A 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization is allowed to engage in political activity so long as politics is not its primary purpose. Contributions are not tax‑deductible, but donors can remain anonymous. These entities are notorious for operating as dark‑money conduits, influencing elections while obscuring accountability (Briffault, “The Rise of 501(c)(4)s,” 2013).

Granting churches this same functional role while preserving charitable deductibility would be worse. It would combine the opacity of (c)(4)s with the public subsidy of (c)(3)s and the moral authority of religion. It would make tax law complicit in sacralizing politics. Once that line is crossed, good luck walking it back.

I grew up assuming that churches and politics were separate not because America is secular, but because belief rots when it is enlisted. That intuition turns out to be embedded in tax policy. The Johnson Amendment does not protect the state from religion. It protects religion from becoming a campaign tool. Its quiet genius is that it asks very little. Speak. Preach. Condemn injustice. Address social issues. Just do not tell people which lever to pull behind the curtain.

So why are we letting it decay? Convenience plays a role. Fear plays a role. So does a misunderstanding of what religious freedom actually requires. Freedom is not the absence of constraint. It is the presence of boundaries that prevent domination. When one institution gets amplified through public subsidy while acting politically, everyone else’s voice shrinks.

This is the moment to speak plainly. Ask whether you want tax‑deductible dollars funding partisan sermons. Ask whether secret money wrapped in scripture feels like freedom or manipulation. Ask why an unelected enforcement agency is being allowed to nullify law through inaction. Then say something. Write. Call. Talk about it in the places where people assume no one will object.

Quiet laws rely on quiet citizens. That arrangement only works while both sides hold up their end.

References

Briffault, Richard. “The Rise of 501(c)(4)s.” Election Law Journal, 2013.

Internal Revenue Service. Publication 557: Tax‑Exempt Status for Your Organization. Revised 2023.

Internal Revenue Service Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Review of the Tax‑Exempt Organization Program, 2019.

Johnson, Lyndon B. Statement introducing amendment to the Internal Revenue Code. Congressional Record, 1954.

Pew Research Center. “Money, Religion, and Politics.” 2019.

U.S. Department of Justice. Religious Liberty Task Force Report. 2018.