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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Theprogressivist@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

Churches campaigning for Trump? Take away their tax-exempt status.

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[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


It’s a brazen effort to transform religious congregations — which are technically supposed to keep electoral politics out of the pulpit — into a campaign powerhouse for the former president.

He spent much of the recent holiday weekend attempting to trash the legacy of a storied Christian reverend, Martin Luther King, Jr.)

The law is rarely enforced, and has been skirted by churches of all political orientations — whether by pastors who make their personal endorsements public or by congregations organizing turnout-boosting efforts like “souls to the polls.”

But Trump has made clear he won’t punish churches that violate the Johnson amendment in 2024, even vowing on a Christian nationalist broadcast last May that he’ll abolish the prohibition if reelected.

During his podcast, Wallnau insisted that the Courage Tour will also be working with right-wing women’s groups including Moms for America — which touts “truth, family, freedom and the Constitution” — and Concerned Women for America, a group dedicated to “Biblical values and Constitutional principles.” Wallnau insisted: “We’re creating a broad net.”

The movement poses a danger to democracy because it “sees no room for compromise,” Andrew Whitehead, author of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States has told Rolling Stone.


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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

religious congregations — which are technically supposed to keep electoral politics out of the pulpit

Why would large, well-organized, ideologically unified groups of people stay out of electoral politics?

Aren't these exactly the kinds of organizations you'd expect to be hip deep in political organizing and activism?

The movement poses a danger to democracy

I have to say that I think their views are often shit. But they are fundamentally popular shit. Hardly antidemocratic.

Liberals would do well to fight fire with fire. Attend big social groups. Organize with your neighbors. Raise money, run candidates, and enforce ideological orthodoxy as a condition of membership.

Hoping that some rules lawyers at the IRS are going to make Houston's Second Baptist Church go away seems both foolish and unproductive.

this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
262 points (98.5% liked)

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