Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Last month, a small brick was removed from our Constitutional wall that separates the state and church. The New York Times’s investigative reporters reported in July 2025 that the Internal Revenue Service carved out an exemption from what is referred to as Congress’s 1954 Johnson Amendment in nonprofit law, which bans nonprofits from endorsing candidates.

The IRS joined plaintiffs in asking a federal judge to block this and all future administrations from enforcing the ban, specifically that churches endorse candidates from the pulpit. This exemption did not extend to other non-profit organizations.

The IRS decision responds to efforts, like those of the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) over the past fifteen years, to challenge the constitutionality of this law in court based on the constitutional right to free speech. They proclaim that they are “protecting their God-given right to speak freely and live out their faith, threatened by radical activists in government, education, and the wider culture who would subvert the God-designed role for families.”

Current House Speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson, a former senior legal counsel with the ADF, said in 2008, “I think we would defend that as a constitutional right to free speech” in advocating that pastors be able to endorse candidates from their pulpits. However, Diane Yentel, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, representing 30,000 of them, believed that this IRS ruling was “not about religion or free speech, but about radically altering campaign finance laws.” Yentel warned that allowing tax-exempt groups to endorse candidates could lead to “opening the floodgates for political operatives to funnel money to their preferred candidates.” Meanwhile, they can receive generous tax breaks by contributing to churches whose views may be shared by only a portion of the voters.

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, has studied how churches are regulated in their political activities. He believes that the IRS’s decision will encourage future politicians to promote religious objectives because, “It also says to all candidates and parties, ‘Hey, time to recruit some churches.’”

IRS’s court action weakens the principle of “separation of church and state,” which is attributed to Thomas Jefferson by many, including Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. He wrote in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) that, “In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.”

America’s history is marked by ongoing tension between spiritual and secular forces that shape how a democratic republic should function to serve the needs and protect the freedoms of all citizens. This tension stems from the principles embodied in our Constitution.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution includes two clauses that must be balanced. The Establishment Clause states that “Congress........

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