{"id":1125,"date":"2008-09-28T06:20:42","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T13:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2009-06-25T07:13:49","modified_gmt":"2009-06-25T14:13:49","slug":"recruiting-defiant-pastors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/recruiting-defiant-pastors\/","title":{"rendered":"Recruiting Defiant Pastors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Late last night, I noticed WorldMagBlog was <a href=\"http:\/\/online.worldmag.com\/2008\/09\/27\/pulpits-endorsing-candidates\/\">calling attention to this event<\/a>:<\/p>\n<table width=75% align=center bgcolor=pink border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2008\/0926\/p03s02-uspo.html\">Pulpit politics: Pastors to defy IRS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>During sermons this Sunday, some 35 pastors across the country will tell their congregations which presidential candidate they should vote for, &#8220;according to the Scriptures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Their endorsements represent a direct challenge to federal tax law, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations from engaging in partisan political activity.<\/p>\n<p>The clergy have embraced that risk, hoping their actions will trigger an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, which would then enable a Christian legal advocacy group to take the IRS to court and challenge the constitutionality of the ban.<\/p>\n<p>The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal group based in Arizona, recruited the pastors for &#8220;Pulpit Freedom Sunday&#8221; to press their claim that the IRS tax code violates the free speech of religious leaders.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>These pastors really were &#8220;recruited&#8221; for this purpose?<\/p>\n<p>If that is the case, it seems the pastors are being moved by the wrong spirit, no? It certainly appears to me that whatever they &#8220;preach&#8221; would have more political and civic motivation than it would Spirit motivation.<\/p>\n<p>Or am I missing something here?<\/p>\n<p>(For a little more perspective on this: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anabaptists.org\/clp\/youth\/8-205.html\">Church and State<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late last night, I noticed WorldMagBlog was calling attention to this event: Pulpit politics: Pastors to defy IRS During sermons this Sunday, some 35 pastors across the country will tell their congregations which presidential candidate they should vote for, &#8220;according to the Scriptures.&#8221; Their endorsements represent a direct challenge to federal tax law, which prohibits &#8230; <a title=\"Recruiting Defiant Pastors\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/recruiting-defiant-pastors\/\" aria-label=\"More on Recruiting Defiant Pastors\">Read more<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,8,10],"tags":[628,644],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-politics","category-religion","tag-constitution","tag-laws"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-i9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}