The religious institutions of the United States may soon face a sirenic temptation. Like Odysseus on his journey home passing the isle of the sirens, religions are approaching an alluring, but dangerous, sight. And just like the hero of myth, they should proceed with caution and wisdom.
Those who follow the headlines may have noticed that the so-called Johnson Amendment — the provision in the Internal Revenue Code that prohibits religions and other charities from endorsing or opposing political candidates to maintain tax exempt status — appears to be on unstable ground. In response to a lawsuit in Texas, the Internal Revenue Service has suggested it will no longer interpret the Amendment to apply to communications that occur during religious services in houses of worship.
Religious institutions have never faced a bar from speaking out on issues advocating for their rights in the public square or before lawmakers or courts, but this development represents potentially uncharted waters.
If the IRS’s new interpretation is applied broadly, it means that religious leaders may now endorse candidates without tax consequences. While I’m certain some see this as welcome news, religious institutions should be wary. I have spent the better part of the last 20 years as a scholar of religious liberty law. While threats to religious liberty do abound, perhaps the most treacherous is the decreased role religion seems to be playing in people’s lives.
We have seen over the past 25 years a decline in religious affiliation and participation generally, although not all religious groups are facing the same challenges. As with any phenomenon, multiple causes exist. But at least one relates to far too many religious groups becoming indistinguishable from the political culture around them. The IRS’s new interpretation may only exacerbate that problem.
It may well be that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional, violating the freedoms of speech and religion. That may explain, in part, why the IRS has enforced it only sparingly over its 70-year existence, despite plenty of pastors giving it opportunities. But that is beside the point. The question religions now face is whether they should use their worship time to campaign for politicians. Some have already gone down that path, and the effects are not salutary.
This is not a warning only for right-wing religious groups. Plenty of congregations and religious leaders lean to the political left. If America’s various religious groups become indistinguishable from the campaigns they may be tempted to support, what will they offer their congregants? If religious leaders are not careful, they will provide nothing more than Fox News (on the right) or MSNBC (on the left). At that point, as described in Tim Alberta’s book, “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory," increasing numbers of people will realize they are no longer receiving any unique nourishment from their religious tradition.
Many seem to have already reached that conclusion. If we are all groping in the darkness of this cave we call mortality, where are we to turn if there is no light shining in the darkness?
Religious teachings can offer a depth and richness that shouting political heads can never match, about the purpose of life, moral development and answers to the complicated eternal questions of the soul. If they fail to offer that, we may continue to see a decline in religiosity.
Of course, worries about religious affiliation and participation are not the most important reason religious leaders should be hesitant to delve into the mud pits of politics. People seek religious teachings to receive nourishment the rest of the world will not — indeed ... cannot — provide.
And despite so many false and ridiculous portrayals of religious groups in movies, television and other media, most religious leaders are genuinely worried about the human beings in their congregations — not just the number of people attending. Religion is about transcendence, about becoming. The religious leaders and sincere believers I study and with whom I work truly believe in what they are teaching and its power to change human lives and natures for the better, even to save souls.
Departing from those teachings, and instead focusing on ephemeral partisan politics, is like filling our bellies with the “husks that the swine did eat,” instead of soaring “with wings as eagles.”
In my own faith community, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, worship services and other meetings emphasize Jesus Christ, his living reality and the messages of his Gospel, not politics. That is a wise practice regardless of what the law allows — religion must offer something different from the culture around it, or it offers nothing. And if religious leaders believe their own teachings, focusing on theology should be infinitely (literally) more important than focusing on the candidates of the day.
I suspect that in my own congregation, probably every political view imaginable is represented. I have never asked any of the people with whom I go to church about their politics. I don’t care.
We attend together because our identities as disciples of Christ are more important to us than our political — or any other — identities. We attend church to learn of Christ and how to become more like him. Even with a diverse range of political and socioeconomic backgrounds, our desires to hear and try to follow the word unite us. That is what religion can offer society. Absent that, travelers through the church, temple, synagogue, or mosque doors will find little more than the empty clang of “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
I am not arguing that religious institutions or individuals should hide from public issues or shrink from the public square. They obviously have the right to advocate for laws and for their positions on moral issues. Religious individuals certainly can, and should, be concerned with and involved in the political problems of our society.
But one truth about partisan politics in the modern age is that they are constantly changing. The positions of the parties, their views on various principles, and what they tend to vote for, shift constantly based on their own self-interest. For just one example, as I wrote in Reason magazine last year, the political right and left in recent years have completely flipped their positions on rights as fundamental as freedom of speech.
They will do so again. Parties, politicians and what they represent are fickle — shifting like the blowing of the wind. And religious groups who make their worship about politics may soon find they have congregants who care mostly about politics.
And what will they have sacrificed to get there? The very rich and deep teachings that have the real power to change people’s lives, not just for an election cycle, but forever.
The siren song of politics is enticing — promising worldly influence, power and gain. But many people want more. They want spiritual nourishment that will not fade the moment an election ends. Religions can provide that, if they can avoid the temptation now placed before them.
Steven T. Collis is a law professor at the University of Texas-Austin and the author of the book "Deep Conviction," which helps lay audiences understand religious liberty law.