501c3

The annual celebration of Pulpit Freedom Sunday on Oct. 7 encourages pastors to preach politics from the pulpit. The Internal Revenue Code exempts certain organizations including churches from taxation, but prohibits them as a condition of tax-exemption from “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” “Both the restriction and Pulpit Freedom Sunday raise important questions about the relationship between church and state, the role of religious argument in political discourse, and the significance of clergy in political debate,” says John Inazu, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and expert on religion and the Constitution.