Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
(RNS photo/Americans United)

WASHINGTON (RNS)—More than 4,000 religious leaders have signed a letter urging Congress to maintain the Johnson Amendment, a law barring pulpit politicking that President Trump has vowed to gut.

“As a leader in my religious community, I am strongly opposed to any effort to repeal or weaken current law that protects houses of worship from becoming centers of partisan politics,” reads the letter faith leaders who support church-state separation delivered to Congress on Wednesday, Aug. 16.

“Changing the law would threaten the integrity and independence of houses of worship.”

The letter signed by a wide range of clergy and lay members—from Methodists to Muslims to those who hold metaphysical beliefs—was spearheaded by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Catholic, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist organizations also were among the sponsoring groups of the letter that has signers from Alabama to Wyoming.

Following up on a campaign promise, Trump vowed in a National Prayer Breakfast speech in February that he would “totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear.”

In a Rose Garden ceremony on the National Day of Prayer in May, he signed an executive order that asked the IRS not to enforce the amendment, which allows it to strip the nonprofit status from any tax-exempt organization that endorses a political candidate or participates in a political campaign.

In July, the House Appropriations Committee voted to keep language in a spending bill that would defund IRS efforts to enforce the amendment. The bill must be passed by the House and the Senate before it can be signed into law by the president.

Maggie Garrett, Americans United’s legislative director, said the letter-signing initiative started before the introduction of that language as religious leaders responded to the president’s vow to get rid of the law.

The letter notes that there is nothing in current law that bars faith leaders from supporting or opposing political candidates in their personal capacities.

“Faith leaders are called to speak truth to power, and we cannot do so if we are merely cogs in partisan political machines,” said the letter signers from all 50 states. “Particularly in today’s political climate, engaging in partisan politics and issuing endorsements would be highly divisive and have a detrimental impact on congregational unity and civil discourse.”

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Pope Leo XIV has appointed the French archbishop of Chambéry, Thibault Verny, as the new president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. He succeeds Cardinal Seán O’Malley, 81, the emeritus archbishop of Boston.
Gerard O’ConnellJuly 05, 2025
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks with other members of the House July 3, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington after final passage of U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping spending and tax bill. (OSV News photo/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)
“Deep cuts” to SNAP and Medicaid will “inflict real suffering on these families…. SNAP and Medicaid are not luxuries, they are lifelines for millions of children across our country.”
Kevin ClarkeJuly 03, 2025
It was one of the first times Leo has spoken unscripted at length in public, responding to questions posed to him by the children.
The Vatican has named the judges that will preside over the trial of disgraced Father Marko Rupnik.