Pastors may now endorse candidates from the pulpit without fear of losing their tax-exempt status, thanks to a Trump administration court settlement that conservatives hail as a victory that will “no longer allow the IRS to bully us,” while liberals denounce it as a “Christian Nationalist” plot that “threatens our democracy.”

The Trump administration agreed Monday not to prosecute churches that formally endorse or condemn a candidate during elections. The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), Intercessors for America, and two Texas churches sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) last August, arguing a 1954 tax code provision known as the Johnson Amendment violates the First Amendment and has been used to persecute conservative churches.

In a consent decree filed on July 7 in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas in Tyler, the Trump administration noted that, for many churches, “the exercise of their religious beliefs includes teaching or instructing their congregations regarding all aspects of life, including guidance concerning the impact of faith on the choices inherent in electoral politics.” Therefore, it will no longer threaten churches that endorse candidates with losing their 501(c)(3) status. The ruling still applies to other nonprofits. A consent decree usually cannot be appealed, except for fraud.

“This is a victory. Pastors need to understand that we can no longer be intimidated. We can no longer allow the IRS to bully us into telling us what we can say and cannot say,” Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.) told “Washington Watch” Monday.

“This is the issue that drove me to Congress,” revealed former Congressman Jody Hice, now a senior fellow at Family Research Council, stating his church’s tax-exempt status was threatened over his sermons. “This is government censorship.”

Monday’s consent decree noted that the Johnson Amendment holds that churches may not “participate” nor “intervene” in a political campaign. “Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things. … Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted.” The agreement applies only to churches, not other nonprofits.

Punishing clergy who discuss the merits and demerits of particular political candidates “would treat religions that do not speak directly to matters of electoral politics more favorably than religions that do” and would create “serious tension with the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause,” the agreement held. For example, both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints promptly announced their clergy would not support candidates, regardless of the motion.

Left-leaning churches have long gotten by with tacitly endorsing candidates. The rule had long been flouted by Democrat-leaning churches that conduct such events as “Souls to the Polls,” or invite Democratic candidates to address the congregation during election seasons without repercussion. “The Johnson Amendment has long been applied in a discriminatory manner that respects the First Amendment freedoms of some, but not of others,” said NRB general counsel Michael Farris last summer. “Our intent is to vindicate the right of every church and religious nonprofit to express what their faith teaches on every issue, including political matters, as is their right and their duty.”

For President Donald Trump, the action constitutes another item on his list of “promises made, promises kept.” In May 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13798 “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty” in an attempt to remove state strictures on the pulpit. President Trump coasted to reelection in 2024, winning 81% of the evangelical Christian vote last November. Multiple studies have shown a voter’s faithful practice of the Christian faith represents one of the strongest predictors they will vote for the Republican Party.

The Johnson Amendment was introduced in 1954 by then-U.S. Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson in his first bid for reelection, as he faced stiff opposition from churches and nonprofits in Texas. “Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas forced the amendment out of his anger that [two local] Texas non-profit groups had supported his primary opponent,” wrote Gary Cass in his book “Gag Order.” The “ban on church electioneering has nothing to do with the First Amendment or Jeffersonian principles of separation of church and state. … It was prompted by Johnson’s desire to challenge McCarthyism, protect the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in Texas, and win re-election,” wrot Larry Witham in The Washington Times 27 years ago.

Constitutionalists cheered the decree. “First Amendment rights don’t end when a pastor, church member, or even a political candidate steps on the platform of a church,” Kelly Shackelford, president of the First Liberty Institute, told The Washington Stand. “The IRS weaponized the Johnson Amendment to silence churches and pastors for decades. This is great news for religious organizations, churches, and religious liberty.”

“Pastors who have steered clear of addressing moral issues out of fear that it might be perceived as political should now readjust and reconsider what they say from the pulpit,” said Focus on the Family. “In fact, ministers have an obligation to share God’s truth and shouldn’t be afraid to proclaim and defend it in the pulpit.”

But secular progressives denounced the decision as part of a nebulous assault to establish a dark-money-fueled theocracy.

“This is another dark day for our democracy,” emoted American Humanist Association (AHA) executive director Fish Stark, who called the Johnson Amendment a “small but mighty dam standing in the way of a torrent of dark money influencing our elections.”

“The merger of tax-exempt conservative churches with the MAGA Republican Party is complete,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “It started with endless rightwing attacks on the IRS, leading to partisan political operations like Family Research Council posing as ‘churches,’ and now this. American taxpayers are now subsidizing both partisan (mainly GOP) politics and religion.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State called the legal agreement “a brazen attack on church-state separation that threatens our democracy.” AU’s CEO, Rachel Laser, invoked a familiar bogeyman: “It’s President Trump and his Christian Nationalist allies’ signature move: exploiting religion to boost their own political power.”

“The decree could open the floodgates for political operatives to funnel money to their preferred candidates while receiving generous tax breaks at the expense of taxpayers who may not share those views,” insisted Diane Yentel, president of the National Conference of Nonprofits.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, added, “If the IRS is saying that churches and only churches are being given a pass from the Johnson Amendment, this clearly discriminates against other similarly situated 501(c)(3) tax-exempt groups, such as FFRF.”

But Harris said that is exactly why he and Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced the Free Speech Fairness Act, to repeal the Johnson Amendment in full, in March. “We want all of our country to be free,” said Harris, “and we don’t want the IRS to be able to hold us hostage with some kind of threat of losing our 501(c)3 status by giving up our freedom of speech.”

“Finality is needed here, to remove it completely from the books,” concluded Hice.