Supreme Court justices may have an opportunity in 2026 to affirm the First Amendment rights of churches to advise congregants of the biblical perspective on major public policy issues in political campaigns and to provide information on the stands taken on those issues by candidates for elective office at all levels of government.
The case is National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), et. al. v IRS Commissioner Billy Long/Bessent, and it involves a serious challenge to the constitutionality of the federal tax agencyโs administration of a controversial 1954 regulation that bars nonprofit organizations, including religious assemblies, from participating in partisan political campaigns.
Known as the โJohnson Amendmentโ after its main sponsor, then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, the measure represented the powerful Lone Star State senatorโs retaliation against Southern Baptist Pastor J. Frank Norris of Fort Worth, who had endorsed and campaigned for a conservative challenger in the Democratic senatorial primary. Johnson won the primary and a second term in the Senate, but he nevertheless moved swiftly with his reprisal.
For years thereafter, the threat of losing federal tax exemption prompted conservative evangelical churches and leaders to say nothing about political issues, even as some liberal and progressive Protestant and Catholic assemblies across the nation were seen acting in ways that critics suggested may violate the Johnson Amendment, such as allowing candidates to speak on their own behalf in church facilities.
โAs someone who has led and urged churches to participate actively in moral and ethical issues that have been part and parcel of American elective politics over the last half-century, I can bear witness that the Johnson Amendment has been used by many Christians as an excuse for not taking a stand on controversial issues like abortion. When people want their pastors and church leaders to speak up on these issues, too often the reply has been, โWe could lose our tax exemption,โโ Dr. Richard Land, former president of the Southern Baptist Conventionโs Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013), wrote in a recent op-ed for The Christian Post.
In the original filing, the plaintiffs offered multiple reasons why enforcing a prohibition on political expression and activity against religious groups violates the First Amendment, including the fact faith based on the Bible by definition encompasses the entirety of life, including, in a democratic republic like the United States, public policy issues on which candidates and parties disagree.
โPlaintiffs are all religious nonprofit organizations in the business of communicating their views to the public. They regularly speak on a nearly infinite variety of topics and situations, believing that the Christian faith as taught in the Holy Bible speaks to every area of life. However, under the [Internal Revenue Code] IRC as interpreted and enforced by the IRS, there is one area of life where they are not free to speak โ to wit, their views about political candidates and issues,โ the plaintiffs told the federal courts.
โSome Plaintiffs do not want to formally endorse or oppose political candidates. However, all plaintiffs desire to communicate their views about candidatesโ positions that are relevant to the issues plaintiffs care about. They would do so but for the Johnson Amendment. The IRS operates in a manner whereby the plaintiffs are in jeopardy of punishment if they forthrightly say that a candidateโs positions are unbiblical; or that another candidateโs positions are consonant with biblical teaching. The plaintiffsโ speech is clearly chilled in this regard because they are not free to proclaim their views on the issues of the day and then compare their views with the views of the candidates on these same issues. Yet, countless other entities that are similarly situated face no such restrictions by law, in some cases, or in practice, in others,โ the plaintiffs continued.
When the NRB, Intercessors for America, and two Texas churches โ Sands Springs Baptist Church in Athens, Texas, and First Baptist Church of Waskom, Texas โ sued to stop enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, the federal government initially opposed the litigation, but that ended after President Donald Trumpโs appointment of Long, a former Missouri GOP congressman and well-known former professional auctioneer, to head the federal tax agency.
In July 2025, at Longโs direction, the IRS issued new guidance and agreed to exempt church groups from Johnson Amendment enforcement and joined with the plaintiffs in a motion seeking a consent decree from the federal court. The agreement only covered churches, thus leaving in place the bar on partisan political involvement by tax-exempt secular nonprofit foundations. (Note: Trump terminated Long in August 2025, so the case is now cited with the name of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is the acting IRS commissioner.)
As soon as the IRS made public the new agreement, a big coalition of liberal and progressive advocacy groups led by Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) mobilized in opposition. In a hearing in Dallas just before Thanksgiving, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas J. Campbell Barker heard arguments for and against a consent decree to uphold the agreement between the IRS and the plaintiffs in the case.
โThe Trump administrationโs radical reinterpretation of the Johnson Amendment would eviscerate a popular law so that religious extremists can exploit houses of worship for political campaigns,โ Rachel Laser, AUโs president and chief executive officer said in a statement prior to the hearing. In addition to opposing the consent decree, AU also asked to be added as a defendant in the case.
โTax-free giving to charities should fund charitable work, not partisan politics. Exempting only houses of worship and not secular nonprofits is not only unfair, itโs unhealthy for our democracy because it would allow church to become unaccountable political action committees. We urge the court to reject the administrationโs latest gambit to re-write the law and usurp congressional power to write our laws.โ
In a December 12 order, Barker denied the AU motion to be added as a plaintiff but acknowledged that the court would continue to consider AUโs arguments. Laser told The Washington Stand, โWeโre disappointed that the court didnโt allow Americans United to intervene to defend this federal law since the Trump administration will not. Our attorneys are reviewing the courtโs order and considering our next steps.โ
The clock then began ticking in a 60-day period in which appeals could be filed on Barkerโs rejection of AUโs request to be added as a party to the litigation in defending the Johnson amendment. Thus, the earliest to expect Barkerโs decision on the consent decree is February 12, 2026.
If Barker affirms the consent decree and opponents like AU somehow find an appeal path or the judge rejects the consent decree, the case could go to the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court and from there possibly to the Supreme Court. If five or more of the justices uphold the consent decree, it would mark a new era in the willingness of conservative and evangelical Christians in America to bring their biblical perspective to bear on public policy issues in the public square.
