\u201cWe need pastors to be bold.\u201d<\/p>\n
For decades, pastors like him have fought for the right to speak on political issues and actively endorse candidates in their capacity as religious leaders. Now, before a judge has weighed in on whether to allow the IRS policy change, some religious leaders are already calling on congregations to demand greater political involvement from their churches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the tax agency\u2019s stance applies to churches nationwide, Texas is expected to be where it will matter most, said Ryan Burge, a political and religious expert at Washington University in St. Louis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than 200 megachurches<\/a> call Texas home. In the Lone Star State, pastors seem to have a larger profile in social, political and religious discussions. \u201cTexas will be the epicenter for testing all these ideas out,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Schatzline said as much in a follow-up interview with Fort Worth Report. A nonprofit that Mercy Culture Church previously created to help elect candidates to political office is working with President Donald Trump\u2019s National Faith Advisory Board to expand that work and to mobilize churches and pastors to get them more civically engaged, the state representative said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Officials from the White House and the advisory board did not respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Schatzline said pastors can choose not to be vocal about candidates, congregations like his may feel differently. \u201cEspecially our conservatives across America, they have an expectation that their pastor is going to speak to the issues of truth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For more than 70 years, churches and other religious institutions in the United States were told to steer clear of \u201cany political activity\u201d or risk losing their tax-exempt status. That federal measure, the Johnson Amendment<\/a>, was added into IRS tax law in 1954 and named after its author, Lyndon B. Johnson, then a Texas congressman.\u00a0<\/p>\n In August 2024, during the last months of the Biden administration, an association of religious broadcasters and two East Texas churches sued the IRS, arguing that the Johnson Amendment infringed upon their freedom of speech and religion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nearly a year later, the IRS, now under Trump, and the plaintiffs filed a proposed joint settlement outlining in the agreement that when a house of worship speaks to its congregation about \u201celectoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith,\u201d it neither participates nor intervenes in a political campaign and so doesn\u2019t violate the amendment. The court must now consider their proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n IRS officials did not respond to a request for comment on what prompted its decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n The biggest implication of the proposed legal agreement is a push on pastors to be \u201cmore political than they want to be,\u201d said Burge, a former Baptist pastor who is now a professor of practice at Washington University\u2019s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt all comes down to the 5% of people on each side of the political spectrum who are the loudest and are trying to drag you into their fervor,\u201d said Burge, adding that congregants could threaten to leave a church if their pastor doesn\u2019t talk about their political stances.\u00a0<\/p>\n A previous investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune highlighted 20 examples<\/a> of churches that were seemingly violating the Johnson Amendment. That was more than what the IRS itself had investigated in the previous decade. Thirteen of those congregations were in the North Texas area, including Mercy Culture, where Schatzline was ordained a pastor in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n The tax agency largely abdicated enforcing the amendment, the newsrooms previously reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, in the mid-2000s, the IRS investigated a little more than 100 churches, including 80 for endorsing candidates<\/a> from the pulpit, after citing an increase in allegations of church political activity leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Agency officials didn\u2019t revoke the tax-exempt status of any churches, instead sending warning letters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Following the filing of the proposed settlement in July, the Fort Worth Report identified at least three churches in Texas whose leaders openly praised the IRS decision, including Mercy Culture and Sand Springs Church, one of those involved in the lawsuit that sparked the IRS change.\u00a0<\/p>\n The day after the court filing, Mercy Culture Church posted a screenshot on Instagram and Facebook of The New York Times article<\/a> detailing the news and noting it was \u201ctime for the church to get loud!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not be silent on issues of righteousness, life, liberty, or leadership. We don\u2019t endorse parties \u2014 we stand for the Kingdom!\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n In Athens, less than 100 miles south of the Fort Worth-Dallas area, Sand Springs Church senior pastor Erick Graham told congregants during a July 9 Bible study that the IRS ruling is \u201cencouraging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He told congregants during the teaching, which was livestreamed on Facebook and reviewed by the newsroom, that the church was not going to comment on the IRS court filing until the judge\u2019s final ruling approving or denying the proposed settlement.<\/p>\n \u201cA Powerful Tool\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Megachurches with the means to livestream services online or by broadcasting \u201ccould be a powerful tool for promoting political candidates,\u201d said David Brockman, a nonresident scholar at Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute for Public Policy and an adjunct professor at Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University.\u00a0<\/p>\n In North Texas, First Baptist Dallas draws about 16,000 members to attend worship in person or through several streaming methods, according to the church\u2019s website<\/a>. Nondenominational Mercy Culture Church draws thousands of worshipers<\/a> to its flagship location in Fort Worth, The Washington Post has reported. Since its inception, the church has formed other campuses in east Fort Worth, Dallas, Waco and Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n First Baptist Dallas\u2019 lead pastor, Robert Jeffress, an avid Trump supporter, thanked the president on Facebook for the IRS\u2019 recent interpretation of the Johnson Amendment.<\/p>\n \u201cThis would have never happened without the strong leadership of our great President Donald Trump! Honored to get to thank him personally today in the Oval Office,\u201d Jeffress wrote in his\u00a0 July 9 post. \u201cGovernment has NO BUSINESS regulating what is said in pulpits!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Religion News Service reported this spring<\/a> that Jeffress was one of multiple pastors who told Trump during a White House Easter service in April that the IRS had investigated their churches for their political endorsements. Jeffress told The New York Times<\/a> he believed the conversation was a \u201ctipping point,\u201d in the new IRS interpretation of the Johnson Amendment, something Trump himself promised to do during his 2016 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n He did not respond to requests from the Fort Worth Report for comment. A spokesperson for the church said he was out of town.\u00a0<\/p>\n Different religious traditions may respond to the policy change in distinct ways, said Matthew Wilson, a religious and politics professor at Southern Methodist University.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops<\/a> and the United Methodist Church<\/a>, for example, both announced they would maintain their stances on not endorsing or opposing political candidates. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit advocating for separation between church and state, announced<\/a> July 30 it is joining others in condemning efforts to ignore or weaken the Johnson Amendment.<\/p>\n While some religious leaders may be reluctant to engage in politics, white conservative churches, which generally support Republican candidates, and African American churches, which historically have favored Democrats, have \u201ccome right up to the line\u201d of the provisions in the Johnson Amendment \u2014 \u201cif not sometimes crossing it,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose religious organizations have spoken in more explicitly political terms for a long time, and this [IRS decision] frees them even more to do that,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mansfield Mayor Michael Evans, who has been pastor for 30 years at Bethlehem Baptist Church, southeast of Fort Worth, said he doesn\u2019t plan to endorse candidates for the congregation because it could only lead to more division. At his predominantly African American church, congregants come from both ends of the political spectrum, he said.<\/p>\n While the candidates put forth by political parties and their philosophies may change, Evans said, \u201cthe word of God remains the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Mercy Culture Church is already well down the path of exerting its political influence. Schatzline launched its nonprofit For Liberty & Justice in 2021 after a church elder unsuccessfully ran to become the mayor of Fort Worth. The organization partners with local churches in grassroots campaigning efforts to \u201cpromote Godly candidates for local government,\u201d according to its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n The nonprofit created an online program called \u201cCampaign University,\u201d designed to train people of faith on how to run for office. The organization\u2019s \u201cliberty rallies\u201d have \u201cinfluenced the decisions of local school boards and city councils to lead with Christian values in Tarrant County,\u201d according to its website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Liberty & Justice has supported 48 candidates since its inception. One was Schatzline.<\/p>\n Government accountability reporter Cecilia Lenzen contributed reporting to this article.<\/p>\n Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article is co-published with the nonprofit newsrooms ProPublica<\/a> and The Texas Tribune<\/a> as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas.<\/p>\n News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n Fort Worth Report is certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative<\/a> for adhering to standards for ethical journalism.<\/p>\n Republish This Story<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Goss-TrueTexasMeeting-47-scaled.jpg\")
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\nLeft: A member of True Texas Project wears an organization T-shirt during a monthly meeting at the Texas Star Golf Course in Euless. Right: A Mercy Culture Church sign at its flagship Fort Worth campus, one of five locations in Texas. (Mary Abby Goss and Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)<\/p>\n
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