Photo Credit: APA record number of rogue Christian pastors are endorsing candidates from the pulpit this election cycle, using Sunday sermons to defiantly flout tax rules.

Their message to the IRS: Sue me.

But the tax agency is doing anything but. Although the IRS was sued itself for not enforcing the law and admitted about 100 churches may be breaking the rules, the pastors and their critics alike say the agency is looking the other way. The agency refuses to say if it is acting.

At the same time, the number of pastors endorsing candidates in what they call Pulpit Freedom Sunday jumped from 33 people in 2008 to more than 1,600 this year, according to organizers, Alliance Defending Freedom. And this year, they’ve stepped up their drive, telling pastors to back candidates any Sunday up until the election, not just one Sunday as in past years.

The church leaders are jumping in high-profile races that will help decide the Senate and tight governor races across the country, endorsing candidates from Thom Tillis (R) over Sen. Kay Hagan (D) in North Carolina to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) over Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) in Kentucky.

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As The Examiner reported Monday, the IRS entered into an agreement with an atheist group to monitor pastors and churches in order to “catch” suspected offenders of engaging in “unacceptable” speech from the pulpits across America. The agency threatens to revoke the tax exempt status of churches that point out government infractions against Biblical teaching, particularly politicians and candidates that support points of view that are in direct violation of clear moral and ethical precepts in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But the pastors of these churches, which happen to be some of the largest megachurches in America, say they plan on banding together to defy the IRS on the annual “Freedom of the Pulpit Sunday” coming up in October. According to several spokesmen within the pulpit freedom movement, the pastors will inform their congregants that IRS spies may be in the congregation that day and that they, the pastors, have no intention of adhering to the rules of the IRS that demand that they cease from preaching on homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, and other hot topics. The plan is for the pastors to dare the IRS agents to come forward and arrest them on the spot so that all of America can see what a farce the federal government has become.

America has always stood for complete freedom of speech in the pulpit, and it has always been assumed that pastors will hit public issues hard when the Bible addresses those issues head-on. This is fully exhibited in our history. Pastors were among the first to openly call for independence from Britain. Pastors were also among the first to condemn the practice of slavery, which ultimately led to its abolition. The church is under no obligation whatsoever to adhere to politically correct speech or to refrain from addressing ethical, moral, and public issues that are addressed in the Bible.

But progressive/totalitarian tyrants wish to silence the voice of preachers and churches unless they endorse the actions of the modern collectivist government in America. Such a move would solidify the control that the government increasingly exercises on its citizens.

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