Every year during Barack Obama’s presidency, the Democrat would make an appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he’d deliver pensive, thought-provoking remarks about the depths of his Christian faith. And nearly every year, conservatives would express their outrage over the ideas the president challenged them to consider.Donald Trump is clearly a very different kind of president, and his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast captured an almost unrecognizable perspective.For example, the Republican thought it’d be wise to reflect on his NBC reality show. “[W]e had tremendous success on ‘The Apprentice,’” Trump said, adding, “And they hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place. And we know how that turned out. The ratings went down the tubes. It’s been a total disaster and Mark will never, ever bet against Trump again. And I want to just pray for Arnold if we can, for those ratings, OK?”Yes, the president used the National Prayer Breakfast to talk about television ratings for a reality show – which he remains the executive producer of – because everything at all times is about him and his career.Trump went on to use inspirational rhetoric such as, “The world is in trouble, but we’re going to straighten it out. OK? That’s what I do. I fix things. We’re going to straighten it out. Believe me. When you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it.”But there was a substantive element of the speech that probably mattered more than Trump’s embarrassing boasts: 
 
 “It was the great Thomas Jefferson who said, ‘The God who gave us life, gave us liberty.’ Jefferson asked, ‘Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?’ “Among those freedoms is the right to worship according to our own beliefs. That is why I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution. I will do that, remember.” 
 
 For now, let’s put aside the complexities of Jefferson’s approach to religion and focus instead on Trump’s intentions to “totally destroy the Johnson Amendment.”Circling back to our previous coverage , those who followed Trump’s campaign closely may recall his frequent references to the Johnson Amendment – a policy of great concern to the religious right movement and evangelical Christians, but something most of the country has probably never heard of.So, what is it? Under current federal tax law, tax-exempt houses of worship are not allowed to intervene in partisan political campaigns. Ministries can obviously speak out on moral and spiritual issues of the day, and can even get involved in ballot referenda related to various policies, but churches and other houses of worship can’t take steps to help (or hurt) candidates or political parties. 
 
 This law was created in 1954 , thanks to the efforts of then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson, and for the most part, it hasn’t been especially controversial. 
 
 But as the religious right movement became a more prominent fixture in Republican politics, the Johnson Amendment became problematic. Efforts to create a political machine involving pastors and congregations were stunted by the law – because if a religious leader can’t tell his or her congregation who to vote for without risking the ministry’s tax-exempt status, the movement’s potency has limits. 
 
 And so the religious right decided the Johnson Amendment has to go. It even came up with an argument that seems vaguely compelling at first blush: those who lead houses of worship should be able to say whatever they wish to their congregants, and it’s not the government’s job to intervene. The First Amendment’s free-speech protections, the argument goes, should be applied to ministers in the pulpit. 
 
 What’s wrong with that argument? Quite a bit, actually. 
 
 As we discussed a couple of years ago, when it comes to electioneering and tax law, houses of worship have effectively made a deal with the government: the pastors will enjoy the benefits of a tax-exemption, and in exchange, their ministry will be non-partisan. 
 
 Trump is saying he wants to scrap the deal: the churches should get the benefit of a tax exemption from the government, without any of the conditions. 
 
 As for the First Amendment, note that tax-exempt entities, including churches, have the option of getting engaged in partisan politics, endorsing candidates, and intervening in campaigns to their hearts’ content – but they can’t do this while keeping their tax exemption. 
 
 Why does Trump want to change this? Basically because the religious right told him to. But why does the religious right want this? Because some on the right still dream of creating a church-based political machine. 
 
 The consequences could be dramatic. Imagine the campaign-finance mess that would exist if parties, candidates, and PACs could funnel campaign donations through tax-exempt churches, free of oversight. 
 
 
 
 That’s the system the Republican is vowing to create, and it matters more than the latest unfortunate joke about “The Apprentice.” ||||| President Trump, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, promised to "get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment," which prohibits some tax-exempt organizations like churches from supporting political candidates, on Feb. 2. (The Washington Post) 
 
 A version of this story was first posted on Feb. 2, 2017. It has been updated. 
 
 President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday relaxing rules that bar tax-exempt churches from participating in politics. 
 
 The move, which is part of a broader step on religious liberty, aims to fulfill a promise Trump made repeatedly during his campaign that he would do away with something known as the Johnson Amendment. In his address at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2, he vowed again, “I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment.” 
 
 What is that? Is it in Trump’s power to destroy it? And who would want him to do that? 
 
 What the Johnson Amendment is: It’s named for Lyndon B. Johnson, who introduced it in the Senate in 1954, nine years before he became president. It bans all tax-exempt nonprofits — which includes churches and other houses of worship, as well as charities — from “directly or indirectly” participating in any political candidate’s campaign. 
 
 President Trump has vowed to repeal the Johnson Amendment, because he says it infringes on the freedom of speech of religious groups. Here is what you need to know about this amendment. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) 
 
 What Trump can do: Trump presented the ban on participating in politicking as a restriction on the freedom of faith groups to put their religion in action, if their religion calls on them to campaign for a candidate. The Johnson Amendment is part of the tax code, so to completely remove it would take an act of Congress. 
 
 “If he ‘totally destroys’ the Johnson Amendment, he will way overreach and open an enormous loophole,” said Douglas Laycock, professor at University of Virginia Law School and an expert on religious freedom who has urged Congress to fix the amendment. What Trump could do, however, is direct law enforcement discretion elsewhere or maybe say it’s unconstitutional. 
 
 The next president could direct the IRS to enforce it, for example, but churches would be free from worry about their political speech or donations during Trump’s term. 
 
 How it actually works: Most of the discussion of the Johnson Amendment, whether coming from Trump or from pastors, focuses on whether clergy put their churches’ tax-exempt status at risk when they endorse their favorite candidates from the pulpit. 
 
 But in reality, the Internal Revenue Service very rarely punishes churches for political statements. For several years, more than 2,000 pastors have joined what they call “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” to test the ban by speaking their political views in their sermons — and the IRS investigated one and did not punish in that case, according to the conservative organization that organizes the annual effort. In the 1990s, a church called Branch Ministries lost its tax-exempt status after taking out a full-page ad against President Bill Clinton in USA Today. 
 
 But the Johnson Amendment has not been at the forefront of the debate about religious liberty, which has in recent years been centered around contraceptive access and LGBT rights. 
 
 “In the universe of religious freedom issues facing our country today, the Johnson Amendment doesn’t come even close to the top,” said John Inazu, professor of religion and law at Washington University in St. Louis. “My hunch is that one or two of Trump’s ‘religious advisers’ mentioned the Johnson Amendment early in the campaign. But how and why they focused on that issue is beyond me.” 
 
 What Trump hasn’t talked about in his speeches about the Johnson Amendment is the implication for how churches can spend their money, not just how clergy can talk about candidates. 
 
 “Most people’s concern is if you allow churches to freely allow political activity — churches, synagogues, temples, whatever the religious organization — now what you’ve done is you’ve turned those into Super PACs,” said David Herzig, a Valparaiso University tax law professor. 
 
 Churches would be freed to use their budgets to support campaigning — and citizens would get a tax deduction for contributing to the church, which would still be a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Also, Herzig pointed out, nonprofits like churches aren’t required to make the same public disclosures as PACs, so political funding could theoretically become much less transparent if campaign funding were funneled through churches. 
 
 Some critics are worried doing away with the amendment could allow a huge flow of money in campaigning between churches and candidates. But, Herzig says, even without the Johnson Amendment, the country’s tax law severely constrains churches’ ability to engage in politics. 
 
 Who wants it gone: Until Trump’s campaign, the Johnson Amendment rarely came up in political discussion. Some pastors, including those 2,000 who publicly oppose the policy on Pulpit Freedom Sunday, objected to the ban, but it wasn’t high on most Christians’ policy wish list. 
 
 LifeWay, a Christian polling firm, found in 2015 that 79 percent of Americans thought clergy should not endorse candidates during worship services. Evangelicals were more likely to say pastors should be able to do so — 25 percent compared to 16 percent — but support for clergy endorsements was low across the board. 
 
 Trump’s attack on the Johnson Amendment has found eager supporters, though, including Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University, and other prominent evangelicals who supported his presidential campaign. 
 
 Falwell said on Wednesday that Liberty officials have been “harassed” by organizations that would report the university for violating the Johnson Amendment. 
 
 “I don’t think it was being enforced anyhow, but it had a chilling effect on pastors and conservative universities,” Falwell said. 
 
 On the other hand, many religious groups like their nonpolitical status just fine the way it is. 
 
 Interfaith Alliance president Rabbi Jack Moline said on Wednesday that the Johnson Amendment has prevented houses of worship from being turned into partisan political tools. 
 
 “To hear the Religious Right say it, clergy in America are being muzzled. But that’s a lie,” he said in a statement. “Repealing the Johnson Amendment is nothing more than President Trump carrying water for the Religious Right.” 
 
 According a 2016 survey the Pew Research Center, about 10 percent of parishioners say they have heard direct support for or opposition to a specific candidate. Among those who heard religious leaders speak out for a candidate, Hillary Clinton was the name mentioned most often, with 6 percent of recent churchgoers saying their clergy had spoken out in support of her. Black Protestants were much more likely to say they had heard their clergy speak out directly about specific political candidates, according to Pew. ||||| Campaigners have denounced Donald Trump’s vow to repeal a law that stops religious groups endorsing or campaigning for political candidates – claiming it would damage both America’s democracy and its houses of worship. 
 
 Speaking at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, the US President said he would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, a piece of legislation dating from 1954. The provision threatens churches and other religious institutions with the loss of their tax-exempt status if they “campaign from the pulpit”. 
 
 “I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution,” said Mr Trump. 
 
 Trump pledges to destroy Johnson amendment 
 
 He added: “Jefferson asked, ‘Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God’. Among those freedoms is the right to worship according to our own beliefs.” 
 
 But activists fighting to retain America’s separation between church and state, have condemned the remarks, saying the move would open the way to a flood of money entering politics through unregulated, tax free churches. They also claim polls show an overwhelming majority of people – along with members of the clergy – do not want the law repealed. 
 
 “If the law is repealed, it would lead to the funnelling of money into political campaigns with no way to check,” Rob Boston, Director of Communications for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told The Independent. 
 
 Mr Boston said polls showed most Americans did not support repealing the law. He cited a surgery carried out last year by LifeWay Research, which found that 79 per cent of people thought pastors should not endorse candidates during a church service. 
 
 He said he believed the move had had been pushed on Mr Trump by members of the religious right, including Jerry Falwell Jr, the president of the largest Christian college in the world and a key supporter of the New York tycoon. He said Mr Falwell’s father, a major religious leader, had fallen foul of the law during the 1980s. 
 
 Mr Boston said he believed the move could also detrimentally affect America’s houses of worship. “There are a number of reasons why people go to a place of worship. But rarely are they looking for guidance on who to vote for,” he said. 
 
 Steve Benen, a political writer and blogger, wrote on MSNBC: “Why does Trump want to change this? Basically because the religious right told him to. But why does the religious right want this? Because some on the right still dream of creating a church-based political machine.” 
 
 Rabbi Jack Moline, President of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance, said that Mr Trump’s claim that the clergy were too afraid to speak openly, was a “lie that has been advanced for years by the religious right”. 
 
 “President Trump's attack on the Johnson Amendment, if successful, would undermine religious freedom by plunging houses of worship into partisan politics and inviting the rewards and punishments of patronage,” he said. 
 
 “What’s more, houses of worships would become conduits for unregulated “dark money” in elections, with no restrictions or disclosure requirements.” 
 
 At the gathering of religious leaders in the nation’s capital, Mr Trump also joked about the poor ratings of Arnold Schwarzenegger since he took over as host of The Apprentice. 
 
 He also defended his recent executive order on immigration, decrying “generous” immigration policies and arguing that there were people who sought to enter the country “for the purpose of spreading violence or oppressing other people based upon their faith.” 
 
 According to the Associated Press, he said: “In the coming days we will develop a system to help ensure that those admitted into our country fully embrace our values of religious and personal liberty and that they reject any form of oppression and discrimination.” ||||| CLOSE President Donald Trump is seeking to further weaken enforcement of an IRS rule barring churches and tax-exempt groups from endorsing political candidates, though his executive order on religious freedom is disappointing some of his supporters. Time 
 
 President Trump signs an executive order in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 4, 2017. (Photo: Evan Vucci, AP) 
 
 WASHINGTON – Before a crowd of priests, nuns, and faith leaders, President Trump promised the executive order he signed Thursday would take "historic steps to protect religious liberty" in the United States. But some religious conservatives who supported his candidacy were left wanting more. 
 
 Activists called the executive order Trump signed in the Rose Garden on the National Day of Prayer a mere shadow of a draft that leaked earlier this year, and woefully inadequate. 
 
 “President Trump must continue to work to protect religious freedom,” said Paul Weber, president of the Family Policy Alliance. 
 
 Trump’s executive order targeted the Johnson Amendment, a provision of tax law which prohibits churches from getting directly involved in political campaigns – and has long chafed some evangelical activists. 
 
 But the order stopped short of Trump's vow to “totally destroy” the amendment, instead instructing the Internal Revenue Service to enforce the law consistent with how it’s done so in the past — allowing speech on political and moral issues as long as it doesn’t advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate. Only Congress can change that law to allow churches to endorse candidates without losing their tax-exempt status. 
 
 The Executive Order on Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty also aims to make it easier for employers with religious objections not to include contraception coverage in workers' health care plans, although it would be up to federal agencies to determine how that would happen. 
 
 Vowing to fight what he called discrimination against religious people and institutions, Trump said, "We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied, or silenced any more." 
 
 Yet even as Trump promised his executive order makes it "clear that the federal government will never, ever penalize any person for their protected religious beliefs," the activists were not convinced they would avoid punishment if they refused to provide services or benefits on religious or moral grounds. 
 
 Citing an Agriculture Department order that required a Michigan meatpacking plant to remove literature objecting to same-sex marriage from a break room table in 2015, a senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, Gregory S. Baylor, said Trump's order offers "no specific relief" to people "threatened with the effective closure of their family-run business for simply expressing a religious point of view on marriage that differed from that of the federal government." 
 
 Some conservative religious groups praised the order's provision directing the IRS to exercise restraint in enforcing the Johnson Amendment's prohibition on church involvement in political campaigns. But Baylor said it doesn't go far enough. "Americans cannot rely on the discretion of IRS agents, some of whom have abused that discretion for years to silence pastors and intrude into America’s pulpits," he said. 
 
 And Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson, who led dozens of conservative lawmakers last month in a letter urging the administration to move forward with the more far-reaching executive order, said the final version fails to roll back "some of the worst progressive mandates from the Obama era." 
 
 Davidson said protections are still needed for religious organizations, military chaplains, schools, federal contractors and schools with a religious mission, and promised to try to address that through legislation. For his part, Weber from the Family Policy Alliance wants to make sure health care entities are not obligated to provide gender transition therapies, and that women's homeless shelters are not required to admit transgender people. 
 
 Some influential religious conservatives though, praised Trump for paying special attention to this issue while in the Oval Office. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council who worked closely with the administration on this issue, called the order a "good first step." 
 
 “This is a multi-step process,” Perkins said after attending the ceremony. 
 
 The order says it's the administration's policy to "vigorously enforce federal law's robust protections for religious freedom" and directs the Justice Department to issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in the law. ​Perkins said that will set in place a process for "not just protection, but promotion of religious freedom." 
 
 Meanwhile, civil rights groups have vowed to file a legal challenge against any action they believe would allow people to deny benefits or services to those they oppose. “Donald Trump just let the fox into the hen house,” Sarah Warbelow, the legal director for the Human Rights Campaign. “We are watching and we will challenge any effort by [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions or other agencies of Trump’s administration to license discrimination.” 
 
 Among the issues the group will be watching include any changes to 2011 rules that ensure same-sex spouses can visit a partner in a hospital, and that people can’t be barred from federally-funded housing on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. 
 
 After initially threatening to sue the administration for undermining the country's “longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state," the American Civil Liberties Union said it would back off – for now – because it found the order to be more flash than substance. “Today’s executive order signing was an elaborate photo-op with no discernible policy outcome," said ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero. “The directive to federal agencies to explore religious-based exceptions to healthcare does cue up a potential future battle, but as of now, the status quo has not changed. 
 
 Trump views his actions as the fulfillment of campaign pledges. He sees the Johnson amendment as a violation of free speech rights. "I spoke about it a lot" during last year's presidential campaign, and "promised to take action," he said. 
 
 "We're a nation of believers," Trump told supporters. "Faith is deeply embedded into the history of our country... No American should be forced to choose between the dictates of the federal government and the tenets of their faith." 
 
 Things appear to be moving quickly. Right after the order was signed, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price promised to take action “in short order” to "safeguard the deeply held religious beliefs of Americans who provide health insurance to their employees.” 
 
 At the ceremony, Trump gave a special callout to members of the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns which runs homes for the elderly which was one of the groups that challenged Obamacare's requirement that insurance plans cover birth control. The group objected to the Obama administration’s policy that while religious organizations don’t have to directly provide birth control to employees through their plans, workers could still get it through a third party. 
 
 "Your long ordeal will soon be over," he promised. 
 
 Even as some faith leaders say the order does not go far enough, others say the order is too extreme and would do more harm than good. 
 
 
 
 Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Interfaith Alliance, called the steps to ease enforcement of the provision a "payment to religious extremists for their support" which will "do more to compromise religious freedom than any action in recent memory." 
 
 
 
 "That minority of clergy – almost all from the Religious Right – who want to impose their private partisanship on their congregations will be emboldened to turn worship into campaign rallies," Moline said. 
 
 What's more, while the order does not repeal the Johnson Amendment – only Congress can do that – some religious organizations oppose tampering with it at all. 
 
 A coalition of 99 religious groups sent a letter to Congress calling for the retention of the Johnson Amendment, noting that religious leaders can speak out on political issues in their private capacities, and often do so, despite the Johnson Amendment. 
 
 Passed in 1954 – and named for then-Texas Sen. Lyndon Johnson, the future president – the Johnson Amendment says that churches and other non-profit institutions that are exempt from taxation "are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of [or in opposition to] any candidate for elective public office." 
 
 The IRS says that "violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes." 
 
 Yet the Johnson amendment only prohibits them from using tax-exempt houses of worship to endorse candidates or make campaign contributions – as the religious groups point out in their letter. 
 
 The last time the IRS investigated a house of worship for violating the restriction was 2009, according to advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. 
 
 "It is clear that churches and church leaders already have robust free speech rights," Maggie Garret, the group's legislative director, said in prepared remarks for a congressional hearing Thursday on the issue. 
 
 Adding fuel to the fire, a coalition of nearly 4,500 charitable, philanthropic and religious organizations sent a letter to Congress opposing weakening federal tax law restrictions on political activity by nonprofits. The groups said that would "would damage the integrity and effectiveness of all charitable organizations and spawn litigation." 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2pL5JhO ||||| “Anything that would currently be illegal under current law would still be illegal, we’re not changing the law," a White House official said. | AP Photo Trump signs order loosening oversight of churches' political activities 'You’re now in a position where you can say what you want to say, and I know you’ll only say good and you’ll say what’s in your heart,' Trump told religious leaders. 
 
 President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday easing the enforcement of rules barring churches and other religious groups from political activities, pitching the controversial move sought by conservatives as an effort to promote tolerance and religious liberty. 
 
 “You’re now in a position where you can say what you want to say, and I know you’ll only say good and you’ll say what’s in your heart,” Trump told religious leaders assembled in the Rose Garden. “We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced any more. And we will never, ever stand for religious discrimination, never ever." 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The order gives the Internal Revenue Service wider latitude to avoid enforcing a ban on political activity by churches and other religious nonprofits, a key 2016 campaign promise by Trump to evangelical conservatives. Critics say relaxing the rules would inappropriately let churches use tax-free donations to promote political candidates and causes. 
 
 Trump also used the ceremony on the National Day of Prayer to announce his first foreign trip as president, which will include stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican, where he will meet the pope. Beginning the trip in Saudi Arabia underscores Trump’s hope to work with leaders in the Muslim world, White House officials said after the announcement. 
 
 "Tolerance is the cornerstone of peace," Trump said in announcing the trip. 
 
 Trump huddled with Catholic leaders in the Oval Office before he spoke, and Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman serenaded the crowd with Christian hymns. A number of cabinet officials attended the ceremony. 
 
 White House officials have said the executive order also would provide “relief” from the Affordable Care Act's requirement, already scaled back by courts, that health insurance plans cover birth control. Religious conservative employers argued for years they should not be forced to pay for insurance plans that cover services they feel violate their religious beliefs. 
 
 Trump made no mention Thursday of another move conservatives at one point expected him to take, which would would have allowed organizations to deny services if they claimed religious objections. Critics said that could permit discrimination against LGBT Americans. 
 
 It's unclear what effects the executive order targeting church activities will have. A White House official acknowledged a day earlier that the order would not change the law. 
 
 In practice, the IRS rarely acts against churches for violating the Johnson amendment, a 1950s-era policy sponsored by then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson that prohibits tax-exempt religious organizations from engaging in campaigning. 
 
 Trump made repealing it a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign for conservative Christian support, and lawmakers have also called for its repeal. “I believe it’s time that we rid our nation of this unconstitutional law by way of legislative action,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), an ordained pastor, said Thursday during a House hearing across town from Trump’s ceremonial signing. 
 
 Critics say that would let religious groups use tax-free donations for political purposes, which other nonprofits cannot do. "It is about a scheme to flood political campaigns with dark money," Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) said at the same hearing. 
 
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 The executive order leaves the law in place but allows the IRS more discretion to avoid enforcing it. But on Wednesday, three Senate Democrats, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), said it still would let religious organizations more actively engage in politics. 
 
 The National Council of Nonprofits, the largest network of nonprofit organizations in the country, also said Thursday it opposed the executive order. 
 
 The White House official on Wednesday said they do not expect legal challenges, and the official said the changes Trump signed off on would not lead to a major shift in behavior by religious groups. 
 
 “No one’s suggesting that churches can take out political ads,” the official said. ||||| Over 1,800 Pastors Take Part in Pulpit Freedom Sunday 
 
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 More than 1,800 pastors from across the United States have participated in this year's Pulpit Freedom Sunday since the Alliance Defending Freedom's annual event began last Sunday to protest an Internal Revenue Service rule which is used to silence churches. 
 
 "The tax-collecting IRS shouldn't be playing speech cop and threatening a church's tax-exempt status simply because its pastor exercises his constitutionally protected freedom of speech," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley, who heads the Pulpit Freedom Sunday event, said in a statement. 
 
 The movement of pastors is against the IRS rule Johnson Amendment, which activist groups often use to silence churches by threatening their tax-exempt status. This year's event goes through Election Day, Nov. 4. 
 
 Of the participating pastors, 1,517 preached sermons presenting biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates and signed a statement agreeing that the IRS should not control the content of a pastor's sermon, according to the Arizona-based Christian legal group. 
 
 An additional 242 pastors signed the statement only, bringing the total number of pastors in support of pulpit freedom to more than 3,800 since 2008. 
 
 "Pastors and their churches should decide what is said in church," Stanley said. "The IRS shouldn't be empowered to censor speech, period. A growing movement of pastors is calling for a solution to this very real violation of the First Amendment." 
 
 Churches registered as 501(c)3 nonprofits risk losing their tax-exempt status if they appear to endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit, according to The Wall Street Journal. 
 
 In response to a related lawsuit, the IRS in July told the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is opposed to the event, that the political speech prohibition will now be more strictly enforced. 
 
 "So long as Pulpit Freedom Sunday, and any other electioneering by churches during this election season occurs, FFRF remains committed to seeking IRS investigations into this illegal activity," the secular group stated. 
 
 Pulpit Freedom Sunday, which began in 2008 with 33 participating pastors, is an event associated with the Pulpit Initiative, a legal effort designed to secure the free speech rights of pastors in the pulpit. ADF hopes to eventually go to court to have the Johnson Amendment struck down as unconstitutional for its regulation of sermons, which are protected by the First Amendment. 
 
 "The Johnson Amendment commissioned the IRS to be a 'speech cop,' a role it should not have," said ADF Litigation Counsel Christiana Holcomb. "This law was specifically designed to silence public criticism of a politician. That's clearly in conflict with the First Amendment. Political retribution to protect the powerful has never been the basis of good law." 
 
 Stanley explained that a federal agency can't use tax status as a "weapon" to "force" an American to "surrender" his constitutionally protected freedoms. "Churches don't have to give up their freedom of speech to remain tax-exempt any more than they have to give up their protection against illegal search and seizure or any other protection in the Bill of Rights." 
 
 A 2011 national phone survey conducted by ADF and LifeWay Research with 1,000 randomly drawn senior pastors found that nearly nine out of 10 Protestant pastors believe that the government should not regulate their sermons.
– Yes, President Trump took the opportunity of the National Prayer Breakfast to drag Arnold Schwarzenegger and his weak Celebrity Apprentice ratings. But he also brought up something arguably just as important: the Johnson Amendment, which he vowed to "totally destroy." Here's what you need to know: The Washington Post has a great explanation of the Johnson Amendment, which basically bans churches and charities from participating in political campaigns unless they give up tax-exempt status. Getting rid of the Johnson Amendment is part of Trump's emerging "agenda of religious nationalism," in which the president is linking being American with being Christian, the Atlantic reports. MSNBC weighs in on why promising to "totally destroy" the Johnson Amendment is important. One such reason is that it would allow political parties and candidates to "funnel campaign donations through tax-exempt churches" with no oversight. While the Johnson Amendment is wildly unpopular with the religious right, that's not necessarily the case elsewhere, the Independent reports. A survey last year found 79% of people didn't think pastors should endorse candidates. And some religious leaders believe churches would be hurt by entering the partisan world of politics. In addition to the Johnson Amendment and Celebrity Apprentice, Trump also discussed foreign relations, telling those in attendance, "just don't worry about" the "tough phone calls I'm having," apparently in reference to threatening to invade Mexico and picking a fight with Australia, MarketWatch reports. Outside the National Prayer Breakfast, around 150 members of local churches were protesting Trump's Muslim travel ban. One Christian author at the protest tells Yahoo News it's important for the church to "stand up and be on the right side of history."