Editors NOTE: The following article was written by Chuck Colson and appeared in TownHall Magazine Sept. 24th, 2010. Chuck Colson was the Chief Counsel for Richard Nixon and served time in prison for Watergate-related charges. In 1976, Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries, which, in collaboration with churches of all confessions and denominations, has become the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, crime victims, and their families.
It was a voice vote that silenced the voice of the church for generations.
In 1954, then-Senator Lyndon Johnson was in the middle of a particularly bruising re-election battle. Two nonprofit groups had been especially troublesome to the senator, vocally opposing his candidacy.
So, on a hot summer day in Washington, D.C., Johnson slipped an amendment into the IRS 501(c)(3) code that governs nonprofit organizations in order to restrict their speech — including the speech of churches. Johnson’s amendment stated that nonprofits could not “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing and distributing of statements) any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.”
The penalty for such “participation?” Revocation of their tax-exempt status. Continue reading