Some big news from the IRS in what is a Christian to think. About What's going on in our country with this big, beautiful bill? Or is it a big, ugly, hairy bill, like some opponents say of this bill? Who better to clear this up than my good buddy Ryan Helfenbein with the Freedom Center out of the campus of Liberty University? Ryan, you texted me early this morning.
You were pretty excited in the tone of that text, my friend. Yeah, very excited for a recent ruling regarding the IRS. And this is a subject that has been debated going all the way back to 1954, Stu. It's the Johnson Amendment. And essentially, there was a court filing on behalf of two churches in Texas along the lines of free speech.
It was First Baptist Church of Wascombe and Sand Springs Church in Athens, Texas. Essentially, the IRS for the longest time. Has basically said, you know, from a tax-exempt status, a religious organization, a 501c3, a church, can't endorse. Candidates. And that includes not only just saying, hey, vote for this person, but saying things that would be considered disparaging remarks of other candidates or maybe their platform.
And so a lot of times, pastors for decades would not weigh in on political matters, political discussions. And this even includes things like abortion for fear that the IRS could target and maybe come after a church for auditing purposes and revoke their tax-exempt status. All of that has now changed. All of that changed yesterday with this ruling essentially that says, you know what? Churches are free to endorse.
And at the very least, they're free to speak about these matters from the pulpit. That's, I think, that's the biggest takeaway is that churches are not gagged. They have the freedom of speech. And by the way, these freedoms do come from God. They don't come from government.
So these are not granted rights. They're just recognized rights from God. It's very well true. Stated, Ryan, and what I appreciate about you and the Freedom Center, standing for Freedom Center. Is that you are all about the ultimate truth, the truth of God, and putting the gospel and the cross ahead of the flag, of course, but.
It means getting into some of this sticky stuff like the gender confusion, like you mentioned abortion. And a lot of people listening, they really need to know the history. And I don't want to go too far back or too long on this, but can you explain to people, you know, LBJ, Lyndon Johnson. He was the king of campaign racketeering, and he did not want pastors speaking up against some of his corruption. And so that's kind of what brought this bill in to begin with.
And for decades now, the left has been holding these Crusades, these campaign crusades for awful things from their pulpits, never a word. From the IRS, give everyone a little context. You know, before they jump to the conclusion, oh, the religious radicals are going to go crazy from the pulpit. No, not the least of which, but go ahead. Yeah, so thank you for setting this up because in 1954, Lyndon Baines Johnson was the Senate majority leader in the Senate.
He wanted to pass this amendment basically to keep churches out of the sort of the political chess match that was going on at that time. Eisenhower was president, but Democrats controlled Congress. And along with him and party to that was JFK. He was also in the Senate at that time. And then when Lyndon Baines Johnson became president in the 1960s, it was a tumultuous time, time of great civil unrest, social protest.
There was fire in the streets, rioting in the streets. You had all kinds of things, everything from the civil rights movement to anti-war protests in Vietnam to the feminist movement. Lots of things were going on. During those debates in the 1960s, who was sidelined during that time? The churches.
And in fact, the founder of our institution, Dr. Jerry Falwell, writes in his biography in the 1990s, he reminisces back in the 1960s, that tumultuous time. The church had so much opportunity before it to speak into these matters, but was essentially gagged because of this Johnson amendment and was not able to help steer the nation, not steering the nation so much politically, but just spiritually and speaking on these matters. They wanted to leave these matters ultimately to. You know, the public square to be sorted out.
And that was obviously a misstep. And let me just go further. 1971, it was the. The political left that began to organize evangelicals for leftist causes, it was people like Ron Sider and Richard Mao and Jim Wallace who founded the evangelicals for McGovern. It wasn't for another decade that you finally had the moral majority that was founded as a responder to what was happening in the 1960s and the early 1970s.
So the leftist movements have been at it for a really, really long time. But because they control the mouthpiece of the broad mainstream media, they write this narrative that it's all these right-wingers when nothing is further from the truth. Most conservatives are largely silent and missing when it comes to political and public engagement.
So it's a fear-mongering tactic. But now they're toothless because they don't have this tax policy to allow essentially for them to go in there and pick winners and losers. Losers when it comes to nonprofits. Hey, you can speak, you can have, for example, 300 churches in the Commonwealth of Virginia that hold a public forum for Kamala Harris for president. They're not going to be targeted because these churches were supporting leftist causes.
This was back in 2020. But you have, on the other hand, people like Gary Hamrick at Cornerstone Church that hosts FRC. He was targeted by the IRS with an audit.
Now, he prevailed in court, but essentially they have been. Coming after conservative organizations for the longest time for doing the very same thing that leftist organizations have done for decades. Wow.
So, yeah, so it's really interesting that this is balanced out. And honestly, this basically means the IRS is, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it means the IRS is no longer weaponized by the government. to attack fine and potentially even imprisoned. Churches for simply preaching the truth. I mean, Ryan, imagine if during the era of slavery.
Yeah. The government said the IRS, LBJ's law, if it had been around in the 1800s, your pastor couldn't speak against slavery, which, by the way, Slavery ended largely because Christians woke up. Pastors and churches said this is evil for humans to own other human beings. And that, but, but that's political speech. You can't talk, you don't play politics for the pulpit, right, Ryan?
So it's interesting our kind of more awoke brethren in evangelicalism that, that, that, that, that attack you and people like me for, you know, Mention these things if we're encouraging pastors to speak up about marriage between a man and a woman, about The child's absolute right to life, and we need to stop brutally murdering our young in our country. They're saying, oh, that's political.
Well, I don't think they would say that preaching against slavery was political over a century ago. Am I missing something there? No, that's exactly. 100% right. These were all Christian movements from the beginning.
The movement for total equality to end slavery, the movement actually to end the era of Jim Crow was led by Christians. The abolition movement there was a Christian movement. The movement to end abortion in America is a Christian movement. And for the longest time, federal agencies were picking with bias and with prejudice were picking winners and losers. They were harassing those who supported conservative causes while turning a complete blind eye to leftist causes that were supported by nonprofits and by religious organizations.
So this is critical for freedom. It has always been true that we've had free speech, but these lines were not tested because there was the threat, there was the imminent threat that you could be fined, that you Could have your tax exempt status revoked, or at the very worst, might face jail time as a result of violating these laws. But the principle of free speech was always there. And I think for the longest time, federal agencies didn't want to fully test this measure because they knew that it would not uphold in court. And so here we've had our day, July the 7th, 2025.
This was the day where it all had changed. And so I think we're going to see more changes coming down the road for other 501c3s, not just churches, but for really all organizations that are religious in nature to be able to have the freedom to speak their conscience, endorse candidates if they wish, but at the very least, again, speaking about the issues that matter that were deemed political for such a long time that they were desperately trying to avoid for fear of being targeted.
Well, thank you, Ryan. Healthy. Buying the Standing for Freedom Center, the campus of Liberty University. Ryan, my personal view has always been: pastors shouldn't have to or shouldn't need to endorse a candidate from the pulpit. They simply need to rightly divide the word of truth.
And the sheep aren't as dumb as we take them for because they're, you know, vote biblically, vote like a big campaign that you weren't pushing too long ago. You know, vote your faith, right? And so it's so, it's so. Not, and again, correct me if I'm wrong here. It seems like it's so much not about partisanship.
Our church is going with this party. Our church is going with this party. It seems, Ryan, it's kind of like. Biblical common sense. If this person is pushing an atheist Marxist...
Anti-life. Kill the young. And gender nonsense and let women, you know, let men into women's locker rooms, maybe that's not who a Christian should vote for. I mean, Ryan, how have we gotten, how have we lost our moorings here and got so confused from the pulpit and then from the pew to pulpit to the pew? I think we have quite a bit.
I mean, we have seen. Time and time again. It's George Barna that's doing great research on this. When you look at bibliocentric Christians, you know, Christians with a biblical worldview informed by scripture, where scripture is the ultimate authority on matters of life, death, salvation, you name it. We just have far fewer biblically literate Christians today.
And so more and more, you know, people are just saying, hey, here's your choice. Let me present the choice. Let me endorse this person or that person.
Well, that doesn't actually solve the problem. I think where we need to go is much, much deeper. You need to give people a biblical Case For life, a biblical case for marriage, a biblical case. For protecting children from predators, a biblical case for self-defense, a biblical case.
So you go on and on, you get the point. Pastors have the responsibility to rightly divide the word of truth, not to necessarily endorse candidates, but if they're doing that from the pulpit, rightly dividing the word of truth, if they're doing biblical theology and preaching the full counsel of God, not holding back the scriptures from the congregation, feeding The Lord's sheep, as Jesus had commanded and given that charge to Peter: feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. If they do that, then it's going to be very obvious who they're voting for. And I think that's the basic responsibility laid before every pastor. There is now no excuse for silence on the most important critical issues we're facing.
And yes, the left is going to call all of these issues political because for them, it is. They desperately worship at the altar of politics. Our politics is ultimately from a kingdom that is not of this world, but that kingdom is in this world, and that kingdom is everlasting. And so our loyalty to that kingdom shall also be. Lasting.
Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. Amen. And Ryan, as I hear you talk, I can't help but think of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I mean, thank God that Bonhoeffer didn't say, well, you know, killing Jews is a political issue.
So I'm not going to stand up against that. You know, and other in Wilberforce, you know, owning slaves, that's political. You know, the great men and now, so we're at this time right now, though we stand on the shoulders of those giants. And I'm so grateful for you, my friend, and the Freedom Center and all you're doing there at Liberty University to speak the truth, to speak the truth in love, and ultimately to bring people to Jesus. Because if you don't change the heart, none of the other stuff ultimately matters.
And the last thing we want is someone out there to have all the right biblical views when it comes to public affairs, to politics, to policy, but not have Jesus in their heart, because they're going to go to hell. As a conservative, And hell will be full of both people of both parties and libertarians and independents who didn't have Jesus as their savior because we need heart change. We need to be transformed by him. Ryan Heffelbein, real quick comment, if you would, on this giant bill. We kind of teased it at the beginning, but I know we're out of time.
But just in the final moments of this broadcast podcast, your thoughts. A lot of folks given heat because it got so much junk put in there. But is it good for the faith community? Is it good for the awful debt we're in in this country? Give us a quick comment from your perspective at the Standing for Freedom Center.
I believe this bill is a first things first sort of bill. We have a huge problem with immigration that had to be tackled. We certainly have concerns about an aging military, making sure they have all the right equipment and tooling that they need in order to defend us abroad. It's a national security issue. Debt is a big thing.
I cannot talk enough about the debt problem, the debt challenges that we have. That is a huge problem. But I will say that we're in a tough spot as a nation. I'm so thankful that we were able to defund in part and even for a period of time, Planned Parenthood. That's the first ever that that has ever happened.
That is not something that has ever been accomplished before.
So this bill does that. Look, it is not perfect. It's not a fix-all. It's not a fix-most even. There are a lot of problems in this country, but I do think in terms of political necessity, Necessity, I think that this bill was necessary in order to.
To push the agenda along, we would not have accomplished that had it not been for this omnibus bill.
So that's my position, at least personally. But we need to pray for America. We don't need to stop talking about the life issue, the marriage issue, religious liberty. We absolutely need to show up and be loud. And tomorrow, guess what?
We get to go ask for more when it comes to our elected leaders and representatives.
So this bill was just a first step. All right, Ryan, Help of Bind, great friend of the church, great man of God, kingdom man. And Ryan, what's the best way for folks to? Folks, you want to hear a real podcast and really be blessed with all he's doing? Give us your website for folks that want to connect with you there, sir.
Thank you, Stu. It's standingforfreedom.com. Standingforfreedom.com, the Give Me Liberty podcast. Bless you, my brother. We'll do this again soon.
Appreciate you, and appreciate all you're doing to stand for freedom. Thank you, brother. True top.
