Government · Nationwide · September 23, 2026
DOJ Backs Churches Seeking Relief From Johnson Amendment Enforcement
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The fight the churches signed up for was about the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — ground pastors and religious-liberty lawyers know well. It was decided on ground almost none of them work in: whether the Tax Anti-Injunction Act and the Declaratory Judgment Act let a court enter a consent judgment at all. Judge Barker dismissed on March 31, 2026 for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and, as the Congressional Research Service summary puts it, 'did not address the merits' — the case died on tax procedure with the religious-liberty question never reached, and the DOJ's new brief is itself an argument about an Anti-Injunction Act exception, not about preaching.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Before repeating 'the IRS said churches can endorse candidates,' read the two-page CRS sidebar (congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11447) and learn the three procedural terms that actually decided this: Anti-Injunction Act, Declaratory Judgment Act, subject-matter jurisdiction. When someone asks you at church what the law now allows, the honest answer this month is 'the settlement was never entered and the appeal is pending as No. 26-40237 — let me get you the docket.' Write the case number down; refuse to improvise a legal conclusion you have not read.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The Johnson Amendment's force over pulpits has never mainly been prosecutions; it is the unnamed dread of losing exemption, which has kept pastors trimming sermons for seventy-two years. The district court pointed out the mundane remedies that actually exist if exemption were revoked — a tax refund suit or a declaratory action on exempt status — and separate reporting notes how vanishingly rare actual revocation has been. The terror has consistently outrun the enforcement record.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Cost the worst case out loud with your board this month: ask your church's accountant or counsel, in writing, what an IRS church inquiry actually involves, what the special church-audit protections require of the IRS before one begins, and what the refund-suit route would cost. Put the answers in the minutes. A named, priced risk can be decided about; an unnamed one just silences people, which is the cheapest possible win for the other side.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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