Decius wrote:

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

I had no idea that this kind of thing was grounds for loosing tax exempt status. Lots of meaty philosophical questions in here. No, I don't buy the idea that this is politically motivated in absense of data that demostrates a pattern across a spectrum of cases.

This is one of the reasons that Nashville 2600 is a non-profit corporation, but not a 501(c)3 Charitable Non-Profit. Under those rules, you have to stay away from political topics, but there's no real good definition of what a "political" topic is in the IRS context. I'd only be glad to see this rule being enforced if it goes both ways - say in taking away the tax exempt status of the church that hosted Justice Sunday or that openly endorses one candidate over another (as an official stance, not as a collective poll of its congregation).

RE: Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning - Los Angeles Times