In 2023, the Tulsa World published a letter to the editor from Tulsa resident Sherwin Kahn, responding to Sheridan Church’s Tulsarusalem event, which featured current FBI director Kash Patel, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, and a phone call from an on-stage Lara Trump t o her father-in-law and then-candidate for president, Donald Trump.Kahn’s letter described the event as an egregious campaign rally. The event’s host, Sheridan pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, was politically motivated, Kahn said.“Walters needs to be impeached,” Kahn said. “The pastor needs to be removed or tax his church as a political organization.”For Lahmeyer, such claims were hardly new.“If I had a dollar for every time my church was reported to the IRS, I would be a very wealthy man,” Lahmeyer said.As 501(c)(3) organizations, churches are subject to language in Title 26 of the United States Code, establishing which organizations are exempt from income taxes.Title 26 prohibits groups that operate for religious purposes from attempting to influence legislation with propaganda or otherwise.The law further proscribes attempting to influence any political campaign on behalf of any candidate — a provision known as the Johnson Amendment because it was proposed by Lyndon B. Johnson and adopted in 1954.Tulsarusalem, and Sheridan’s ongoing and increasingly chummy relationship with the Trump family, may appear to violate the spirit of Title 26.Or it might not be as simple as that.Tulsa attorney Dan Beirute, who has represented hundreds of churches and ministries across the United States, warned against leaping to the conclusion that religious organizations were prohibited from discussing political issues.“It doesn’t mean churches can’t participate in advocating for issues that have a political tint to them,” Beirute said. “They can talk about these things without any hesitation. What churches can’t do is spend a substantial part of their time advocating for or against specific pieces of legislation.”For example, a church could choose to spend all its time preaching against intact dilation and extraction abortion, which has been labeled partial-birth by opponents of the procedure. But a church is prohibited from spending a substantial amount of time arguing against a specific act of legislation to outlaw the procedure.“It’s very simple to get around, isn’t it?” Beirute said. “Rather than speaking about the legislation, they can talk about the religious or doctrinal issues around the legislation.”As to the second half of what is prohibited in Title 26 — the Johnson amendment— it makes a significant difference whether an individual is running for office, or already holds one, Beirute said.Regardless, the prohibitions of Title 26 have proven to be very difficult to enforce, and churches on both sides of the political spectrum regularly challenge the spirit and letter of the law.“Here’s the dirty little truth,” Beirute said. “There is no stomach at the IRS to enforce this whatsoever. If they tried to enforce it, they would probably lose — and they would have to do it against thousands, or tens of thousands, of churches across the political spectrum.”Lahmeyer did not disagree, but he adopted a more combative pose particularly in regard to the Johnson Amendment. What was peculiar was that it had never been applied, he said. Not even when churches had flouted its prohibitions specifically in order to challenge it.Lahmeyer cited his own unsuccessful senate run in 2022, a campaign waged while he continued to pastor at Sheridan, as evidence of the unworkability of the law, as written.“The Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional,” Lahmeyer said. “That’s why it hasn’t been applied.”In fact, the Johnson Amendment was successfully applied once, in a 1992 case known asBranch Ministries v. Rossotti, which resulted in a New York church losing its tax exempt status.Lahmeyer, who now serves in the White House Faith Office, said he was unaware of any church, left or right, that had truly violated the prohibitions in Title 26. In providing a final defense of his church’s activities, Lahmeyer appeared to hark back to the Tulsarusalem event.“Neither churches on the right or the left are in violation of the Johnson Amendment,” he said. “Churches that host candidates, or elected officials, or whatever the case may be — there’s nothing in violation, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the way our country was founded in the first place.” JC Hallman is a Tulsa-based contributor to Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at jchallman@gmail.com.The post Sheridan Church’s Tax Status Holds Up, Despite Unabashed Political Influence appeared first on Oklahoma Watch. ...read more read less