How "political" should clergy be on the pulpit?

A perennial High Holidays dilemma for rabbis kicks into overdrive this year, because of a new IRS ruling and because the urgency of the moment. (A "Times of Israel" featured op-ed)

The IRS, in a major policy shift, has stated that religious congregations can endorse candidates from the pulpit, reversing the Johnson Amendment, as the rule was called. It is a shameless move designed to obliterate the line separating religion and state and assist conservative candidates in upcoming elections¹. This tack is every bit as partisan as gerrymandering in Texas and the proposed elimination of vote-by-mail.

This move demands a counter move by progressive religious leaders, one every bit as courageous – and potentially as partisan – as those made to counter the gerrymandering by the governors of California, Illinois and other blue states.

But instead, progressive clergy seem to be leaning toward sticking with the old practices that have been superseded², while conservatives are using this new wrinkle as a license to bring politics into the pulpit as never before and further skew the playing field in their favor.

That’s certainly true of the center-left Jewish streams in America, which have responded to the IRS shift with a message to rabbis that nothing should change, and that partisanship – not dictatorship – is the ultimate evil.

Organized by A Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy,³ progressive Jewish organizations have circulated to rabbis a collection of guidelines entitled “Leading without Endorsing,” listing a number of reasons rabbis should pretend that the Johnson Amendment is still in force.

Here’s one:

“Candidate endorsements risk overpersonalizing public policy. While our tradition can, and often does, guide our positions and advocacy on issues of concern to our communities, tying those positions to specific candidates and elected officials muddies the waters. No candidate is the perfect embodiment of our communities’ views on all issues.”

I’ve never endorsed a candidate from the pulpit – and I’m not recommending that now. In New York City, for instance, an outright pulpit endorsement of a mayoral candidate this year would only play into the hands of those who cynically seek to divide Jew from Jew.

But sermons can no longer just be about mere values and issues, when our future is in the hands of malevolent people. Rabbis’ messages need to be fashioned for a congregation addicted to sledgehammer postings on TikTok and X. True, no candidate is perfectly good. But a candidate can be perfectly bad. Right now, Trump and Trumpism are devastating for America, and our current president has deliberately personalized his policies, as autocrats will do. If a president is trying to act like Louis XIV and commingle his identity with the nation’s, any concern about overpersonalizing public policy becomes moot.

Louis XIV, L'Etat C'Est Moi. Illustration for La France et Les Francais A Travers Les Siecles (F Roy, c 1890).

It’s not just about values and issues: it’s about the person. And while I might not advise endorsements from the pulpit, it does not mean we can’t have outright condemnations. We are in the midst of a conflagration, and this catastrophe is being caused by human beings who have names.

A reminder, given our country’s growing addiction to violence. Condemnation need not and should not be confused with incitement. No one ever accused Amos and Jeremiah of spewing hate speech.

The missive to rabbis also asserts,

“Endorsements open the door to political coercion — including threats or promises from donors, elected officials, or interest groups for backing a candidate or party – jeopardizing your institution’s unity, integrity, or safety.”

Political coercion, threats and promises from donors have been happening ever since Moses brought down the tablets and was met by a donor-endowed golden calf. In any event, rabbis don’t need to endorse American candidates to be accused of “divisiveness.” Many face withering criticism over their views regarding Israel, which is not covered under IRS policies. At this fraught moment, expressing any opinion on Israel, however nuanced, automatically will draw an emotional response from just about every American Jew. There is no avoiding it. Regarding both America and Israel, this is an existential moment.

This year, to avoid the topics of Israel, Trumpism and antisemitism would be a dereliction of rabbinic duty. So a rabbi might as well speak from the heart, without constraints. ⁴ The Jewish Partnership for Democracy seems more concerned with helping rabbis avoid getting fired than inspiring them to bring the (verbal) fire. The word “passion” appears not once in their guidelines.⁵

It’s not about endorsements. It’s about urgency. It’s about whether the sound of the shofar is going to be a clarion call to action or a sound bite for Sominex. An obsession with subtlety will only generate a chilling effect when moral clarity is needed most. At the precise moment when American Jews need courageous words from the pulpit, there will be the same old Monty Pythonesque “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” about Jewish values, artfully dodging what’s really on people’s minds in the misplaced desire to substitute abstract, feel-good illusions of unity for passionate advocacy.

Politics happens everywhere people care about important issues and want to debate them. Such debates are inherently messy. In some cases, though not all, there is a clear and indisputable right side and wrong side. And now, it is incumbent upon those preaching core values of tolerance, kindness and equality not to waste a precious millisecond fighting a new technicality – or still abiding by old gentlemanly practices – when we should be gearing up for a more existential fight.

On these High Holidays, perhaps more rabbis will summon their inner Raphael Warnock – who does endorse candidates – and finally be able to deliver honest, forceful messages from the pulpit that don’t end in some intellectualized, equivocating “wink, wink.”

To my colleagues: No more leaving it to congregants to “draw their own conclusions” about what you hope they will do. No more countering scorched-earth politics with “strongly worded statements,” filled with plausible deniability.

I wish the Johnson Amendment hadn’t been eliminated, and I do fear greatly the injection of political machinery – including dark money – into religious institutions. I fear for the future of church-state separation. But we can’t pretend that the change hasn’t happened.

It’s time to seize what the IRS has given us and run with it.

1. And it’s a move opposed by most Americans. See In a 2022 survey, most Americans opposed churches endorsing political candidates (Pew)

2. For instance, the Evangelical Lutheran Church is pretending that the Johnson Amendment still exists. Same with the US Catholic Church.

3. Here’s the guidance that was sent out:

Leading+without+endorsing Guidance+for+jewish+clergy

892KB ∙ PDF file

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4. For a perfect example of how that can be done, see this Rosh Hashanah sermon by Rabbi Sharon Brous - about Israel, not America. I’m saying that this kind of passionate advocacy is now needed, without constraint (which the IRS has removed), woth regard to Trumpist politicians.

5. See this interview with Yuval Noah Harari as case in point.