‘These are who we vote for,’ Puyallup pastor tells congregation. Did he break federal law?

A Puyallup pastor endorsed two city council candidates from his pulpit Sunday, Oct. 29, in what appears to be a violation of the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits churches and other houses of religion from participating in political campaigns.

Motion Church Pastor Roger Archer’s actions could threaten his church’s tax-exempt status.

Archer and his church have been in the news over the past several years for defying COVID-19 health mandates, scheduling and then canceling a speaking engagement with conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, dissolving its relationship with a Christian school in a dispute over transgender athletes, and holding a forum with controversial Moms for Liberty speakers.

In the Oct. 29 video posted to YouTube, Puyallup City Council candidates Dean Johnson and Renne Gilliam stand behind Archer as he implores his congregation to vote for them in Tuesday’s election. Johnson faces Joe Colombo in the District 2 race, and Gilliam faces Shellie Willis for an at-large seat.

“These are your people, these are who we vote for,” he said of Johnson and Gilliam. “These are your candidates. These are who win.”

The video

In the video of the sermon, soft piano music plays in the background as Archer comes on stage. He begins by repeating a question someone, according to Archer, had recently asked him: “Why are you guys so into politics?”

“Because we’re biblical and really smart and we want to change the world for Jesus and our children and our children’s children that represent and reflect the word of God,” Archer says to the congregation.

He says in the video that the church learned a lesson during COVID-19 lockdown mandates when, he says, the state imposed its will on his church.

“I figure fair is fair,” Archer says. “You want to come into the church? We’re coming into the government.”

He then tells the congregation that separation of church and state is not in the U.S. Constitution.

“The separation, if you want to infer it, was never to keep the church out of the state,” he says “It was to keep the state out of the church.”

Neither Johnson nor Gilliam spoke.

He then prays, “Father, we rebuke Satan. And every candidate that does not represent you or your word, oust them. Get them out of the way.”

Archer and Motion Church did not respond to queries from The News Tribune.

Johnson and Gilliam did not respond to an interview request from McClatchy.

What does the law say?

The Johnson Amendment was created by an act of Congress in 1954. It bans charities and churches from engaging in any political campaign activity. Over the years, Congress has strengthened the ban, the Internal Revenue Service says on its website.

While the law allows churches to weigh in on political issues during religious services and sermons, they cannot support or oppose political candidates.

The law states, “All 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”

As Motion Church is a tax-exempt entity, it receives “a very significant tax benefit on many levels,” said Brooke Johnson, an attorney at North X Northwest Law Group in Tacoma. Churches do not pay federal taxes on their income and those who donate to churches like Motion can receive a deduction for their contributions, she told McClatchy in an email.

Because of those benefits, limitations apply to how those entities can operate, Johnson said.

“A 501(c)(3) is NOT allowed to endorse or oppose candidates, and a 501(c)(3) may not encourage its audience to vote for a certain candidate,” Johnson wrote.

Violation of the law could lead to the revocation of Motion Church’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) religious organization which it has held since 2018, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The church, registered under the name Shiloh House, is at 601 Ninth Ave. SE in Puyallup. Its building and land are assessed at $12.3 million. As a church, it is not required to pay income or property taxes.

Johnson added that because of the prohibition laid out by the IRS, Motion Church could lose its tax-exempt status by engaging in political activity such as endorsing or opposing candidates.

Other experts agreed.

“To the extent this organization is a 501(c)(3) and it is participating in a political campaign — which would include making statements in favor of or opposing candidates for an elected office — then it would be violating that prohibition under section 501(c)(3),” said Thomas C. Schroeder, an attorney with Davis Wright Tremaine.

Schroeder noted that tax-exempt organizations such as Motion Church are allowed to engage in a limited amount of lobbying activity, but the ban on political campaign intervention, such as supporting or opposing candidates for public office, is “absolutely prohibited.”

Revoking that status would require IRS enforcement, Schroeder told McClatchy in a phone interview.

While the IRS has previously revoked the status of some organizations that violate the ban on political campaign intervention, “it is not that frequent that the IRS would take an enforcement action against a church in more recent times,” Schroeder said.

Given the tensions between the separation of church and state and the limitations of the IRS’ resources, the issue would have to come to the attention of the IRS for them to launch an investigation, he added.

Motion Church also has Bonney Lake and South Hill campuses.

Pastors like Archer who openly defy the law are on the rise across the nation, according to ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism organization.

What does the Constitution say?

“There are different interpretations of the First Amendment Establishment Clause,” said Paige Kolnes. She has a doctorate in politics and teaches U.S. politics and constitutional law at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting free speech.

The Supreme Court is the ultimate authority on the matter, Kolnes said, and they have consistently ruled in favor of a clear separation of church and state. Furthermore, the framers of the Constitution, including Thomas Jefferson, in their personal letters made their views known that they intended that wall between the two.

But, Kolnes said, there are different interpretations beyond the strict partition between church and state.

“There’s a second interpretation, that says, the Establishment Clause may erect a wall of separation between church and state, but that wall only bans the state from favoring one religion over another,” she said. “And then the third one is a very more loose broad interpretation. ... And it would say that the Establishment Clause does nothing more than prohibit the establishment of an official national religion.”

The Supreme Court has flirted with the second interpretation, Kolnes said.

“They tend to reaffirm in their opinions that there is this wall between the church and state that they want to keep public entities from breaching, usually,” she said.

Pastors who cross that breach could claim endorsements as an exercise of their right to free speech. The Supreme Court has been more open to that avenue, Kolnes said.

“It’s not necessarily that they’re loosening their interpretation of the Establishment Clause but that they’re heightening their sympathy for free exercise and freedom of speech claims,” she said.