Few Protestant pastors plan to endorse candidates in worship services even if the IRS allows it, a Lifeway survey finds
In a phone survey taken in September 2025 and released Oct. 13, 93% of pastors said they did not plan to endorse candidates during a worship service. The IRS settlement that prompted the question was rejected in court in March and is on appeal.
Brentwood. Nearly all Protestant pastors in the United States say they do not plan to endorse candidates for public office during worship services, even though the IRS has said churches may do so, according to a survey Lifeway Research released on Oct. 13. Of the 996 pastors who answered the question, 93% said no, 5% said yes and 2% were not sure.
Do you plan to endorse candidates during a worship service at your church?
The survey is a year old. Lifeway Research, a ministry of Lifeway Christian Resources, interviewed the senior pastors of 1,003 randomly chosen Protestant churches by phone from Sept. 2 to Sept. 24, 2025, after the IRS had agreed to a proposed settlement over the Johnson Amendment and months before a federal judge turned it down. The margin of error is 3.3 percentage points.
A question asked before the ruling
The amendment, in the tax code since 1954, bars 501(c)(3) organizations, churches included, from intervening in political campaigns. In July 2025 the IRS and the groups that had sued it, National Religious Broadcasters, Intercessors for America and two Texas churches, asked a federal court to enter a consent judgment treating a house of worship's speech to its congregation in connection with religious services as outside the ban. It would have covered only the two churches.
On March 31, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker of the Eastern District of Texas dismissed the suit, holding that the court lacked jurisdiction. On the plaintiffs' appeal, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in September to revive the settlement. The appeals court has not ruled, Lifeway said.
Lifeway's question told pastors that the IRS "says it will allow churches to endorse political candidates to their own congregation without losing their tax-exempt status" and asked whether they planned to publicly endorse candidates during a worship service at their church.
Who said yes
African American pastors (11%) and pastors of other ethnicities (9%) were more likely to say yes than white pastors (4%). Pentecostal (13%), Baptist (9%), Holiness (7%) and nondenominational (7%) pastors said yes more often than Lutheran and Methodist pastors (1% each).
In Lifeway's earlier surveys, 2% of pastors said they had endorsed a candidate during a church service in 2024, and 1% in 2020 and in 2016. In 2024, 25% said they had endorsed a candidate outside their church role.
“What pastors say from the pulpit has far more to do with their religious convictions than avoiding tax penalties.”
The Johnson Amendment remains law for every 501(c)(3) organization. Treasury and the IRS said on April 3 that they would issue guidance on how it applies to communications within religious services, with its timing to be decided later this year.
About this story
501c3.help wrote this story from the sources listed with it, not from material an organization sent. Our editors approved it on Oct. 18, 2026. Stories in The Nonprofit Herald are free, and nothing is asked in return. Editorial rules.
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