The Freedom From Religion Foundation is demanding that the IRS take away the nonprofit status of an electioneering Texas church that has Josh Howerton as its senior pastor.
On Oct. 6, Howerton of Lakepointe Church (located in Rockwall, Texas) delivered a dense, roughly 45-minute sermon titled, “How to Vote Like Jesus,” in which he told members of his congregation how to cast their votes in November’s election. He expressed his support of Donald Trump despite, as he put it, Trump’s shifting stance on abortion and refusal to sign onto a national ban because “the other side is far worse.”
Speaking to a congregation of about 20,000 members and 340,000 Instagram followers, Howerton identified three types of biblical leaders during his sermon: 1) the righteous King Josiah 2) the unrighteous Ahab and Jezebel and 3) the flawed King Jehu. While mostly refraining from naming candidates, Howerton seemed to cast Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as “unrighteous” while depicting Trump and his vice presidential pick Sen. JD Vance as merely “flawed” in this scenario.
“We all want a King Josiah. But sometimes, God uses a flawed leader for good purposes,” Howerton said to applause. “A flawed leader used to do some good things is better than suffering under wicked leaders.”
Howerton is reportedly claiming that he wasn’t endorsing a candidate but his sermon on “How to Vote Like Jesus” made it clear that he opposed the “unrighteous” Harris-Walz ticket and therefore believed Jesus would have cast his ballot for the “flawed” Trump-Vance campaign to win the election.
FFRF is flagging this as an election endorsement on Lakepointe Church’s part.
“The Internal Revenue Code states that to retain their 501(c)(3) status an organization cannot ‘participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office,’” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line writes to the IRS. “In this instance, LakePointe Church appears to have improperly used its status as a religious organization and 501(c)(3) entity to intervene in the U.S. presidential election.”
FFRF is a registered 501(c)(3) and it takes this designation, along with the accompanying privileges and responsibilities, very seriously — and that’s why it would like to see the IRS take action on this issue and enforce its rules for the benefit of all taxpayers. It’s asking the IRS to immediately investigate Lakepointe Church and ensure that it no longer receives the benefits of 501(c)(3) status and that donations made to the church are no longer treated as tax deductible.
“Churches can’t be allowed to get away with such blatant politicking,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “They must abide by the same rules as other nonprofits — or lose their tax code privileges.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 40,000 members across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
