Over the years I have heard many priests and ministers argue that one of the reasons they do not speak about elections or particular candidates is that to do so would be a violation of their tax status. In other words, legal minds have advised these men of God that there is a price to be paid for preaching the truth when it involves the direct references that must be made to particular campaigns or political questions such as ballot initiatives and the like. What this fear of the IRS has created is a sea of ignorance as people who go to church are not hearing the facts in these critical matters.

Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel has chosen to do something about this....The reputation of Liberty Counsel is undeniably one of unquestionable loyalty to the Lord and Biblical teaching.

In the latest iteration, Staver makes several items available on his Liberty website

- A One-Page Letter for Pastors and Christian ministry leaders;

- A Four-Page "Legal Memorandum", Pastors, Churches and Political Activity;

- An older online memo on Distributing Nonpartisan Voter Guides in Churches

- A check-off guide of Political and Legislative guidelines for Pastors and Churches

- A link to a 24 minute DVD in which Staver speaks about Pastors and Political Acitivity, this time interspersed with pictures of Biblical quotes, fetuses and the like;

- A church bulletin insert, Christians Must Vote, from WallBuilders

- Six separate downloadable voter guides, three from Faith 2 Action, others from WallBuilders, Florida Family Policy Council and Mike Farris.

The link for the DVD above takes a viewer to its online home at Repairing the Foundations , an initiative of the American Family Foundation.

On the DVD, a more polished and scripted version of uploads in my prior post, Staver warns that pastors of churches "receive threatening letters from groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State, or maybe even the ACLU" telling them that they are violating the law because of political activity (a screen says activists groups "hassle churches"), and that pastors consequently feel intimidated.

To explain why pastors must get involved in electoral politics for the Religious Right, he quotes proverbs: "When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when unrighteous people are in office, the people moan." (The screen tells us, Proverbs 29:2 NIV, with a slightly different version: "When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; When the wicked rule, the people groan.")

Staver insists that pastors must overcome "vocal laryngitis" and exchange it for "a megaphone" to send people to the polls for Biblical values. Why? "The sanctity of human life is in the balance," he states, while a screen declares "pastors MUST TAKE a responsibility to inform their churches on candidates who stand for life and other issues."

These efforts to push Religious Right voters to the polls will, no doubt, continue. Wallbuilders, which has a block of links to Liberty Counsel's advice and other literature, notes that a complaint had been filed about its voter guides. But, it says: We will not be intimidated.