c. 2008 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a 2007 speech on faith and politics by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, a longtime UCC member.

The UCC announced late Tuesday (Feb. 26) that the IRS is looking into whether Obama’s speech to its General Synod in Hartford, Conn., may have been a political activity that could threaten the denomination’s tax-exempt status.

Church officials said no laws were violated, and they criticized the “disturbing” implications of the inquiry.

“When the invitation to an elected public official to speak to the national meeting of his own church family is called into question, it has a chilling effect on every religious community that seeks to encourage politicians and church members to thoughtfully relate their personal faith to their public responsibilities,” the Rev. John Thomas, UCC president, said in a news release.

Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin said the speech was not a campaign event.

“Just as many politicians have addressed religious gatherings, Sen. Obama spoke to his church’s convention about his personal spiritual journey and how those engaged in public life must recognize that `God is still speaking, challenging us to change not just our own lives, but the world around us,”’ Cherlin said, invoking the UCC’s ad campaign.

The Cleveland-based UCC said Obama was invited to speak before he became a presidential candidate. In his talk, Obama declared that some on the religious right had “hijacked” faith and added, “I have made a solemn pledge that I will sign a universal health-care bill into law by the end of my first term as president of the United States.”

In a Feb. 20 letter, the IRS wrote that it was investigating the UCC “because reasonable belief exists that the United Church of Christ has engaged in political activities that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status.”

Thomas said church officials took “great care” to make sure Obama’s speech met “appropriate legal and moral standards,” and church attorney Don Clark said the UCC had not been told by the IRS there might be a problem.

“We feel confident that once they are made aware of the facts that they’ll draw a different conclusion,” said Clark, a Chicago attorney.

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One UCC minister foresaw such a problem at last year’s speech. The Right Rev. Koloman Ludwig, pastor of the UCC-member Hungarian Reformed Church in Whiting, Ind., said politics can be divisive.

“To me the problem is, with so many political overtones to the church, you begin to lose people who don’t have the same political orientation,” he said during last year’s Synod, “and to me that’s a great sadness.”

The UCC does not know who filed the complaint, said the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, UCC communications director.

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The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who has filed 11 complaints over improper politicking with the IRS in the past year, said he did not file the complaint over the UCC.

Lynn, also an ordained UCC minister, said he reviewed the speech and did not detect a “violation of IRS rules,” but said the probe is a cautionary note for churches as the 2008 race heats up.

“Candidates love to take their campaigns into the church sanctuaries,” he said, “but clergy should be very wary of allowing this to happen. Candidates have nothing to lose, but houses of worship do.”

(David Briggs writes for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.)

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