c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) I went undercover Sunday morning, only to discover my sleuthing ability isn’t what it used to be. Tucked into the back row at SouthLake Foursquare Church, I picked out the pastor who’s been fasting for 16 days. I figured out where in Africa the church will head next spring to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

But for the life of me, I couldn’t find the IRS agent in the West Linn, Ore., crowd.

And I know he was there. Not because Pastor Kip Jacob was preaching on “God’s Eternal Investment Funds,” but because the Internal Revenue Service is monitoring all churches to keep politics out of the pulpit.

OK, maybe not all churches. I don’t think the IRS was paying attention when Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin arrived in uniform at Good Shepherd Community Church in Boring, Ore., in 2003 and declared that God put George W. Bush in the White House.

There’s no evidence the IRS followed up when a former Texas legislator told 3,500 voters at Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on the Sunday before the 2004 election that they should “vote for righteousness” and follow the advice of the Christian Coalition voting guides at the back of the church.

But the IRS is all over All Saints Episcopal, a liberal church in Pasadena, Calif. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last week, the IRS has informed All Saints it may lose its tax-exempt status owing to an antiwar sermon delivered just days before the 2004 elections.

Tax-exempt organizations are prohibited by the federal tax code from endorsing candidates or “intervening in campaigns.” This, I suspect, is news to the congregation at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, which heard the local archbishop step up last weekend and endorse Prop. 73, a ballot initiative requiring parental notification for a minor’s abortion.

I’m sure the IRS letter to the Los Angeles archdiocese is in the mail.

The IRS offensive against All Saints Episcopal was launched after an election-eve sermon by the church’s former rector, the Rev. George Regas.

Regas preached on how he believed Jesus would debate Bush and John Kerry on the war in Iraq. He argued Jesus would confront both, saying, “I will tell you what I think of your war: The sin at the heart of this war against Iraq is your belief that an American life is of more value than an Iraqi life.”

Regas didn’t encourage anyone to vote for either candidate, but the rector decried that “the faith of Jesus has come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war and pro-American.” He told his audience to take into the voting booth “all you know about Jesus, the peacemaker. Take all that Jesus means to you, then vote your deepest values.”

“Voting your values” is the battle cry of conservative churches, but the IRS has launched a formal investigation only against All Saints.

If you think that’s coincidence, you must also believe Washington politics have nothing to do with the fact that the IRS is three times more likely to audit the tax return of the working poor than someone who makes more than $100,000 a year.

Marcus Owens, a former IRS exec now representing All Saints, wrote to the agency, “It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season.”

Given the growing opposition to the war, the IRS better be prepared to crank up its church infiltration program. But the agency can probably skip services at SouthLake.

“We are so apolitical,” Jacob said. “We want people to know Jesus and to let him change their hearts. I’m concerned about anything that takes the focus off what people need, having a relationship with God.”

That was the core of the message I heard Sunday, parked in the back row. On the other hand, in mid-sermon I distinctly heard Jacob describe the Portland area as “a mecca for Foursquare churches.”

That’s right: Mecca! Forget the IRS. Someone call Homeland Security.

KRE/MO/JL END RNS

(Steve Duin writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.) Editors: To obtain a photo of Steve Duin, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug. If searching by subject, designate “exact phrase” for best results.