Every day unborn babies very lives are under attack at preborn network clinics
>> Jeff Chamblee: This July we celebrate the birth of our nation and remember the heroes who fought for our freedoms. But did you know there are Americans today who don't have the freedom of life and liberty. Every day unborn babies very lives are under attack. But because of preborn, we can rescue them. I got to hear and see my baby for the first time. Hearing the heartbeat made me cry and. It was certain that I was. Going to keep my baby forever. Ultrasounds save lives and when, when you save a life at a PreBorn network clinic, you often save a Soul as over 85,000 women have come to know Christ. To learn more about PreBorn's life saving work, call #250 and say the keyword baby. That's 250baby or visit preborn.com/afr that's preborn.com/afr all gifts are tax deductible. Your love can save a life.
>> Walker Wildmon: We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are. We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth to live out your free speech. We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and territory.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is At the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio welcomes Abraham Hamilton III on Wednesday's At the Core
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. This is our Wednesday edition of the show and we've got Abraham Hamilton III coming in in the next segment to talk about in the third segment. I'm sorry. Thank you, Bobby, for keeping me in line. He's Abraham M. Hamilton's coming on in the next hour and he'll be talking about a irs, settlement with an entity, recently that has some pretty broad reaching implications for local churches and their ability to engage politically and civically, on the issues of our day in this country. And so we'll be talking to Abe here in a little while about that and it's really a returning of the favor because I was on Abe's show back a month or two ago and he and I don't get to be on each other's shows very often for scheduling reasons. but we're going to be together here this hour and so look forward to that.
Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a feast with strife
Let's turn our attention to the scripture, Proverbs chapter 17. Looking at verse one, better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife. Proverbs 17:1. Well, Scripture has a variety of benefits, spiritual benefits, that is, and it also helps us with our simple knowledge of words and definitions. And so I learned something this week. If, someone were to have asked me last week, what's a dry morsel walker? I would have said, I have no idea. I have no idea. Well, a, dry morsel is basically a dry piece of bread. And what the proverbs here is talking about is that you're better off having little, meaning only having a dry piece of bread for your meal as opposed to having a feast, a table full of food. But you have strife that you have to live with. And so a lot of truth there, a lot of truth there. We should seek to live quite peaceful lives. And, we would better off, do that as opposed to having material, plenty, but with a heart full of sin and strife. That's Proverbs, chapter 17, verse one.
The autopen scandal is a unique scandal, at least in modern history
All right, let's, turn our attention to some of the stories. I want to get to this first segment. Let's talk about this, auto pen dilemma. And this is, this is a scandal. Unlike anything is. This is a unique scandal. Let me say this, this is a unique scandal. that, that doesn't really match anything I've seen, at least in modern history. And the basis before we play a clip here, the basic facts surrounding the auto pen scandal are this. If you're like me, you had never heard people use the word auto pen up until six months ago. But anybody who's been around executives and the presidency and the governorship understands that the executive can't sign everything. Right? So what do you do? Well, you have this machine that uses real ink and a, real pen and signs on behalf of the executive. Right. Most of the use historically on this and legally has to do with formalities. Has to do with, for example, the president wants to send a happy birthday card to a top donor. Well, the president's not literally going to sign the happy birthday card. They don't have time for that. Right. So they're going to use the auto pin machine and it's going to look just like the executive, just like the president's signature, but it's done through a machine and some aid runs the machine. Right. The president is not, made aware of the fact that his signature is being used for the happy birthday card. It just happens, right? It's part of regular operating procedure.
Autopen used to sign legally effective or legally binding documents without president's consent
The question as of recent is what do you do when the auto pan is used to sign legally effective or legally binding documents such as a pardon? And how do you know that the president has consented and Agreed to the terms of the pardon are the terms of the agreement or whatever document you're signing that is legally binding. And this especially becomes prevalent when the President's cognitive capacity and decision making capacity is in question, as he is, as was Biden. I think it's a very dangerous road to go down where legally binding documents are being executed by a machine without the President's consent. Now, oftentimes how this happens, where it's on the up and up, is the President signs one document that is very lengthy, that summarizes maybe 100 different actions. All right, for example, when President Trump pardoned the thousand plus individuals that were charged related to January 6th charges, President Trump didn't go through and literally sign over a thousand documents. No, he took one executive order and his lawyers summarized the essence of what he was signing. Right? He was pardoning X amount of people related to these specific charges. All right? And so President Trump knew that anybody who falls within this parameter, I am consenting to them being pardoned. That's how you do it the right way. But that's not how Biden did it, and that is not how the Biden White House did it. And what we're beginning to learn is that there was a lot of documents being signed, specifically pardons, without, President Trump, President Biden's real signature. It was auto pin. And in some cases there doesn't appear to be a master document, where Biden himself consented to the pardons. And so all of this is under review, but I think it's going to raise some serious questions about the use of auto pan. I mean, this is a big, big deal. The use of auto pan, specifically, the use of auto pan on legally binding documents without the presidency explicit consent. That's documented. You can't say, well, yeah, Biden, Biden, yeah. Biden told me in the hallway that he was good with it. Now that's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. You really gotta have it on video, on audio, or his real signature here's real John Hancock. because you know this, you've gotta have basically a chain of custody here with these type of authorizations. And so that's the background, that's the context. That's what's going on here. That's the debate. And I think this involves, this should involve a full fledged investigation. I'm, we, we ought to know exactly, what auto pen was used for, you know, which legally binding documents it was used for. Let's play a clip here. This is going to Be President Trump recently talking about the auto pen scandal. Clip 3 Look, the auto pen, I.
>> Donald Trump: Think, is maybe one of the biggest scandals that we've had in 50 to 100 years. This is a tremendous scandal. And I know the people on the other side of the. See that desk, that Resolute desk? Unfortunately, he used it before me, but, you know, we have our choice of seven desks. They're all beautiful, but I chose the Resolute, and so did he, unfortunately. But the people on the other side of the Resolute desk, I know them, Lisa, the whole group, and they're no good. They're sick people. And I guarantee he knew nothing about what he was signing. I guarantee it.
>> Walker Wildmon: This explains why President Trump has been signing everything on camera. His lawyers knew going into this. Look, if we don't want to have questions, we got to document all of it. And that's one of the first seven days of the presidency. President Trump is sitting at the Resolute desk, literally signing documents all day long on camera, live television. That was the whole purpose behind the signing ceremonies, is to show, hey, this is how it's supposed to be done. And by the way, Biden wasn't doing it right. So if you ever wondered, why is Fox News airing an executive order signing ceremony? Well, President Trump and his team did that strategically, on purpose so that they could show, look, President Trump is signing off on this. He's the executive, he has the authority. He is signing off on this. Biden, on the other hand, nobody knew what was going on, and auto pin was, was being used on the regular.
Multiple pardons were done via autopen, according to the New York Times
All right, One example of auto pin being used for a pardon relates to the Anthony Fauci pardon. All right, this is according to the New York Times, on January 19th, a meeting took place in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House residence. Mr. Biden, I don't know why they don't call him President. This doesn't, I don't even. This is like, do they not use, like, AP standards or something? This is the New York Times. President Biden kept his aides until nearly, 10pm to talk through such decisions. This is according to the New York Times. The emails show that an aide to Mr. Mr. Siskel sent a draft. These are all staffers of Biden, by the way, for what it's worth, sent a draft summary of President Biden's decisions at that meeting to an assistant to Mr. Zions. These are all lawyers copying Mr. Siskel at 10:03pm the assistant. This is the day before the inauguration, by the way. Folks, the assistant forwarded it to Mr. Reed and Mr. Zients, asking for their approval. These are, these are lawyers in the White House. And then sent a final version, to another staffer, copying many meeting participants and AIDS at 10:28pm that evening. Three minutes later, the lawyer hit reply all and wrote, I approve the use of auto pin for the execution of all of the following pardons, including Dr. Fauci. And so we know, at least, well, we know multiple pardons. Now, based on these emails that were leaked, multiple pardons were done via auto pin in the, in the wee hours of the night or could have been the wee hours of January 20th, Inauguration Day. And auto pin was used, according to the White House lawyers. Auto pin was used. Now, was the meeting with President Biden documented? I'm talking video, audio, otherwise not. Yeah, we talked. And yeah, he said this because this is serious stuff. I mean, if you can have staffers using the President's signature and the President may or may not know about it, folks, that's a problem. That's a problem. You don't even have company executives and, and, and staffers signing contracts without the executive's explicit permission. And you've got the President of the United States here having his signature used on auto pan for pardons of which he didn't physically sign. And so I think this is going to end up, I think it could end up needing congressional clarification or the Supreme Court has to weigh in here. I'm not sure which, what authority the Supreme Court has here. Unless, unless President Trump says, you know what, these pardons are not, they're not valid. Biden didn't sign them, they're not valid. I don't know if that's gonna be the case or not, what kind of precedent that creates. But I think moving forward here, there's gotta be a clear legal standard on what documents the President must sign and which ones he must not sign. And to me, the President not signing physically legally binding documents, arguments is, It's a problem. It's a problem. It raises serious questions about the office of the Presidency. Who's in charge, who makes decisions on presidential pardons and other matters. And so we'll see where this goes. But auto pin was used on pardons in the wee hours of the presidency, heading into Inauguration Day, that is, according to the New York Times. We'll be back in a few.
Four more listeners than I had before for American Family Radio's Hamilton Corner
>> Abraham Hamilton III: By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. My name is Abraham Hamilton iii, and this is the Hamilton Minute. We live in a day when churches are filled with people ready to hear and receive God's mercy. Unfortunately, however, it is often accompanied by a de emphasis or concealment of the.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Truth of God's word.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Paul, the salvation by grace through faith apostle, was asked, if salvation is solely a product of grace, what benefit then does the law provide? Paul responded, without the law, I wouldn't have known God's righteous standard and how far away from it I was. Any presentation of God's m mercy, absent God's truth, is no gospel at all. Iniquity is purged by mercy and truth.
>> Jeff Chamblee: Listen each weekday from 5 to 6pm Central for the Hamilton Corner with Abraham Hamilton III, public policy analyst for the American Family association. At The Core Podcasts are [email protected] now back to. At The Core on American Family Radio.
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome, back to the core. Well, Bobby, I want to give a shout out because apparently all of my boys are listening. All of them. And I guess technically my daughter's listening too. so Luke, Samuel, Andrew, Isaac, Elizabeth, they're all listening. I guess they're in the car, probably. And, Samuel says he likes our music. I guess the intro and the outro music. So. And now. Now my wife says that Elizabeth's sleeping, so she's not listening, I guess. Is that. Should I.
>> Bobby Roza: It must be good.
>> Walker Wildmon: I guess. It's good.
>> Bobby Roza: Soothing.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, that's. That's a positive way to look at it. I was looking at it as like I'm boring. Like she didn't.
>> Bobby Roza: Oh, negative.
>> Walker Wildmon: Okay, so it's soothing. I'll take that. That's a compliment. That's a good. That's a positive spin on that, Bobby.
>> Walker Wildmon: I like.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's why you're here.
>> Bobby Roza: I do what I can for you, brother.
>> Walker Wildmon: So the boys like the music. That's, all four of them.
>> Bobby Roza: No.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Bobby Roza: No dissension among them.
>> Walker Wildmon: No, I think they're all in agreement. I think the music's good.
>> Bobby Roza: And they're all awake.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, they're all listening. So maybe they tune in. Yeah, maybe they tune in just for the music. Maybe not for me. Just for the music, but I'll take it either way.
>> Bobby Roza: Or maybe Luke says you guys will stay up.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, There we go. Yeah. It's four. Four more listeners than I had before. That's right. And maybe Elizabeth will wake up soon. All right, let's jump into the, The Federal Reserve.
Walker Wildmon: Consumer being pounded by rising interest rates is upsetting
All right. This is something, I've talked about passionately on and off for the last year or so or more. And the consumer being pounded by these interest rates is what is really, really upsetting. And this moving target that the Federal Reserve has created and really their whole existence, if we want to be honest here, I really don't like the existence of the Federal Reserve, and I'll explain why. so, you know, they really don't start off on a good foot with me, the Federal Reserve, that is. here's what's going on, and then we'll get into the details. Jerome Powell decided back three years ago that he was going to begin hiking interest rates. And his main reason was that inflation was too hot. And he was correct on the fact that inflation was too hot, way too hot. It was getting up into 8, 9, 10%, depending on which measure you're looking at. And so here we are, we're three years later, and the Federal Reserve has, Has slightly lowered interest rates once or twice, but they are still high compared to the last 30 years. Now, if you go back, Bobby, obviously to the 70s and 80s, you're going to get higher interest rates, very much so than we do.
>> Bobby Roza: Now, I recall those, explicitly in the 80s.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes.
>> Bobby Roza: yeah, you had 12% savings accounts, were making a ton of money just in interest alone.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And you were doing 12 to 15% mortgage rates on the regular. now the difference then and now is asset prices have ballooned astronomically. Part of that is because of inflation. so that's a little bit of a difference. It's not quite apples to apples, but interest rates, it is true, have been higher historically, but at least over the last 30 years, this is what the consumer has become used to, has come used to.
I'm skeptical that the Federal Reserve can truly control inflation
all right, so. So Jerome Powell began raising rates and under Biden. Well, right before the election, Jerome Powell thought it would be a great idea to lower interest rates, even though inflation wasn't at his target goal of 2%.
>> Bobby Roza: Key point.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. So, and I'm not saying I think he should have lowered interest rates then. I think he should have lowered them before. But here we are, September of last year, he began lowering interest rates. He lowered him. They lowered him twice, I believe. And then they stopped. They stopped after President Trump got elected. All right? They stopped lowering interest rates. And now we're sitting on six months later or more eight months later, and Powell's not lowering rates anymore. And he claims. Well, we're just going to wait and see. We're just going to wait and see. All right, here's the problem, I believe, with the way Powell is handling, handling this. All right, Number one, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a skeptic on whether the Federal Reserve can truly control inflation. All right, I'm 100% skeptical. And here, and here's why. I believe Washington, D.C. politicians authorizing $7 trillion in new spending over the course of four years. I think that drove inflation. And actually, I don't even think it's a close like debate. Some people would say having artificially low interest rates drives inflation. Well, maybe a little bit, but it doesn't bump it to 10%. Okay? And that's what happened. We had high inflation, very high inflation, historically speaking. And we had it primarily because Washington, D.C. authorized over 7 trillion in new spending in just two to three years. Biden comes in on top of that and adds fuel to the fire by throwing out red tape after red tape after red tape, suffocating the economy. I would say that makes up, 80 to 90% of your inflation. Low interest rates might have played a small part. They didn't. They weren't the primary driver of inflation. And so I don't think the Federal Reserve caused inflation, and I don't think the Federal Reserve can fix inflation. I think what has fixed inflation, number one, the economy has just worked out the kinks. The post Covid supply chain problems have. Naturally, the system has begun to work itself out. All right? That's a fact. The container ships aren't sitting out on the bay waiting three weeks to unload anymore. The economy's moving again. People are working again. We're not all at the house talking about how Covid's gonna kill us all, which was a whole crazy season of America. But the economy is kind of back to its normal operating. I think that's helped inflation also. President Trump has come in and driven down a lot of these core costs for energy, for groceries, et cetera. That's helped. Now we have inflation below 3%, 2.5%, 2.6%, 2.7, depending on what metric you look at. But we still have elevated interest rates. And so that's the exact point that the Fed doesn't fix interest rates because. Doesn't fix inflation because President Trump, through his executive actions, have brought down inflation over the last six months, and the Fed is still sitting on the same rate. Another impact of Jerome Powell sitting on high interest rates.
Jerome Powell said 2% is his goal
Is that your refinancing of America's debt? This is going to cost America, about a trillion dollars over the next 12 months because that's how much interest we're going to have to pay on refinancing our debt. We've got, I think, roughly $10 trillion in debt, due to be refinanced in the next 12 months. So we've got, roughly a trillion dollars in additional interest we're going to pay because Jerome Powell doesn't want to lower the rates. Furthermore, Jerome Powell said 2% is my goal. Well, number one, how long did you expect Powell to get there for it to get there? Because we're at two and a half, 2.4, 2.6, depending on what you're looking at. And you're not even talking about lowering rates. And so do you expect this to go back to, like, pre Covid levels of 1.7 and 1.9? How long is that going to take? You guys pumped $7 trillion into the economy in two to three years and you want the inflation to go back to 1.7% in any reasonable time. Give me a break. It's going to be like we might be below 2% at the end of Trump's term. That's just a reality. Washington is spending way too much money to expect inflation to go below 2% anytime soon. And inflation, by the way, is an illness of modern monetary theory. That is the trade off. And Bobby, you know this well, the trade off of modern monetary theory, where you ditch the gold standard and you print money and key in numbers on an excel sheet. The trade off is you have to accept inflation.
>> Bobby Roza: Yes. And the premise of modern monetary theory is that much like they were accusing big banks of being too big to fail, they say that the Western world and the modernized world is too big to fail. So we can print, keep printing and creating these monstrous, debt levels, essentially to infinity.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, yes.
>> Walker Wildmon: And it's totally wrong.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. Ah. And the middle class is destroyed in the meantime. And to your point, America may not fail. Right. As an economic system, but if your middle class fails. Right. That affects our culture, that affects our future, and it's bad for everybody. And so, yeah, the inflation is just eating away at all of our earnings. And, and this was caused by Washington's overspending. It wasn't caused by the Fed, it was caused by Washington's overspending. So I think the Fed's existence is in question here. I think their entire existence is in question because their whole purpose from the get go was to provide, quote, stable and sound monetary and financial system, for America. And then they have this, this maximum employment and low inflation, this dual mandate that they call it, that they've never been able to achieve, Bobby.
>> Bobby Roza: Never I was just getting ready to.
>> Walker Wildmon: Say they break one thing to fix another. Right. Literally.
>> Bobby Roza: They came to being in 1913. I believe it was, the book.
>> Walker Wildmon: when we ditched the gold standard.
>> Bobby Roza: Yep. The Creature of Jekyll island is the well written history of all of that.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Bobby Roza: And I know it's, it was created in failure and it was created by, if I remember correctly, the three or four people who started it, held somewhere along 75% of the entire wealth in the world at the time.
>> Walker Wildmon: So. Yeah. yeah.
>> Bobby Roza: And to, to the point, it's, it's, it's a big piggy bank for some select few.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes.
>> Bobby Roza: And it, what it was created to remove. It is never, never been, it's.
>> Walker Wildmon: Never achieved to do that. No, exactly. And the, and just so folks know, here's, here's. I want, and I'm mainly speaking of the baby boomers, if we're being honest here, this whole discounting of 8,8% interest rates on a mortgage and, and, and, and kind of laughing at the millennials or the Gen Xers because they're whining about 8% mortgage rates. I just want us to understand this, okay? And I'm not throwing shade or disrespect on, people who bought houses in the 70s and 80s. I'm just explaining to you this is a fundamentally different setup. All right? This is not apples to apples. There are some similarities to, that was Nixon and then Reagan came in and tried to cleaned up the mess. and then you had Volcker, he was the Fed chair. the asset prices had not ballooned. All right? You had not what we have now, right back then, meaning 70s and 80s. and I live in a, I live in a house that was built in 72. And this house probably only cost 30, 40,000 bucks. Nice 2,000 square foot house in the 70s probably only cost 30 to $40,000. You fast forward to now because of inflation and, and inflation's compounding effect, you've got these houses that are not elaborate, big fancy houses and they're running 150, 170, $200 a square foot. And I'm talking, in about an affordable regions of the world and for affordable demographics here. I'm not talking New York City, San Francisco, I'm talking Mississippi. And so you're asking somebody fresh out of College to spend 3 to $400,000 on a modest home that they probably can raise one or two kids in, but not five. And then you tack on top of that an 8% mortgage rate, as opposed to a 3% mortgage rate. They're paying 30, 30 to 40% more in a mortgage than they would have otherwise. And so the asset prices to me are the, are making matters worse because if you don't have inflation and you don't have these unrealistic asset prices, these unrealistic home prices, then doing 8% is historically not bad. Getting an 8% mortgage is actually pretty good when you compare it to how it was 40 years ago. But when you tack on that, these unrealistic, absurd home prices, it's just adding insult to injury and it's making it to where young people, young married couples, are not able to enter into the homeowning process, because of this. And so this is, this is the downstream effect and this is, this is all coming on a, on the heels of this new fad of own nothing and be happy. You know, the tiny home fad. Live on a, live on the back of a double axle tool trailer, in a tiny home, and act like you're the richest person in the world. And this is all compounding to where we're teaching young. Not only are we making it difficult for young people to own a home, but we're also teaching them that, you don't really need to get into homeownership. That's kind of lame. That's a thing of the past. You just need to rent perpetually and be happy. Right? And then if you want to buy something, you can do, buy now, pay later. And we're not teaching young people to build generational wealth for their children and their grandchildren. And so the Federal Reserve is really leading this charge of adding insult to injury. That's why President Trump is upset.
Jerome Powell won't even touch interest rates, says President Trump
That's why President Trump is upset, because Jerome Powell, by being so stubborn that he won't even touch the interest rates, I mean, we're not asking him. Well, Trump is, he's standing lower at 3.3, 300 basis points. 3%. which, which is aggressive, right? That goes without saying. But, but Powell's not even lowering it at all. Like you could lower it a quarter of a point, 25 basis points every other meeting and monitor how it goes if you really think you are controlling inflation. But ever since Trump got elected, Jerome Powell is just sitting on his hands and every, every month he comes out to the podium and says, we're going to wait and see. We're going to wait and see. Meanwhile, President Trump and Congress are trying to do everything they can to lower inflation to make this economy competitive. And that's the frustration. That's the frustration. Thankfully, Jerome Powell's term ends in 2026 and it can't come fast enough. Enough for Jerome Powell to be replaced. We'll be back.
55% of American adults say assassinating Donald Trump would be justified
>> Mark Oss: in a recent survey of 1200 left of Center American adults, 55% responded that assassinating Donald Trump could be justified. We are swimming in shark infested cultural waters. Some are suffering from Christianophobia. Jesus said, if they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you. Please give today to help AFA keep equipping you and others to stand for Christ. Help us shine his light into our dark culture. Visit afa.netwarrior.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is at The Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
The Johnson Amendment prevents churches from getting involved in politics
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the last segment of the program. As I mentioned early on, we've got Abraham Hamilton III in with us. And Abe, I joked and said this was a, a, a gift back to you because you had me on your show back several weeks ago talking about one of our AFA at home episodes. So you and I are exchanging, appearances on each other's programs. And, but I wanted to have you on to talk about a recent development regarding the IRS and a couple nonprofits that have been in court with the irs. And the essence of, when I explain this to people, they'll, connect the dots. Because if you've been in the political space, you've heard this before, but the common legal standard has been, well, churches can't endorse candidates or pastors can't endorse candidates from the pulpit, things like that. And then we've had the Houston we had back a decade ago or less, the Houston pastors that directly challenged that because the mayor was trying to subpoena Pastor Steve Riggle. Yeah, their sermons and their private church communications. And so this, quote, Johnson Amendment that created that notion that churches can't get involved in politics and we can't endorse candidates from the pulpit, et cetera, has been kind of out there for a long time and has kept a lot of churches from doing a lot politically because of that. Because, who wants to get in trouble by the irs, Right? And so tell us about this recent development and some of the implications.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, the Johnson Amendment was a ruse from the very beginning, because just the historical backdrop, LBJ was having some problems because churches in Texas recognized that, you know, he was less than stellar. And so they were saying so publicly. And so LBJ concocted this ruse to entice churches into silence by saying, hey, if, if if you will, register for this 501C3 status, we will therefore grant you tax exemption, where the revenues that you generate will be exempt from taxation. But what, unfortunately, too many churches, especially today, don't realize is that you don't have to register with the IRS to be tax exempt. Because the founders recognize that the church has a particular role within the American body politic, that the churches are necessary in order to continue the type of populace that is ripe for a constitutional republican form of government guaranteed by Article 4. That being said, the threat to churches contemporarily has been that, well, if you endorse candidates from the pulpit in your churches, then you risk losing your tax exempt status. And that is what was sued, that is what was challenged via this lawsuit. So you had the National Religious Broadcasters, which, you know, m. I'm on the board of, and you had Intercessors for America and then two churches to say, no, no, no, no, you cannot apply this Johnson Amendment standard to us because you're violating our First Amendment freedoms. And so what has happened in this lawsuit, the IRS and its commissioner, the head of the irs, Billy Long, has agreed with the plaintiffs in the case in saying, no, no, no, no, the Johnson Amendment cannot be applied to churches in this way. Churches have the lawful authority that within the scope in houses of worship, where pastors are teaching their congregates and parishioners the word of God, they have the lawful authority to also include electoral politics, including discussing candidates, because it's within the framework of what congregations do with their congregants and in teaching basically the full counsel of God's word. So simply put, do you have the IRS admitting in, a court filing that churches have the lawful authority to not only discuss electoral politics, but even to endorse candidates from the pulpit?
>> Walker Wildmon: I would say, I would venture to say that this Johnson Amendment standard, if you will, that goes back a long way to your point, not back to the 50s, has, I would argue, to say that it has hurt the conservative ideological movement. When I say hurt, meaning pastors. Conservative ideological pastors have shied away from engaging in political talk or civic talk, because of this standard. But I would argue that the Democrats and the. And the liberal ideologues have not. And here's why I say that when you look at the number of churches that Democrats speak in, it's voluminous. You can look at Raphael Warnock, who himself says he's a pastor, but you can look at Biden's campaign, Obama's campaign, Kamala Harris's campaign, all these Democrat campaigns. And then you look at some of the governorships and senator races, Senate races. They're in churches, like, frequently, on Sunday, not like on a private event. Rent out the facility. They're on at the pulpit on Sunday morning with not the other candidate. Right. It's not like a forum or something. but you don't see that as much on the conservative side. But am I right on that?
>> Abraham Hamilton III: I think you're absolutely right. The application of the Johnson amendment to, let's just say, congregations that may support Democrat candidates for public office doesn't seem to have been employed very often, you know, because you have, like you said, voluminous examples, example after example after example of church. In my mind right now, I'm thinking about, I always had a church when I heard a pastor literally saying Barack means praise in support of Barack Obama for the presidency. Literally, I was there. I heard that with my own two ears. and so that's happened for a very long time. But as you mentioned, it has not happened as much in what's widely described as conservative churches. And that's not to say because the IRS is acknowledging this, that they should do this. You know, I have my personal opinions about it, I think.
>> Walker Wildmon: Sure.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: If you're proclaiming the full council of, of the. The Lord's Word. I, often say that just because politicians discuss things that are in God's word, it doesn't reclassify them as political issues.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: These are issues. These are God's issues, you know, and so because God's issues speak to them, the pastorate should speak to them as well. And it doesn't have to be about a person. You simply articulate, this is where, where God's standard is according to his word. And you assess the people based on what God standard. God's standard is. But there are some who might find, who might feel that, well, I don't think it's prudent to discuss candidates in that way. And I'm not saying you should or you shouldn't. But the. What's. What's noteworthy and discussion worthy here is that you have the IRS admitting in open court that churches cannot be, cannot be deemed no longer exempt from taxation based on their discussion of candidates in electoral politics.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, and that's where I think. That's where I think churches, faithful churches, can honestly benefit from here is not that. Not that a pastor, is going to benefit from being able to endorse a candidate from the pulpit. You know whether or not they do that. I don't know whether that's a good practice. We can debate it, but, but this shying away from discussing civic discourse and government related issues that are also moral issues. Well, because we can't, we can't do that from the pulpit. I think this eliminates the excuse of, well, the IRS might get onto us. Well, it's really going to become a matter of no, you just don't have the backbone to talk about it. which is, which is which they would blame the Johnson amendment to avoid the hard hitting issues from the pulpit. And so this kind of opens the door, to not be able to use that excuse anymore. Let me ask you this, does the Johnson Amendment even have any teeth to it at this point? I mean, clearly the IRS hasn't been deploying it very often, if at all. But. And then now you have this settlement where the IRS is like, yeah, we can't really enforce that. Does this thing even have teeth anymore or should we consider it gone?
>> Abraham Hamilton III: No, it does still have teeth. And this is a question I've been fielding, you know, behind the scenes people asking questions. The IRS admission does not apply to 501C3 organizations more broadly. You know, so you have, you know, tax exempt non profit organizations that are doing other things that this admission by the IRS only applies to houses of worship in their congregants. So it's not applied any more broadly. So this does. There is still a risk for conventional 501c3 organizations that are not churches that they are still required to abide by the previous standard. And that simple standard is that if you. The. One of the corollary impacts of being granted exemption from taxation by the federal government is that you cannot use the resources that, that are exempt from taxation to electioneer, to campaign, to be campaign party or candidate specific in your advocacy. and so it does still have teeth in that regard. So it's important for people to recognize that.
Settlement removes potential for churches to lose tax exempt status
>> Walker Wildmon: So this is, this is a part of a settlement between multiple parties, right? Let me ask you this can when you have a settlement like this between an agency like the IRS and then private parties or churches or nonprofits, can a future administration with a different IRS commissioner come back and reopen the settlement or the settlement is the settlement. Unless there were new litigation where you resettle and create a different standard.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: That's right. The settlement is the settlement. And the simple fact is that the IRS has just admitted in open filing what is already the standard right now, even before this filing, churches did not have to Register for C3 status to enjoy exemption. This is also why churches have not by and large suffered, full on, removal of tax exempt status. There are very few examples of that. I know one church in particular that was harassed by the irs, but they were not, their tax exempt status wasn't stripped from them. but there have been instances of harassment based on that. This removes that potential for churches specifically. But the settlement simply acknowledges which is what is already the law. Which is why anytime ch churches like Pastor Steve Riggle challenged that governments were intrusion giving your sermons, subpoena your, your communications because you're violating. And it ended up with the, the government apologizing and saying oh no, no, no, we misstepped, we are violating the Constitution. And they backed off because Pastor Riggle and the in the churches in Houston, Texas were right.
There's a balance between preaching from the pulpit without becoming a partisan cheerleader
>> Walker Wildmon: So we've got four or five minutes left. And since I've got you here, let's the not what the legal standard is or how to apply the Johnson Amendment. Let's go a little deeper. What you alluded to earlier about what's a good practice for a pastor in a church. So I think there's clearly a balance here as far as what's proper and what's not from a Christian perspective from the pulpit and using the local church resources. The church doesn't need to become a, just a microphone for a political party, right, where we're just, we're parroting the talking points of whatever party we like or whatever party we prefer, even though that party may, may be, may align with biblical values 80% of the time or whatever. but, but yet at the same time we don't need to shy away from talking about politicians or candidates for public office or the issues of our day. So what, what's the balance here? I mean, because I think some pastors with good intention do have a standard of look, I'm just not going to name politicians and name candidates because once I go down that road, I'm opening the door to always having to weigh in on whatever the latest and the greatest is. instead let's just teach biblical principles from the pulpit and these principles apply across the board, whether it's civics or whatever.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, yeah. So, ah, again, I think, well, it's several things. First, in response to your question about not being fanboys or I often say political gang bangers for any political party, particular candidates, things of that nature, it's instructive for us that when Paul writes to Timothy in First Timothy, Chapter 2, when he says that all manner of prayer should be offered for all manner of people, especially including kings and, those in authority, it's instructive for us that Nero was the king at the time who was an enemy of the church. And the Apostle Paul is encouraging prayer specifically for one who is widely regarded as an enemy of the church. Not that he succeeds in being an enemy of the church, that his soul might be saved, that the church may be unhindered in the face of this wicked leader and things of that nature. but it's instructive for us that prayer was commanded of God to the people of God. In the context where you have an enemy of the church as the head of the Roman state, that's instructive. That being said, God is the one who fits members in his church as he wills by his sovereign spirit. God is also the one who, who was ordained for the church to be established all over the world, including in our nation. So I, I, unsurprisingly, I don't think there needs to be a balance in terms of, well, this weighs heavy on this side. This weighs heavy on this side. I think what needs to be employed is proclamation of the full counsel of God's word and guidance as to how that should be applied within our particular context. You know, if we, we happen to be Chinese or happen to be in another nation, we still would have an obligation, as Christians to be Christians in that nation. So I think pastors have an obligation to articulate and to communicate what does godliness look like in our particular context? And you can do that without becoming a political or partisan cheerleader. We must do that by, as I said earlier, proclaiming the full counsel of God's Word. What does God's word say?
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: And that is what should be communicated without hesitation and without fear.
>> Walker Wildmon: And I think that's where the thirst is amongst the body of Christ is not that you've got a bunch of Christians out here who want their pastor to, be maga or pro biden or whatever. I think m, the majority of people I talk to, they just want their pastor to talk about the issues of our day and what the Bible says about it, which is not a political thing to your point. This is a moral thing. So what does the Bible say about abortion? What does the Bible say about marriage? What does the Bible say about family? What does the Bible say about homosexuality? And we can go, down the list of 100 moral issues that also just happen to be government issues because they create the laws of the land. I think the vast majority of people, that's just all they want. And so that's not getting into candidates or parties. That's just talking about the issues and teaching on what the scripture says about the issues.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah. What does the Bible say about greed? What does the Bible say about covetousness? What does the Bible say about theft? What does the Bible say about all of these things? How do you apply in these particular contexts? And I know, like you, when I travel the world, the most frequent question I get when I travel across our country is, abe, can you help me find a good church? And that, that, that honestly brings tears to my eyes. Because what often seems like, man, the nation is drifting. what often the reality is, is that there is a. There is a deficit of bold shepherds who proclaim the full counsel of God's word.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: And that's just the reality. Now, there are some. I'm m not saying there aren't any.
>> Walker Wildmon: Sure.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: But we don't have enough shepherds that are boldly proclaiming the full counsel of God's word.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, that's right. Amen. All right, there you have it. Appreciate it, Abe man.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Thank you.
We discussed whether pastors need to be endorsing politicians from the pulpit
>> Walker Wildmon: All right, there you have it. That's the, lawsuit, the litigation between the irs, the national, Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America and two churches. And, some of the implications regarding the Johnson Amendment specifically for churches, households of worship. And then, of course, course, we got into whether or not pastors need to be endorsing politicians from the pulpit or not. Very interesting discussion. We'll see you next time.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
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