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This article is published in collaboration with the Fort Worth Report and the Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is exercised in Texas.
Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline recently stood before a gathering of conservative activists just outside Fort Worth, gathering legislative victory and previewing the following at the Capitol. However, on this day he spoke not only as a lawmaker but also as a pastor.
A week ago, the Internal Revenue Service decided to allow religious leaders to support political candidates from the pulpit and effectively overturn the provisions of decades-old tax laws that banned such activities. Schatzline, a longtime pastor at Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth, was excited. The IRS has declared “what we already knew,” he said at a July 14 meeting. The government cannot stop the church from engaging in citizenship.
“There’s absolutely no reason politicians should speak up on social issues more than your pastor, so I need to stand up as a pastor,” Schatzline told a crowd of members of the True Texas Project, a member of a Tarrant County-based organization, a key part of a powerful political network that pushes lawmakers to adopt forced opposition to adopt conservative education policies.
“The pastor needs to be bold.”
Pastors like him have fought for decades for the right to talk about political issues and have actively supported candidates in their abilities as religious leaders. Now, before judges get heavier about whether or not to allow changes to IRS policies, some religious leaders are already asking congregations to demand greater political involvement from their churches.
Ryan Barge, a political and religious expert at Washington University in St. Louis, said that the tax agency’s stance will apply to churches across the country, but Texas is expected to be the most important place.
Over 200 megachurches call Texas home. In the lonely star state, the pastor appears to have a larger profile in social, political and religious debates. “Texas will be the epicenter for testing all these ideas,” he said.
Schatzline said a lot in a follow-up interview with the Fort Worth Report. A previously created nonprofit by Mercy Culture Church, previously created to elect candidates to political offices, is to work with President Donald Trump’s National Faith Advisory Committee to expand its work and mobilize churches and pastors to engage citizens.
White House and advisory committee officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Schatzline said the pastor could choose not to speak up about candidates, but congregations like him may feel differently. “Conservatives, especially across America, expect the pastor to speak to the question of truth,” he said.
For more than 70 years, churches and other religious institutions in the United States have been instructed to avoid the risk of losing their “political activity” or tax-free status. That federal Johnson amendment was added to the IRS Tax Act in 1954 and was named after the author Lyndon B. Johnson, who was then a Texas lawmaker.
In August 2024, during the final months of the Biden administration, the Religious Broadcasting Bureau and the association of two East Texas Churches sued the IRS, claiming that Johnson’s amendment violated speech and religious freedom.
Almost a year later, the IRS and plaintiffs, now under Trump, presented a proposal for a joint settlement outlined in the agreement that when places of worship tell the congregation about “electoral politics seen through the lens of religious faith,” it would not intervene in political campaigns or interfere with it, and would not violate the amendments. The court must now consider their proposal.
IRS officials did not respond to requests for comment on what prompted the decision.
The greatest meaning of the proposed legal agreement is for the pastor to promote “it’s more political than they want.”
“It all means that 5% of people on either side of the political spectrum are the loudest and trying to drag you into enthusiasm,” Burge said.
Previous investigations by Propublica and the Texas Tribune highlighted 20 examples of churches that appear to violate Johnson’s revision. That was more than what the IRS itself surveyed over the past decade. Thirteen of these congregations were in the North Texas area, including the Mercy Culture, where Shatzline was appointed pastor in 2024.
The newsroom reported that the tax agency has primarily implemented the amendments.
For example, in the mid-2000s, the IRS looked into more than 100 churches, including 80 to support pulpit candidates, after citing an increase in allegations of political activity in the church leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Agent officials did not revoke the church’s tax-free status and sent a warning letter instead.
After the proposed settlement was filed in July, the Fort Worth report identified at least three Texas churches that openly praised the IRS decision, including Mercy Culture and Sand Springs Church, one of the people involved in the lawsuit that caused the IRS change.
The day after the court filing, Mercy Culture Church posted screenshots of the New York Times article on Instagram and Facebook.
“We will not be silent on issues of righteousness, life, freedom, or leadership. We will not support the party – we will support the kingdom!” The post read.
In Athens, less than 100 miles south of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, senior pastor Eric Graham of Sand Springs Church spoke to the congregation during a July 9 Bible study.
He spoke to the congregations during his education, which was streamed live on Facebook and reviewed by the newsroom. The church said it would not comment on the IRS court filing until the judge’s final judgment is approved or rejected.
First Image: Members of the True Texas Project wear organizational t-shirts at a monthly meeting at Euless’s Texas Star Golf Course. Second image: Mercy Culture Church signs flagship Fort Worth Campus, one of five locations in Texas. Credit: First Image: Mary Abbey Goth/Fort Worth Report. Second image: Marissa Green/Fort Worth Report.
“A powerful tool”
“They’re not a resident scholar at Rice University’s Public Policy Institute and aide professor at Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University,” said David Brockman, a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Institute of Public Policy.
In northern Texas, First Baptist Dallas meets around 16,000 members to attend services in person or through several streaming methods, according to the church’s website. The non-denominational Church of Mercy Culture attracts thousands of worshipers to its flagship location in Fort Worth, the Washington Post reports. Since its inception, the church has established other campuses in East Fort Worth, Dallas, Waco and Austin.
Robert Jeffress, a dedicated supporter of Trump, the lead pastor of First Baptist Dallas, thanked the president of Facebook for his recent interpretation of the IRS’ Johnson revision.
“This would never have happened without the strong leadership of our great President Donald Trump! I am honored to thank him today in the oval office,” Jeffres wrote in a July 9th post. “The government has no business regulating what is being said in the pulpit!”
Religious News Service reported this spring that Jeffress was one of several pastors who told Trump during the White House Easter service in April that the IRS had investigated the church for their political support. Jeffres told the New York Times that he believed the conversation was a “tip-off” in Johnson’s new IRS interpretation.
He did not respond to a request for comment on the Fort Worth Report. A church spokesman said he was out of town.
Matthew Wilson, a religious and political professor at Southern Methodist University, said different religious traditions may respond to policy changes in a clear way.
For example, the U.S. Catholic Bishop and the United Methodist Church conference announced that neither would maintain a stance of supporting or opposing political candidates. Freedom of the Religious Foundation, a national nonprofit advocate for separation between church and state, announced on July 30 that it would join others to condemn Johnson’s efforts to ignore or undermine the amendment.
While some religious leaders may be reluctant to engage in politics, Wilson said that the white conservative churches that support Republican candidates in general and the African-American churches that have historically supported Democrats “must cross between times” to “reach the line” as the Johnson Amendment provisions.
“These religious groups have been talking for a long time in more clearly political terms. [IRS decision] I’ll release them even more to do that,” he said.
Mansfield Mayor Michael Evans, who served as pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, southeast of Fort Worth, for 30 years, said he would not support congregation candidates as it could lead to more divisions. In his mostly African-American church, he said the congregations come from both ends of the political spectrum.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton outsources his office work to costly private lawyers.
The candidates announced by political parties and their philosophy may change, but Evans said, “The Word of God remains the same.”
The Mercy Culture Church is already far down the path to exert its political influence. Schatzline launched a nonprofit of freedom and justice in 2021 after a church elder failed to run to become Mayor of Fort Worth. The organization, according to its website, is partnering with local churches in its grassroots campaign efforts to “promote respectful candidates for local governments.”
The nonprofit created an online program called “Campaign College.” The organization’s “freedom assembly,” according to its website, influenced the decisions of local school boards and city councils to lead Christian values in Tarrant County.”
Liberty & Justice has supported 48 candidates since its inception. One was the Shutz Line.
Cecilia Renzen from the Fort Worth Report provided the report.
Marissa Green is a report from members of the American Legion covering the faith of the Fort Worth Report. Please contact her at [email protected].
