Churches Get Green Light to Endorse Political Candidates; Ban On China Buying U.S. Farmland
Crossroads with Joshua Philipp
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 594 Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Churches in the United States have been regarded as a kind of sleeping giant for elections. The issue is, because of different regulations on nonprofits, churches have not been able to endorse political candidates. And because of this, they’ve been forced, to an extent, to stay out of politics. Critics have criticized the issue the other way though, noting that the regulations have acted as a government restriction on religion. And now, things have changed. The Internal Revenue Service has determined that churches can now endorse political candidates.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Churches in the United States have been regarded as a kind of sleeping giant for elections. |
| 0:05.0 | And the issue is because of different regulations on non-profits, churches have not been able to endorse political candidates. |
| 0:13.0 | Because of this, they've been forced to an extent to stay out of politics. |
| 0:17.0 | And some have criticized this the other way, noting this acts as a kind of government restriction on religion. |
| 0:23.9 | And now that seems to be the determination. The IRS is now saying that churches can now endorse political candidates. |
| 0:31.4 | And meanwhile, a long-discussed plan to stop Chinese purchases of U.S. farmland is moving forward. I'll be talking about these |
| 0:39.2 | topics and more today. I'm the Epic Times Senior investigative reporter Joshua Phillip, |
| 0:43.9 | and you're listening to Crossroads. |
| 0:51.7 | Welcome to Crossroads. A show by the Epic Times, it gives you insights beyond the headlines. |
| 0:56.5 | Now, as always, don't forget to hit the like button. It really helps us get our show out to more people. |
| 1:01.9 | But look, churches in the United States, for a long time, they've been kind of seen as a sleeping giant when it comes to, you know, elections and political processes. |
| 1:10.8 | If all the people who go to church went elections and political processes, if all the people |
| 1:11.8 | who go to church went out and voted, they'd be the biggest voting block in the entire country. |
| 1:17.3 | But the issue is because of different regulations on non-profits, which churches are labeled under, |
| 1:23.3 | they've not been able to endorse political candidates. They don't want to lose their nonprofit status. |
| 1:27.9 | And because of this, churches have been forced to a pretty good degree to just stay out of politics altogether. |
| 1:36.1 | If you were to take my opinion on it, this is a misinterpretation of the First Amendment. |
| 1:41.0 | It is not to keep churches or keep religion out of politics, it's to keep politics |
| 1:45.8 | out of religion. And critics have noted this. They've noted that this has acted as a government |
| 1:51.9 | restriction on religion, telling religions you can't talk about politics. But now things are changing. |
| 1:59.0 | The IRS has now determined that churches can in fact go out and endorse |
| 2:03.2 | political candidates to a limited extent. Everytime said this. The IRS in July 7 outlined an |
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