If by chance you haven't heard yet:
PastorDan on Street Prophets tells us that the IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ (UCC) because Barack Obama addressed their General Synod last year.

General Synod is the UCC's once a year big annual meeting, akin to our General Assembly. It's quite common to have well-known people speak at these things. Barack Obama is a looong-time member of the UCC, a public figure and a published author. It's quite reasonable that they would have him speak. And as long as he didn't tell people to vote for him I can't see how this could be considered an endorsement. It was LAST JUNE, after he announced his candidacy, yes, but well before the campaign seriously began. And if the General Synod is anything like GA, they probably had him locked in as a speaker well before he entered the race for president.

Technically speaking, if one goes strictly by the rules, I can understand why the IRS is investigating. I'm also confident that they'll find nothing wrong. But this news sets all progressive religionists on edge because we still remember the 2005 investigation of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA. Guest priest, Rev. Dr. George Regas, had delivered a sermon titled "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush," which called on congregants to look at various social issues from a gospel perspective. He criticized the war in Iraq but did not tell people whom they should vote for.

Regardless, the IRS opened an investigation, claiming that the sermon constituted "prohibited political campaign intervention," and threatening the congregation with loss of its tax-exempt status. Other congregations across the country had been criticizing the immorality of the war, as we still are today. When word got out that the IRS had targeted All Saints, it sent ripples of fear across the progressive landscape. It seemed obvious to us that this church was being punished for its anti-war views, that we all could potentially lose tax-exempt status for appealing to the conscience of the country.

After two years of uncertainty and much expense suffered by the Pasadena congregation, the IRS closed the investigation without explanation. It neither found the church guilty nor exonerated it. And it left the question of how much could be said from the pulpit still up in the air for everyone.

So liberal denominations have reason to be suspicious when the IRS starts investigating the UCC for what at least on the face of things appears to be a superficial "offense."