Many of you will have read or heard reports this past week that the Internal Revenue Service has served summonses on the Rev'd Ed Bacon - rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena - to answer questions, and provide documents, that bear on whether or not the parish has broken laws forbidding churches to intervene in elections by calling on its members to vote for or against particular candidates in 2004.
For background on the summonses, press releases from the parish, etc., you can go to the parish website. I must warn you that doing so may be a slow process - my surmise being that the site is seeing a lot of traffic.
Interestingly, today was Homecoming Sunday at All Saints, and the kickoff to a 'new year' of activities at the church. Those of you who know anything of Ed Bacon can be sure that this new round of dealings with the IRS figured in his sermon today. Here is a brief excerpt of what the rector had to say:
"… I want now to address what I see at stake in our religious and political lives as a result of this latest IRS action. The current administration of the IRS apparently thinks that religious organizations should stay neutral when political issues are concerned. What that thinking totally misses is that we do not have a choice about whether or not to be neutral in the face of dehumanization, injustice, and violence. Our faith mandates that always stopping short of endorsing or opposing political candidates, the church can neither be silent nor indifferent when there are public policies causing detriment to the least of these."
The full text may be accessed here
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