The Reform movement’s advocacy arm, the Religious Action Center, condemned a recent Internal Revenue Service ruling allowing houses of worship to endorse candidates without losing their tax-exempt status, in one of the first responses by a major Jewish denomination.

“We are deeply alarmed by the IRS’s decision to allow houses of worship to endorse political candidates while maintaining their nonprofit status,” Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We call on Congress to reverse this deeply misguided policy, which is not only dangerously divisive but also opens the door to significant abuse, undermining both the democratic process and the public’s trust in the integrity of our religious institutions,” he said.

In its statement, the Religious Action Center did not state that the Reform movement — the largest denomination in the United States, representing some 37% of American Jewry — would bar its rabbis from issuing such endorsements. However, Pesner said that doing so “could expose clergy, including rabbis and cantors, to unjust scrutiny as they fulfill their sacred duty to teach, guide and inspire” and that the movement supported “our rabbis’ and cantors’ abilities to lead diverse congregations with moral courage.” 

On Monday, the IRS wrote in a court filing related to a specific case regarding two churches and an association of Christian broadcasters that it was officially changing its policies overall regarding political candidate endorsements to allow houses of worship to make recommendations to their members from the pulpit, comparing it to “a family discussion.” 

“Communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,” the agency said, referring to a tax code provision introduced by then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, which barred nonprofits from making political endorsements. 

In his statement, Pesner noted that the implication of the new ruling extends beyond what happens in existing houses of worship but could encourage political campaigns to establish faux churches for the purposes of supporting candidates, allowing donors to hide contributions in a way that they would not be able to do through donations to more transparent political action committees.

“This decision further weakens campaign finance laws, raising the prospect of political donors contributing to houses of worship to support such partisan purposes and obtaining a tax deduction for such ‘contributions,’ Pesner wrote. “This change in policy weakens the principle of church-state separation that has protected both government and religion, allowing diverse religious communities — including our own — to flourish.”

Pesner, along with other critics, noted that the IRS ruling, which is only meant to apply to sermons delivered to congregants, becomes difficult to enforce in an age where services are regularly livestreamed and shared online. This, he said, offers a “backdoor for spreading partisanship far beyond actual congregants.”