Jim Coppoc.

Most churches don’t pay taxes. Right or wrong, it’s a fact. The logic behind it is that churches, and other nonprofits, are good for America. We bring people together. We serve our communities. We lift up the oppressed. So we get that little boon to help us get by.

But there are tradeoffs. In order to keep our nonprofit status, we have to follow nonprofit rules.

One of those rules is that we are prohibited from engaging in any political campaign activity. We can’t fund campaigns. We can’t endorse candidates. We can’t tell people who to vote for. It’s not allowed.

I feel like Jesus would agree with this rule. In fact, every time Jesus had the opportunity to be partisan, he declined. He said no when the people wanted to make him king. He ate and talked and debated and spent time with Sadducees, Pharisees, and Romans alike. Famously, when he was asked about the issue of taxes, he sidestepped it completely, saying, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

But Jesus did make a whole lot of moral arguments, some of which got him in real trouble with the partisan authorities of his day. Jesus spoke up, again and again, for the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, the sick, the prisoner, and all the other marginalized people in first century Israel. He called out hypocrisy among the ruling class. He staged demonstrations and protest speeches, and went after the swindlers in the Temple with a whip he made himself.

As a pastor in the year 2024, it is unlikely that I will chase down any money changers with a whip anytime soon. I doubt anyone would care if I rode into Traer’s Eastern gate on the back of a symbolic donkey (I would have to build an Eastern gate first). I can’t do miracles, and no matter how hard I work on my sermons, nothing close to the Beatitudes has come out. But I can and I will speak out on behalf of everyone as Jesus did, and I will continue to serve my community as well as I can, according to his example.

This does not mean I will be endorsing a candidate, or a party, or even a political ideology beyond what Jesus himself preached. Love God, love your neighbor. Vote – and act – accordingly.

Jim Coppoc serves the Ripley United Church of Christ at 400 S. Main St. in Traer. He lives in Ames and Traer, and also holds a “day job” as Director of Integrated Health Services for Center Associates in Marshalltown and Toledo. Jim can be found online at www.facebook.com/jim.at.ripley.