What instances of Johnson Amendment enforcement or complaints have involved NAR‑affiliated churches in Texas and California?
Executive summary
A high‑profile lawsuit filed in Texas in 2024 by the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) and two Texas churches forced a dramatic repositioning of the Internal Revenue Service on the Johnson Amendment, culminating in a joint motion in July 2025 in which the IRS asked a federal court to limit enforcement against those plaintiff churches for “speech to its congregation” [1] [2] [3]. Reporting documents multiple episodes of alleged violations and probes in Texas and isolated enforcement or investigations in California, but none of the provided sources explicitly identify any of those churches as “NAR‑affiliated” (the reporting does not tie the New Apostolic Reformation or any “NAR” organizational label to the specific churches named) — a limitation this analysis must note (no source linking NAR affiliation).
1. The Texas lawsuit that changed the enforcement landscape
In August 2024, two Texas churches joined with the National Religious Broadcasters and allied groups to sue the IRS and challenge the constitutionality of the Johnson Amendment; the litigation produced a joint motion filed July 7, 2025 in which the IRS proposed that speech from houses of worship to their congregations in connection with religious services should not be treated as disqualifying campaign intervention [1] [2] [3]. Legal observers and nonprofit groups immediately flagged that the proposed consent judgment — if entered by the Eastern District of Texas — would directly protect only the two plaintiff churches while signaling reduced enforcement against similar religious speech more broadly [4] [5].
2. Which Texas churches are in the case and what relief they seek
Court filings and legal commentary name the two Texas church plaintiffs (commonly reported as Sand Springs Church and a First Baptist Church in Texas in some legal accounts) as central to the NRB lawsuit; the joint motion would bar the IRS from enforcing the Johnson Amendment against those plaintiff churches for communications “through its usual channels of communication” about electoral matters viewed through a lens of faith [6] [4]. Legal analyses underline that the practical effect might be limited in the short term because the IRS historically seldom enforced the Johnson Amendment against sermons, but the consent judgment could nevertheless widen the space for partisan speech in houses of worship if the court approves it and other actors replicate the litigation strategy [7] [4].
3. Documented complaints, probes and alleged violations in Texas
Investigative reporting by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune identified nearly 20 Texas churches whose sermons or public actions appeared to cross the line into prohibited candidate advocacy in recent cycles and documented that the IRS had launched only a small number of inquiries since 2011 — a pattern reporters described as the agency largely abdicating enforcement [8] [9]. Independent legal commentary and nonprofit trackers cite a broader history of selective enforcement and attempts by conservative legal groups to provoke IRS action that largely failed, underscoring how the 2024‑25 litigation is both a product of and a catalyst for that enforcement pattern [7] [8].
4. California: scattered probes and high‑profile allegations, not wholesale enforcement
California appears in the record largely as episodic instances: the IRS revoked the tax exemption of Branch Ministries in New York in the 1990s after newspaper ads opposing Bill Clinton, and reporting cites a 2004 three‑year IRS probe of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena as an example of an earlier investigation; separate allegations have been made about prominent Black clergy in San Francisco such as Rev. Amos Brown, but those reports are framed as accusations rather than documented revocations tied to a sustained enforcement program in California [10] [11]. The available sources do not identify any California churches in the NRB litigation or as NAR‑affiliated.
5. Competing narratives, actors and implicit agendas
Proponents of the NRB litigation and the IRS’s joint motion argue the Johnson Amendment improperly muzzled religious speech and that the proposed relief merely recognizes internal, faith‑based communications as constitutionally protected [2] [3]. Critics — including Americans United and many nonprofit coalitions — warn the consent judgment amounts to a gift to partisan religious actors, risks creating tax‑favored political conduits and undermines church‑state separation; they have moved to intervene in court to defend the statute [12] [13]. Reporting therefore reflects clear advocacy lines: conservative religious broadcasters and allied groups pressing for expanded speech rights, and nonprofit and church‑state separation groups defending the longstanding nonpartisanship regime [13] [12].
6. What the sources do and do not say about “NAR‑affiliated” churches
Across the documents reviewed there is consistent coverage of the NRB case, of multiple alleged Johnson Amendment violations in Texas, and of episodic probes or revocations [1] [8] [10]. None of the provided sources, however, explicitly label the churches involved in the Texas litigation or the Texas/California churches cited in investigative reports as affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) or another “NAR” network; therefore no definitive factual link to NAR affiliation can be asserted on the basis of these sources (reporting limitation).