This would not be a bad time to recall that Congress had a reason for passing the Johnson Amendment: Once upon a time, the tax-free status of churches enabled them to funnel anonymous, unaccountable money to political candidates just as Super PACs do today — and many pastors were willing to allow their church to be used in that way, so long as they got a cut.
Since religion has (deservedly) lost a lot of its social influence during the last several decades, and politicians have created Super PACs to replace them, it is unlikely that the Executive Order signed yesterday by Donald Trump will significantly affect that. Even so, the Amendment should remain in place and be enforced, otherwise we all end up indirectly subsidizing the candidate most willing to suck-up to Pastor Bubba.
By the way, if pastors truly believed in religious liberty they would disapprove of skeptics being compelled by law to subsidize them.
As it happens, the Order signed yesterday was little more than a gesture, glibly instructing that the federal government should protect religious liberty within prevailing law. If anything at all actually changes, it isn’t obvious.
And listen to the feeble, half-hearted applause of the evangelical leaders summoned to witness the signing: They know they aren’t getting what they wanted.