Pastor Brad Brandon of Berean Bible Baptist Church in Hastings [MN] followed through on his recent promise: On Sunday he endorsed a slew of conservative candidates from his pulpit, including Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, in apparent violation of laws governing tax-exempt organizations.
-- From "Hastings pastor endorses Emmer from pulpit" by Andy Birkey, The Minnesota Independent 10/18/10
Brandon’s church is also distributing an endorsement list that includes nine Republican and two Constitution Party candidates in races across the state. He noted that he arrived at his choices based on the candidates posititions on bringing God into the classroom, opposing abortion and homosexuality, and support for Israel.
As the Minnesota Independent first reported, Brandon was one of two Minnesota pastors who planned to endorse candidates from the pulpit in defiance. He announced to his radio listeners last week that he would be endorsing candidates from the pulpit in defiance of IRS tax code. He challenged the “liberal media” to report on it “out of hatred for me.”
At the beginning of Brandon’s hour-and-a-half sermon Sunday he said, “Jesus Christ did not come into this world to convert everyone into being a conservative or a liberal. Jesus Christ did not come into this world to convert people to be a Democrat or a Republican.”
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From "Complaint filed with IRS against pastor who endorsed candidates" by Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 10/19/10
A nonprofit group that has long advocated church-state separation filed a complaint Monday with the Internal Revenue Service over the Rev. Brad Brandon's endorsement of 11 candidates, most of them Republicans.
The endorsements by Brandon, who heads the Berean Bible Baptist Church amount to a "blatant violation of federal law," according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Although pastors across the country have staged similar protests for years (more than 100 of them this year alone), after investigating the cases, the IRS has dropped them and agency officials have declined to say why they did so.
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