Noah Feldman, Columnist

Churches Break Politics Rule All the Time. So End It.

Trump's call to repeal the Johnson amendment makes sense.

February 2, 2017 at 9:50 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

It's hard to separate politics and religion.
Photographer: Olivier Douliery/Bloomberg

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Two weeks into the Trump administration, progressives can be forgiven for starting to think that anything the president proposes is constitutionally suspect. Donald Trump’s call to repeal the Johnson amendment, a law that bars religious organizations from political action on pain of losing their tax-exempt status, is different.

The Johnson amendment may arguably have relied on the idea that religion and politics can be strictly separated. But it’s always been difficult to enforce, and the basic premise is flawed.