pulpit

“I don’t fault you for that … but you do have a weapon — it’s a bully pulpit.”

In this instance, the Justice Department said the ban unconstitutionally prohibited nonprofit organizations from engaging in political speech and that religious leaders should be able to endorse political candidates from the pulpit.

A week earlier, the Internal Revenue Service decided to allow religious leaders to endorse political candidates from the pulpit, effectively upending a provision in decades-old tax law barring such activity.

And the church — its pulpit, pews, and survival programs — is a critical staging ground for that struggle.

From a family with a long line of pastors, MacArthur said he was always religious and described how a car accident in Alabama that left him in excruciating pain helped push him to the pulpit.