pulpit

On a Saturday evening in 1838, a young Illinois state legislator ascended the pulpit of his hometown Baptist church to deliver a lecture before the Springfield Young Men’s Lyceum.

Railroad magnate and speculator Jay Gould was dubbed “the Mephistopheles of Wall Street” by ministers on the 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.