Opening Remarks to the Ways and Means Committee
*** On September 29th - Bunni Pounds, President of Christians Engaged, testified in front of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on the weaponization of the IRS. You can watch the full hearing here. Here are her opening remarks in writing. Many questions followed from the Members of Congress.
Bunni testifying from her home in front of the Ways & Means Committee of the U.S. House.
By Bunni Pounds, President of Christians Engaged
It is an extreme honor to be with you all today addressing your committee.
My name is Bunni Pounds. I am the President of Christians Engaged, and I lead an amazing board of directors – leaders from around Texas who were not afraid to take on this appeal to the IRS for our tax-exempt status. I want to honor them today.
What happened to Christians Engaged – our Christian non-partisan non-profit-is so important for all of us to understand in our nation, and we are thankful for you all hearing our story.
Christians Engaged is a para church ministry helping pastors and churches bridge the gap between our responsibility as Christians as citizens of heaven and our responsibility to our nation. We teach on civic engagement and the importance of every believer in Christ to care about our republic and be good stewards of what we have been given – through habits of prayer, voting, and engagement.
It is important to understand that at Christians Engaged, we never endorse candidates or political parties. We only give people practical education on their civic duties.
We applied for our tax-exempt status when we launched December of 2019.
It took 18 months to finally get a certified letter in hand on May 18, 2021.
During that time - I worked patiently with the IRS as they reviewed our application and answered questions in two different packages that they sent us.
Then, I waited — for almost a year — with no response.
Eventually, I had to open a constituent case with my Member of Congress –to get them to respond to me.
Finally, our letter arrived, and it denied our 501(c)(3) status because in the IRS’ own words, “[b]ible teachings are typically affiliated with the [Republican] party and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRC Section 501(c)(3).”
The IRS went on to say:
“Information you present and on your website is not neutral. You instruct individuals on how Christians should use the Bible and vote the Bible.
For example, you educate believers on national issues that are central to their belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. Specifically, you educate Christians on what the bible says in areas where they can be instrumental including the areas of sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, biblical justice, freedom of speech, defense, and borders and immigration, U.S. and Israel relations.”
By the time I received the letter - we only had 30 days to appeal it from the day the IRS dated it – so in reality we only had about 25 days left. Thankfully I then made a call to First Liberty Institute – who by the grace of God took the appeal pro-bono.
We knew from the beginning that this appeal was important.
For the IRS to say that “biblical teachings” were in essence partisan political speech could potentially hurt every 501(c)(3) Christian organization in America — including churches that discuss their biblical perspective about public issues.
On June 16 - we filed our appeal with the IRS and distributed a press release to shed a little light on the issue.
The next day - we were on Fox News with Shannon Bream. By the weekend we were on Breitbart, more Fox appearances, and saw our story covered by most Christian and conservative publications.
On June 25, Congressman Chip Roy and Senator Mike Lee sent a letter to the IRS Commissioner, along with 13 other Senators and Representatives, asking him to look into this case.
Then on June 29th - Congressman Kevin Brady and Congressman Mike Kelly of this committee sent a letter to the Treasury Department requesting an investigation.
While all of this was going on, we were receiving notice from people all over the country that they were sending letters to the IRS and praying.
Then on July 1st— I received a call from the IRS. The supervisor informed me that Christians Engaged would be receiving our tax-exempt status after all and apologized.
Thankfully – we here at Christians Engaged knew who to call when we received this letter – but what about the leader of a non-profit who doesn’t know who to call and what to do?
We need to make sure this kind of bureaucratic overreach never happens again and that is why this conversation today matters so much.
Thank you so much for your time and attention and for hearing our story.