NASHVILLE  On Sunday, a group of 100 preachers nationwide will step into the pulpit and say the only words they're forbidden by law from speaking in a church. They plan to use the pulpit as a platform for political endorsements, flouting a federal law that threatens churches with the loss of their nonprofit status if they stray too far into partisan politics. While other church and nonprofit leaders cringe at the deliberate mix of the secular and the religious, participants in the annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday protest hope this act of deliberate lawbreaking will lead to a change in the law. "For governor, I'm going to encourage people to vote for Bill Haslam," said David Shelley, pastor of Smith Springs Baptist Church here, one of seven Tennessee religious leaders who plan to take part in the pulpit protest. He also will throw his support behind a Republican congressional candidate and a Republican statehouse candidate and urge his congregation to skip the spot on the ballot where a Democratic state senator is running unopposed. "My support for these candidates has nothing to do with their party or their skin color or any other nonbiblically related issue," he said. Shelley knows he runs the risk of provoking the Internal Revenue Service into revoking his 60-member church's tax-exempt status. In fact, he's hoping the IRS will try. But this is the second year he's baited the IRS from the pulpit, and still the agency has not risen to the bait. "We're not trying to get politics in the pulpit. We're trying to get (government) out of the pulpit," said Erik Stanley, spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based nonprofit that maintains linking a church's nonprofit status to its nonpartisanship is an unconstitutional restriction on the free speech of the clergy. "This is about a pastor's right of free speech," Stanley said. Participants in the defense fund's pulpit protest send audio or videotape of their sermons to the IRS, but so far the agency has ignored them. The agency declined to comment on the issue, other than to share a copy of its regulations for tax-exempt religious organizations. For the past 60 years, the IRS code has drawn a line. Places of worship can hold forums on political issues, or distribute voter guides or mobilize voter registration drives. But they cannot endorse candidates or engage in partisan political activities. Endorsements unusual Only one church has ever been penalized for running afoul of the law — a New York congregation that took out a full-page ad in 1992 to rail against then-candidate Bill Clinton. It lost its tax-exempt status for a year. But many mainstream churches recoil from the idea of erasing the line between church and state. "It puts congregations in an awkward position. It's not a wise thing for churches to endorse candidates. We think candidates should endorse us," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Land said the church endorses many of the defense fund's initiatives, but "we think the mixing of the sacred nature of the church with the exceedingly worldly nature of politics is. .. unseemly." Bringing politics into the mix risks alienating members of the congregation with different political views. Even though the vast majority of Southern Baptists — the nation's largest evangelical denomination — are voting Republican these days, Land said, "I'm supposed to minister to everyone." And that includes Democrats in the pews. Lewis Lavine, president of the Center for Nonprofit Management here, is familiar with the balancing act churches and other nonprofit groups must maintain when they stray near the political arena. "We have separation of church and state in this country for a reason," Lavine said. "There should be parameters, and there should be common sense." The defense fund's polar opposite, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, issued a statement this week calling pulpit-based lawbreaking "the worst idea ever." "Clergy serve as spiritual advisers, not political bosses. Pulpit politicking violates federal tax law and offends the vast majority of church-goers," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the group's executive director. "The nation is already bitterly divided over politics this year.. .. Now, Religious Right political hacks want to haul that divisiveness into America's houses of worship. "Clergy should just say no." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more