You may have heard recently that clergy in Ohio from The American Baptist Churches/USA; the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); the Episcopal Church in the USA; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Judaism; the United Church of Christ; the United Methodist Church; Presbyterian Church, USA; and the Unitarian Universalist Association filed a compliant alleging that in violation of federal law two Ohio churches are supporting Republican candidates for state office.
All non-profits – including churches – are prohibited from engaging in partisan political campaigns (though both non-profits and churches can engage in issue advocacy).
The clergy who signed the letter undertook the action on their own behalf and not that of their congregations.
“The complaint to the IRS alleges that the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church in Columbus and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster improperly used their churches and affiliated entities for partisan politics,” reports the Associated Press.
One of those “affiliated entities” is the Ohio Restoration Project.
Bill Moyer recently wrote about this group:
In recent weeks a movement called the Ohio Restoration Project has been launched to identify and train thousands of "Patriot Pastors" to get out the conservative religious vote next year. According to press reports, the leader of the movement - the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus - casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between "the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell." The fear and loathing in his message is palpable: He denounces public schools that won't teach creationism, require teachers to read the Bible in class, or allow children to pray. He rails against the "secular jihadists" who have "hijacked" America and prevent school kids from learning that Hitler was "an avid evolutionist." He links abortion to children who murder their parents. He blasts the "pagan left" for trying to redefine marriage. He declares that "homosexual rights" will bring "a flood of demonic oppression." On his church website you read that "Reclaiming the teaching of our Christian heritage among America's youth is paramount to a sense of national destiny that God has invested into this nation."
One of the prominent allies of the Ohio Restoration Project is a popular televangelist in Columbus who heads a $40 million-a-year ministry that is accessible worldwide via 1,400 TV stations and cable affiliates. Although he describes himself as neither Republican nor Democrat but a "Christocrat" - a gladiator for God marching against "the very hordes of hell in our society" - he nonetheless has been spotted with so many Republican politicians in Washington and elsewhere that he has been publicly described as a"spiritual advisor" to the party. The journalist Marley Greiner has been following his ministry for the organization, FreePress. She writes that because he considers the separation of church and state to be "a lie perpetrated on Americans - especially believers in Jesus Christ" - he identifies himself as a "wall builder" and "wall buster." As a wall builder he will "restore Godly presence in government and culture; as a wall buster he will tear down the church-state wall." He sees the Christian church as a sleeping giant that has the ability and the anointing from God to transform America. The giant is stirring. At a rally in July he proclaimed to a packed house: "Let the Revolution begin!" And the congregation roared back: "Let the Revolution begin!"
(The Revolution's first goal, by the way, is to elect as governor next year the current Republican secretary of state who oversaw the election process in 2004 year when a surge in Christian voters narrowly carried George Bush to victory. As General Boykin suggested of President Bush's anointment, this fellow has acknowledged that "God wanted him as secretary of state during 2004" because it was such a critical election. Now he is criss-crossing Ohio meeting with Patriot Pastors and their congregations proclaiming that "America is at its best when God is at its center.")
Groups like the Ohio Restoration Project are dangerous for many reasons:
1. They confuse the Gospel teachings with the Republican Platform.
2. They create a sense that to be a good pastor you must be a patriotic one (and they define patriotic as being in complete compliance with their own narrow views). The only loyalty a pastor should be concerned with is their loyalty to God. A minister cannot serve both church and state.
3. They seem to have no respect for the US Constitution or the other laws our land.
Those other brave religious leaders in Ohio who are working to put a stop to these crimes should be applauded for their efforts. Americans cannot afford to stand silent as the Religious Right works to replace our democracy with a theocracy where only their views are valued. Democracy and respect for pluralism are ideals worth standing up for.
But the leaders of the Ohio Restoration Project believe they speak for God. Johnson described the clergy that wrote the complaint "as part of an 'unholy alliance' and 'secular jihad' against expressions of faith," according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The truth is that his group represents the extremists of the Religious Right but it does not in any way represent God. What they preach is a perversion of what Jesus preached. That is a message we all need to preach whenever groups like this spring up.
