Reprinted from United Church News
| Written by J. Bennett Guess | |
| Wednesday, 04 October 2006 | |
| A group of about 30 clergy and academic Christian leaders, including several prominent pastors within the United Church of Christ, sent a strongly worded letter on Oct. 2 to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert calling for the “repentance and resignation” of all House members who knew about Congressman Mark Foley's sexual misdeeds against children and failed to stop them. "The bitter irony is that the leaders of a political party that emphasizes family values may have deliberately betrayed those values for political gain," the letter states. "This is a moral failure — and a symptom of a Congress that has lost its moral compass." Joining the signature list were the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Rev. Otis Moss III, both of Trinity UCC in Chicago; the Rev. Robin Meyers, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC in Oklahoma City; the Rev. Peter Laarman, a UCC minister in Los Angeles and executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting; the Rev. Daniel Schultz, a UCC minister in Lancaster, Pa.; and the Rev. William Chrystal, a former military chaplain and pastor of First Congregational UCC in Reno, Nevada. "No matter how much some politicians talk about moral values,” the letter continues, “protecting sexual predators at the expense of children is nothing short of sinful." The letter orginated from |
