[lbo-talk] President-elect of Christian Coalition resigns

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 11/25/06, Steven L. Robinson <srobin21 at comcast.net> wrote:
> (Joel Hunter resigned - was forced out - because the powers that be in the
> Christian Coalition objected to his desire to focus on the environment and
> poverty.   There is the potential for a significant political split within
> the Evangelical commuunity. Carefully note Hunter's words: "I feel like
> there are literally millions of evangelical Christians that don't have a
> home right now,..." It is becoming obvious now that Evangelical Christian
> community is not the hard right political monolith we have been led to
> believe for the past couple of decades. SR)
>
> President-elect of Christian Coalition resigns
>
> Associated Press
>
> ORLANDO, Fla. - The Reverend elected to take over as president of the
> Christian Coalition of America said he will not assume the role because of
> differences in philosophy.
>
> The Rev. Joel Hunter, of Longwood's Northland, A Church Distributed, said
> Wednesday that the national group would not let him expand the
> organization's agenda beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage.
>
> This is the latest setback for the group founded in 1989 by religious
> broadcaster the Rev. Pat Robertson. Four states - Georgia, Alabama, Iowa and
> Ohio - have decided to split from the group over concerns it's changing
> direction on issues like the minimum wage, the environment and Internet law
> instead of core issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.
>
> Hunter, who was scheduled to take over the socially conservative political
> group Jan. 1, said he had hoped to focus on issues such as poverty and the
> environment.
>
> "These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about," Hunter said.
>
> He resigned Tuesday during an organization board meeting. Hunter said he was
> not asked to leave.
>
> "They pretty much said, 'These issues are fine, but they're not our issues,
> that's not our base,'" Hunter said.
>
> A statement issued by the coalition said Hunter resigned because of
> "differences in philosophy and vision." The board accepted his decision
> "unanimously," it states.
>
> The organization, headed by President Roberta Combs, claims a mailing list
> of 2.5 million.
>
> "To tell you the truth, I feel like there are literally millions of
> evangelical Christians that don't have a home right now," Hunter said.
>
> http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16083556.htm

This is a most welcome split.  If more and more white evangelical
Christians split over the issues of poverty and environment, a core
constituency of the Right will become much weaker.  White evangelical
Christians on the economic and environmental Left can then join the
mainline Protestants, Quakers, Mennonites, Unitarian Universalists,
Catholics on the Left, Reform Jews, Muslims, i.e., other organized
religious constituencies for social democracy.

Just as populist Islamists in the Middle East are better
Marxist-Leninists than self-identified secular ones in the Middle
East, religious leftists in the USA are better socialists and social
democrats than self-identified secular ones in the USA.
-- 
Yoshie
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