Family Research Council Urging Pastors to 'Cross the Line' in Political Endorsements

By Bob Allen - Ethicsdaily.com
Friday, May 02, 2008 - Web Link
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May 2, 2008

A Religious Right spokesman with ties to the Southern Baptist Convention says he plans to counsel pastors to "cross the line" in telling church members how they should vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Kenyn Cureton, vice president for church ministries for the Family Research Council, discussed his work with iVoteValues.org--a collaborative effort of the FRC, Focus on the Family and the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission to register and educate voters--in a radio interview April 22 with Faith2Action founder Janet Folger.

Folger, a conservative Christian activist who supported Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination for president, expressed alarm that so many people in her church seemed to be considering voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, despite both the Democratic candidates' liberal policies on gay rights and abortion.

"The pastors need to speak more clearly about it," Cureton said. "I'll tell you that we are working with the Alliance Defense Fund on a series of sermons this fall for pastors to preach, so that they educate their people on the issues. We're going to be talking about the value of life, the value of family and the value of freedom--basically talking about abortion and stem-cell research and then also about the gay agenda and then finally about our Christian heritage and how it's being stripped from every corner of our society. And finally we're going to be doing a candidate-comparison message that is going to ask pastors to cross the line."

"Really?" a surprised-sounding Folger replied. "What do you mean cross the line? Are you going to be suggesting who they vote for?"

"Well we're going to go to pastors and say to them that we really believe that they need to challenge some of the thinking that we have going on in our society, which is that separation of church and state doctrine, that we really need to preach the Bible on these issues and apply them to the things that are going on in the culture today," Cureton said.