Christians Politics

Is the Christian Coalition's political agenda really Christian? Christian social liberals plan to launch a major effort to persuade churchgoers that their faith may call upon them to vote quite differently than suggested by such high-profile conservative leaders as religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition.

A conservative Christian coalition has sent a mailer to the 27th Congressional District's politically potent Armenian American community, calling Rep. James E. Rogan's main opponent, state Sen. Adam Schiff, "a champion of the homosexual agenda." In response, a Washington-based coalition of religious groups Friday denounced the tone and content of the mailing, sent by the Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition to 15,000 to 20,000 district voters with Armenian surnames.

On the Sunday before Election Day, 1990, thousands of San Diego churchgoers returned to their cars after services only to encounter a sermon of another sort. "Cast your ballot for a pro-life, pro-family future," said a political flyer that had been placed on windshields. "The candidates on this slate espouse strong, traditional family values and oppose the senseless killing of innocent, unborn children for reasons of sex selection, birth control and convenience."

A Yorba Linda school trustee pops onto a campus to give teachers an unsolicited lecture on the importance of phonics instruction. Another "back-to-basics" crusader in Anaheim seeks to scuttle state-mandated bilingual education. Two more trustees of an Orange County education agency in Costa Mesa skewer a federal career program championed by President Clinton and a broad front of county business and school leaders.

For Pam Henkoski, a 34-year-old San Clemente mother, politics is a ministry. Like many other "born-again" Christians, she recently began to view public schools as wielding an alarming secular influence over children, one that cannot be neutralized with a few hours of weekly Sunday school. After praying for guidance, she petitioned the Capistrano Unified School District Board of Trustees to allow the teaching of creation theory along with the theory of evolution.

Not many legislators were still on the House floor when Rep. Glenn Poshard stood up late on the evening of March 23 to deliver a few remarks. Nothing surprising about that: Poshard isn't the kind of politician to draw a crowd. A 49-year-old Democrat now serving his fourth term, Poshard represents a rural south-central Illinois district (the big city is Decatur) where people work mostly with their hands. There's nothing flashy about the place, and nothing flashy about Poshard himself.

A conservative Christian coalition has sent a mailer to the 27th Congressional District's politically potent Armenian American community, calling Rep. James E. Rogan's main opponent, state Sen. Adam Schiff, "a champion of the homosexual agenda." In response, a Washington-based coalition of religious groups Friday denounced the tone and content of the mailing, sent by the Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition to 15,000 to 20,000 district voters with Armenian surnames.

A Yorba Linda school trustee pops onto a campus to give teachers an unsolicited lecture on the importance of phonics instruction. Another "back-to-basics" crusader in Anaheim seeks to scuttle state-mandated bilingual education. Two more trustees of an Orange County education agency in Costa Mesa skewer a federal career program championed by President Clinton and a broad front of county business and school leaders.

The Christian Coalition of California would like to convert those who think the conservative political momentum of the Reagan era is over. Leaders of the group said Friday that the American electorate still values the same issues it did during the Republican administrations of the 1980s. They blamed the GOP losses in 1992 on the political machinery, not the political message.

Antony Thomas' troubling and incisive "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done" (at the Nuart through Sunday) opens with a fleshy TV evangelist exhorting his flock: "It's time for God's people to come out of the closet and change America!" In his documentary--pulled from the Public Broadcasting Service's "Frontline" series in May, 1987, but now to be aired on KCET-TV Channel 28 on April 6 at 10 p.m.--Thomas reveals how born-again Christians mean to effect this change through political means.

For Elizabeth Parker, the president of the Orange County Board of Education, the call to action came when a conservative Christian activist called her a "Nazi lover" for attending an abortion rights meeting. Father Brad Karelius of Santa Ana's Episcopal Church of the Messiah decided to get involved after noticing the increasing discomfort of his middle-of-the-road congregants with the Christian Coalition's fundamentalist views on social issues.

Is the Christian Coalition's political agenda really Christian? Christian social liberals plan to launch a major effort to persuade churchgoers that their faith may call upon them to vote quite differently than suggested by such high-profile conservative leaders as religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition.

A panel of evangelical leaders and authors has called on evangelical Christians to forge a political "third way" between the "politically correct" left and the conservative Religious Right. "Americans are fed up with the culture wars," said Tom Sine, a well-known evangelical author and adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. "They want to try to solve America's problems."

In 1988, he was a poor graduate student who waited on tables at the Democratic convention in Atlanta, serving among other VIPs--very important pols--Ron Brown and Jesse Jackson. Seven years later, Ralph Reed Jr. is arguably more powerful than either of those men, having earned his Christian Coalition a place at the head of the table in an ascendant Republican Party.

Not many legislators were still on the House floor when Rep. Glenn Poshard stood up late on the evening of March 23 to deliver a few remarks. Nothing surprising about that: Poshard isn't the kind of politician to draw a crowd. A 49-year-old Democrat now serving his fourth term, Poshard represents a rural south-central Illinois district (the big city is Decatur) where people work mostly with their hands. There's nothing flashy about the place, and nothing flashy about Poshard himself.

First-grade teacher Diane Palmer walked hesitantly to the microphone at the front of the packed school auditorium. Five members of the school board, whose back-to-basics philosophy had already cut guidance and anti-drug programs, sat impassively on the stage as she begged them to abandon a plan to limit instruction to a board-approved curriculum. "We cannot restrict teachers this way," Palmer said. "I want to be a mind-stretcher, not a mind-stuffer. Please do not pass this policy.

A panel of evangelical leaders and authors has called on evangelical Christians to forge a political "third way" between the "politically correct" left and the conservative Religious Right. "Americans are fed up with the culture wars," said Tom Sine, a well-known evangelical author and adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. "They want to try to solve America's problems."

When President Saddam Hussein said Iraqis could leave their country for only the second time in more than 10 years of war, the Christians were at the head of the line. An estimated 30,000 Iraqis--a high percentage of them Christians--are now filling hotels and apartments here in the Jordanian capital. Many spend their days at Western consulates, hoping for a visa that will let them leave the Middle East, perhaps for good.

The Christian Coalition of California would like to convert those who think the conservative political momentum of the Reagan era is over. Leaders of the group said Friday that the American electorate still values the same issues it did during the Republican administrations of the 1980s. They blamed the GOP losses in 1992 on the political machinery, not the political message.

On the Sunday before Election Day, 1990, thousands of San Diego churchgoers returned to their cars after services only to encounter a sermon of another sort. "Cast your ballot for a pro-life, pro-family future," said a political flyer that had been placed on windshields. "The candidates on this slate espouse strong, traditional family values and oppose the senseless killing of innocent, unborn children for reasons of sex selection, birth control and convenience."