NAACP and others criticize 'Patriot Pastors' movement in Ohio

August 23, 2006

(RNS) A "new generation of Religious Right" pastors is turning churches into Republican political machines, three left-leaning interest groups charged on Tuesday (Aug. 22).

The report, titled "The Patriot Pastors' Electoral War Against the 'Hordes of Hell,'" was issued by the NAACP, the People for the American Way Foundation and a subsidiary group, the African American Ministers Leadership Council.

The rise of these "Religious Right" leaders, "is bad news for America," said PFAW Foundation President Ralph Neas." Their harmful political agenda, their misuse of faith as a political weapon and their absolute intolerance of disagreement are a poisonous combination."

In particular, Ohio pastors Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley have been active in Buckeye state politics, the report says, building "a powerful political machine with growing influence ... and the potential to reconfigure both the political and spiritual map, as godliness becomes more clearly defined on a partisan ideological spectrum."

"They are mobilizing congregants who have been told over and over by their religious and political leaders that evangelical Christians are a persecuted minority in America ... (and) urging their followers to take a stand against evil -- and which justifies in their mind their take-no-prisoners militancy," the report says.

Johnson, pastor of the 2,500-member Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio, leads the Ohio Restoration Project, a network of about 1,000 "Patriot Pastors" from conservative churches. Parsley, who heads the Center for Moral Clarity and the 12,000-member World Harvest Church, leads a group called Ohio Reformation.

Both Parsley and Johnson have repeatedly and publicly extolled the virtues of Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, though both insist they lead non-partisan efforts.

In a statement, Parsley said that Reformation Ohio is a "four-year initiative designed to bring spiritual transformation to the Buckeye state through compassion ministry, evangelism, and non-partisan voter registration."

Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

-- Daniel Burke