End times for the Christian Coalition?

[struggle4progress]

Feb 09,2007
by Bill Berkowitz

Debt, lawsuits, president-elect's resignation threaten Pat Robertson's former juggernaut

On September 19, 2005, Jason Christy, the head of Christy Media and the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Church Report, a national news and business journal for pastors and Christian leaders, was named executive director of the Christian Coalition by the organization's president, Roberta Combs. "I am honored and humbled to be chosen by the Christian Coalition's Board of Directors for this key position," Christy said. "It is crucial at this time in our nation for people of faith to engage the culture, and to realize that at the grassroots level they can make a difference."

Within a month, Christy changed his mind, deciding not to take the position. According to Word News, Christy intimated that it would be difficult to work with the Christian Coalition and continue running his various businesses.

Less than a year later, the Coalition's board voted to name Joel Hunter -- the senior pastor of the nondenominational Longwood, Florida-based Northland Church, also known as Northland A Church Distributed, and a founder of the Christian Citizen, and the Alliance for the Distributed Church -- president of the organization.

In late November, however, Hunter stepped down as president-elect (he was to have assumed office on January 1), saying that he had wanted the organization to focus on issues other than abortion and same-sex marriage -- such as poverty and environmental protection -- but Coalition leaders did not. "I think the board just got scared," said Hunter, the author of "Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly With Most Conservative Christians." ...

http://www.bendweekly.com/Opinion/2660.html

[liberaltrucker]

1. They may be down, but don't count them out

These people are like hydras. Cut off one head, they grow two more.

x(

[Az]

4. The lifespan of fundamentalists in politics has a halflife

The longer fundamentalists stay tied to politics the more compromised they become. The more compromised they become the less it holds true to the ideals held by the followers. Spin and manipulation can keep the followers in line for a time. But eventually the hypocracy and lies topple the power structure and the organization falls to the side.

[Erika]

2. I'm sick of them and their being an arm of the GOP

They need to have their tax exempt status revoked. Falwell and Robertson have robbed their comminuties of $ so they could live the high life. Dobson and Perkins are the same. W's base.

[Dover]

3. Christian Coalition Left Behind....n/t

[54anickel]

8. Just what sort of a "base" do they have? Is it only the single-issue types

that make up their base now? If it is, that's probably the real reason they're dying. Just not that many people out there who are THAT narrow-minded, even among the "Talibornagain". :shrug:


"My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we're not carrying out the full message of Jesus," Hunter said in a late-November telephone interview with the Washington Post. "They began to think this might threaten their base or evaporate some of their support, and they said they just couldn't go there."

[MadMaddie]

5. The real end to their power will come when churches are

declared Non-Tax Exempt because they should be considered lobbyist like all the other money/power panderers.

The Tax code should be on a sliding scale which would depend on the size of the church and the money it collects. This will eventually end the Pat Robertsons and other Mega Church ego maniacs because they will pay taxes and will be held accountable for the money that comes into the church. Just sayin...

[struggle4progress]

6. IRS Denies Christian Coalition Tax-Exempt Status (1999)

By Thomas B. Edsall and Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 11, 1999; Page A4

The IRS has rejected the Christian Coalition's 10-year struggle to win tax-exempt status, dealing a major setback to a mainstay of the Republican Party and to the political-business empire that turned broadcaster Pat Robertson into a power broker of the religious right ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/june99/christian11.htm

[xchrom]

7. dust you are --

and to dust you shall return.