Church Leaders Cry "Shame" at Bush/Cheney Campaign

"When certain church leaders acceded to the request of the Bush/Cheney campaign to hand over the names and addresses of their congregants, they crossed a line. It is proper for church leaders to address social issues, but it is improper, and even illegal, for them to get their churches to endorse candidates or align their churches with a specific political party."

So wrote ten teachers of Christian ethics at leading seminaries and universities, including some of your more conservative Southern Baptist institutions, in a personal letter addressed on August 12th to President Bush and outed today in the WashPost.

The letter asked Bush to "repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign, which violated a fundamental principle of our democracy." It also urged both presidential candidates to "respect the integrity of all houses of worship."

"The letter's signers included evangelical Christians who teach at generally conservative institutions, such as the Rev. George G. Hunter III of Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky and Richard V. Pierard of Gordon College in Massachusetts. Other signers included the Revs. Paul Raushenbush of Princeton University, Walter B. Shurden of Mercer University in Georgia, James M. Dunn of Wake Forest Divinity School in North Carolina and Ronald B. Flowers of Texas Christian University."

"...when any church leaders contend that they speak for God," the letter said, "and have the right to tell congregants how to vote, such leaders have assumed prerogatives to which they have no right."