Daily Kos: Pastor calls Evangelical leader "insulting and hurtful"

EPluribus Media has a great diary on DKos about the hard right Christian political action group in Ohio: "Emboldened by 2004 election results that favored many conservative Christian candidates, the Reverend Rod Parsley, senior pastor of the World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, will be “Silent No More” about what he considers to be the victimization and suppression of evangelical Christians by laws that stifle their expressions of faith. Parsley is working with Pastor Russell Johnson and 900 other pastors to form a powerful religious-political coalition called the Ohio Restoration Project (ORP). They aim to establish a team of 2000 “Patriot Pastors” to guide their congregations in support of conservative Christian candidates, who will presumably move the Ohio legislature toward a legislative agenda based more on biblical text than on constitutional law. Toward that end, the ORP is diligently working to get one of its strongest proponents, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, elected governor. But Parsley’s call to action has led other religious leaders in Ohio to speak out against the efforts of the ORP.

“I know I’m not the only pastor that feels this way — the real silent folks are people of faith who are stunned by the direction this country has taken,” said the Reverend Doctor John C. Lentz Jr., pastor of Forest Hill Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. “The Ohio Restoration Project is dismissive of non-Christians and of the poor. It’s incredibly hurtful, and I find it insulting to my faith. Parsley’s interpretation of what is moral and correct is just that — an interpretation. The danger is when they say it is the Truth, with a capital T. Then you end up with a narrow definition. Combine that with rampant nationalism like the religious right is trying to do, and you get exactly what the Taliban does with the Koran.”"

Good for Dr. Lentz!