Vacation Bible School.
So I read this on MSNBC this morning:

Last week, 6,500 people in Memphis' Bellevue Baptist Church heard a political message. As many as one-million more watched it on a live broadcast to 500 other congregations.

But now, the Bush-Cheney campaign is going even further. In a memo, the campaign has asked ministers to send their church directory to campaign headquarters in order to reach church members directly. Even some ministers supporting Bush say that crosses a line that should not be bridged.

And then the article goes on to say that Jerry Falwell is doing really large amount of endorsing Bush from the pulpit and defends himself by saying this:

Look at the Democrats. Vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, spent Sunday at an AME church in Orlando, Florida. And Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, of Massachusetts spoke at a black church April 4 in Boston.

Then the article finishes off with this:

The Bush campaign says what it is doing is completely legal. "We think that people of faith should be encouraged to participate in the political process," says Terry Holt of Bush-Cheney 2004.

"People of faith should be encouraged to participate in the political process." But where is the line drawn between encouraged and coerced? There's sort of a huge difference between having someone from the outside come into your church to speak to you vs. having a political group actively recruit members of churches to speak on their behalf.

Alas. I'm hardly surprised. But on a somewhat related note, my uber-Christian friend who had previously told me (much to my shock and horror) that she would vote for Bush because "Republicans are more Christian" [yikes...on THAT note, please take a minute to revisit Vonnegut's article on this topic from In These Times a couple of months ago] told me that she really likes Edwards and his values and is much more likely to vote Kerry with Edwards as his running mate. And I'll say it again, Mr. Kerry, good choice...

MSNBC - Politics and the pulpit

- posted by liz @ 7/20/2004 10:04:00 AM