Guest Post by Morbo
The Christian Coalition, a Religious Right group founded by TV preacher Pat Robertson in 1989, was a pretty big deal in the mid 1990s but has pretty much slipped into irrelevance these days. In a bid to regain some political traction, the organization, now run by Robertson associate Roberta Combs in South Carolina, recently appointed a new unpaid president.
His name is Dr. Joel C. Hunter. He pastors an interdenominational church in Orlando, Fla., and he sounds like a — moderate.
Well, at least on some issues. Associated Baptist Press, a news service run by moderate Baptists, noted that Hunter has taken the lead on urging conservative Christians to take global warming more seriously. Notes ABP:
Hunter is familiar to many evangelicals and others as the face of a campaign by several evangelical groups to combat global warming. Earlier this year, Hunter appeared in commercials for the campaign, in which he appealed to fellow evangelicals to combat climate change as part of the scriptural command to care for creation.
Furthermore, Hunter has self-published a book titled Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won’t Fly With Most Conservative Christians.
ABP describes the book like this:
In it, he laments conservative Christianity’s overt identification with the Republican Party in recent years, and says, among other things, “There ought to be more than just gay marriage and pro-life issues because the Bible is concerned with all of life…. We need to do everything we can to relieve poverty, to heal the sick, and to protect the earth.”
On an FAQ on the church’s website, Hunter says of his politics, “I am a Christian, not confined to voting for one party. If you are asking my voter registration, I am a registered Republican — like Paul was a registered Pharisee. When it helped the cause to fulfill the law with the life of Christ, he was glad to use the Pharisee label (Acts 23:6). When it got in the way of advancing the Gospel, he counted it as rubbish (Philippians 3:5-8).”
A podcast on the church site contains 40 questions about religion and politics. One of them is, “Is it possible to be a believing evangelical and vote Democratic?” Hunter replies in part, “It’s not only possible, at times it’s advisable on many issues.”
I can only conclude that Combs fell down the stairs and hit her head before hiring this guy. I give him six months, top. In the meantime, where do I sign up?