BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Religion has played an unusually prominent — and controversial — role throughout this campaign season, raising the question: What are the appropriate boundaries between religion and politics? Kim Lawton has our report.
Reverend LOUIS HUSSER (Pastor, Crossgate Church, Robert, LA, during sermon): What is right always outweighs what is wrong. Can I get an “Amen?”
KIM LAWTON: “Citizenship Sunday” at Crossgate, an evangelical church in Robert, Louisiana. God and country are the order of the day. There’s lots of patriotic music, a push to register new voters, and a sermon called “What’s Right with America?”
Rev. HUSSER (during sermon): Celebrate the freedom that we have as Americans, because it’s a God-given freedom. If you agree with that, can I get an Amen?
LAWTON: Pastor Louis Husser stresses that the Citizenship Sunday efforts at his church are all nonpartisan. He believes people of faith have a moral obligation to be involved in the political process.
Rev. HUSSER: One of the challenges with Americans is that we have been sold this idea that you separate politics from your faith and nothing could be farther from the truth.
The trend toward religious “endorsements” has gotten way out of hand. I always cringed whenever I read about Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority campaign. The reason is that such movements have over-simplified litmus tests which they apply to candidates. They also try to make religion a political issue. In my book, the only time that religion should be an issue is when that religion advocates violence or has a tendency to do so.
What I want to know is this: is the IRS going to be investigating all the black churches whose clergy are involved in (mainly) Democratic politics in the South? Indeed, I know that there a quite a few black pastors in the SC state legislature. Are their churches going to be investigated, or are they going to be given a politically correct pass?
It seems that churches only get investigated for advocating for conservative issues, such as right-to-life campaigns.