Re: [asa] Joel Hunter: "The Real Big Bang"

On 1/29/07, gordon brown <gbrown@colorado.edu> wrote:
>
> Joel Hunter was one of the signatories to "Climate Change: An Evangelical
> Call to Action."
>
> Gordon Brown
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>
>
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Janice Matchett wrote:
>
> > If any of you are interested in watching Joel Hunter's new sermon
> series
> > beginning with the book of Genesis, see the details below. ~ Janice
> >

Speaking of Dr. Hunter:

Pastor Chosen to Lead Christian Coalition Steps Down in Dispute Over Agenda By
NEELA BANERJEE
Published: November 28, 2006

The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, which has long
served as a model for activism for the religious right, has stepped down,
saying the group resisted his efforts to broaden its agenda to include
reducing poverty and fighting global warming.

The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of a Florida megachurch, was named the
group's president-elect in July. He was to have taken over the presidency in
January from Roberta Combs, who is also the chairwoman of the Christian
Coalition's board. Mrs. Combs will continue in both positions now.

Over the last few years, Dr. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in
Longwood, Fla., has gained a reputation as an evangelical leader seeking to
expand the agenda of conservative Christian activists from issues like
abortion and same-sex marriage.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Hunter said that although Mrs. Combs had
indicated that the organization also wanted to expand its priorities to
include the issues that concerned him, the board backed away from such a
commitment during a conference call last Tuesday. By the end of the call,
Dr. Hunter and the coalition had decided to part amicably, according to both
sides.

Dr. Hunter said, ''When we really got down to it, they said: 'This just
isn't for us. It won't speak to our base, so we just can't go there.' ''

Mrs. Combs contended that the split had less to do with Dr. Hunter's
priorities than with his willingness to assert them without consulting the
organization's members first.

''We're a political organization, and there's a way to do things, like
taking a survey of your members and seeing what they need,'' she said.
''Joel had a different way of doing things, so he just went out there.''

The author of ''Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious
Right Won't Fly With Most Conservative Christians,'' Dr. Hunter has argued
that a large number of conservative Christians feel that right-wing
religious groups do not represent them, because they focus their energies
too narrowly on what he calls moral issues, often to the exclusion of
economic and environmental concerns.

He said that many evangelical leaders hewed to narrow moral issues because
they were ''deathly afraid of being labeled a liberal by other Christians,
the media, talk radio.''

Dr. Hunter said his departure from the Christian Coalition indicated his
belief in the rise of an evangelical Christian constituency that is less
interested in the passage of certain laws and focused instead on ''living
what Jesus would do.''

Dr. Hunter's departure is the latest difficulty to confront the Christian
Coalition, which was founded 17 years ago by Pat Robertson and quickly
became the chief lobbying group and voter organizer for the religious right.
Since Mr. Robertson's resignation five years ago, the coalition has
struggled with creditors, defections by state affiliates and a dwindling
presence in the capital.

Mrs. Combs asserted, however, that the group's debt had declined and its
fortunes were changing.

''I'm sure,'' she said, ''10 years from now, people will still be writing
our obituary.''

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Received on Mon Jan 29 18:00:38 2007