Religion Roundup
Protesting Pastors Back Candidates from the Pulpit
Associated Press
September 29, 2008
In what was billed as "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," dozens of pastors have preached sermons endorsing candidates, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.
The Alliance Defense Fund has offered to defend churches faced with losing their tax-exempt status over Sunday's sermons, in hopes that courts will find the IRS regulation unconstitutional.
Pastor Jody Hice of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Georgia, said he urged his congregation to vote for John McCain. Hice said his sermon compared McCain with Barack Obama on abortion and gay marriage and concluded that McCain "holds more to a biblical world view."
At Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, pastor Paul Blair said he told his congregation, "As a Christian and as an American citizen, I will be voting for John McCain."
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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