Church Acknowledges Close Ties to the Christian Coalition

A pastor at one of the San Fernando Valley’s most prominent evangelical churches, acknowledging for the first time its close ties with the conservative Christian Coalition of California, says that church leaders find it difficult to keep the group focused on religious issues instead of secular quarrels like immigration and gun control.

The Coalition’s Tarzana-based California affiliate--the largest in the country with a claimed 150,000 members--has received small, monthly checks, as well as other forms of support, from the Church on the Way for at least a year, said the Rev. Scott Bauer, the senior associate to Pastor Jack Hayford.

But it is difficult to keep the grass-roots, Christian-right group from branching out, using its clout on secular as well as religious issues, Bauer said.

The nationwide Christian Coalition, founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson after his failed bid for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination, is accused periodically by critics of trying to take over the Republican Party.

Its California affiliate was formed in 1991 by Sara DiVito Hardman, a California Republican Party leader who is also an active member of the 8,000-member Church on the Way.

“At times there are people who want to join her [Hardman] who have a broader conservative agenda,” Bauer said in an interview.

“We have said to her that if she wants to keep the California group truly Christian, she needs to resist those ideas that are not related to biblical mandates.”

Bauer said that opposition to abortion, euthanasia, sexual promiscuity and certain other issues are justified by a conservative Christian understanding of the Bible.

However, he said that illegal immigration, gun control, military spending and nuclear proliferation are examples of issues that may find Christians legitimately arguing on either side.

Roman Catholic bishops have vigorously argued against withholding social services to children of illegal immigrants on the basis of biblical verses urging hospitality to strangers and Jesus’ words about helping the most unfortunate.

“Adequate biblical evidence” exists to support a compassionate approach to illegal immigrants, Bauer said, but “also related to the issue is obeying the law of the land.”

On the whole, he said, “the Christian Coalition can be praised for clearly enunciating personal biblical morality and family values.”

Church on the Way literature this year for the first time described the Hardman-directed Christian Coalition of California as one of its “outreach ministries.”

“We send her money because we benefit from and distribute the voter guides they publish,” said Bauer.

The San Fernando Valley chapter of Christian Coalition hosted a campaign talk Thursday night in North Hills by Elizabeth Dole, wife of the likely GOP presidential nominee Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas.

Democrats are welcome, especially if they “espouse our values,” said Hardman. Bauer said that Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) made a good impression in a 1994 candidates forum held by the Christian Coalition at Church on the Way.

However, liberal critics of the Christian Coalition, such as Jerry Sloan of Sacramento, who traces the activities of conservative political groups, said that the coalition’s self-described nonpartisan approach belies its heavy Republican cast.

“You go to their meetings and they often slip up and speak of the [Republican] Party and Christian Coalition in synonymous terms,” Sloan said.

Sloan said that Hardman’s close ties to well-to-do Republicans was indicated by her acceptance this month as a member of the high-powered Council for National Policy, whose members include religious leaders Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson; political organizers Paul Weyrich and Howard Phillips, and prominent financial backers of religious-right movements.

Hardman, who is on the executive committee of the California Republican Party, confirmed Friday that she was accepted as a member and attended the council’s conference in Orlando, Fla., this month.

“I was at a meeting with workshops and speakers to exchange ideas on what we do; it wasn’t a strategy meeting,” said Hardman.

“Our purpose in Christian Coalition is to affect public policy with Judeo-Christian values via the legislative process,” she said.

That goal, said Bauer, is consistent with the philosophy at Church on the Way--a Foursquare Gospel congregation that Pastor Hayford built into one of the largest non-Catholic churches in the San Fernando Valley.

The church so far has preferred to keep a low political profile.

Unlike many of his peers with wide exposure on Christian radio and television, Hayford steers clear of espousing specific causes or political alliances. Though he marveled in his church newsletter over the Republican successes in the 1994 elections, Hayford also was among the first group of evangelical leaders to accept--and be criticized by some colleagues for--a White House meeting with President Clinton in October 1993.

Bauer, a son-in-law of Hayford, said, “We joined a group called Californians for Biblical Morality in the 1970s, which was active in seeking to influence Christians in government, until it faded away.”

The church did not embrace the Moral Majority in California in the 1980s because it appeared to have too broad an agenda of political issues, he said.

Through the years, Church on the Way pastors have kept up correspondence with political leaders about their concerns, Bauer said. The congregation’s membership has included legislators such as state Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale) and political philanthropists such as Bert Boeckmann of Galpin Motors.

“There are people in our churches who are alarmed by our rapidly decaying culture and who rightly insist that the church take a stand,” Bauer wrote in the current Ministries Today magazine, which has a national circulation of about 30,000 charismatic and Pentecostal pastors.

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But Bauer wrote that alternative solutions to moral dilemmas should be summarized fairly and that anger accomplishes little. “We are required to live with brotherly respect toward fellow believers,” he said.

“I want to be prayerfully sensitive to the fact that my upbringing and experiences in life may at times shape my political perspective more than the Word of God does,” Bauer wrote.

Bauer expanded on that point in an interview: “Traditional inner-city black churches tend to vote for what would be considered liberal candidates even though they stand for biblical morality. It has to do with economic interests and politicians who show a sensitivity to the needs of their community.

“Suburban white churches tend to vote for more conservative candidates because their people are more concerned about issues such as abortion, taxation and maximizing economic opportunities,” he contended.

“The challenge to the Christian Coalition is to show a little bit of respect to one another and realize that our Christian values are sometimes mixed with our social values,” Bauer said.