Pastor crusades for voters:
Evangelical minister starts $30 million campaign to refocus Ohioans' values

By Doug Oplinger and Dennis J. Willard
Akron Beacon Journal staff writers

COLUMBUS - Several hundred evangelical Christians rallied on the south steps of the Ohio Capitol on Friday to launch Reformation Ohio, a $30 million campaign to sign up souls for Christ and the voting booth.

Dropping such names as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther and John Wesley, and with the techno wizardry of a political convention, the Rev. Rod Parsley declared he is launching a nonpartisan, evangelistic mission to properly reset the world's moral compass, beginning in Ohio.

Parsley is founder of World Harvest Church, southeast of Columbus -- a church with 5,000 seats, a television ministry, a private elementary school with about 700 children, a Bible college and an independent advocacy organization called the Center for Moral Clarity.

For about 90 minutes, Parsley, standing in front of U.S., Ohio and Christian flags, ran through an almost seamless presentation.

``The vision of our country's founding generation and the inspiration of great reformers of the past are colliding with unprecedented moral decay and cultural decline,'' Parsley told the crowd. ``Today we come to declare a new movement that is an answer to the crisis of our times.''

Ohio will be a training ground that will launch a national reformation, he said.

At his call, the crowd repeated several times the Ohio state motto, ``With God, all things are possible,'' with a volume that reverberated against the tall buildings surrounding the Statehouse.

He brought with him his own security, a media relations firm, singers, rappers and television cameras. A big-screen television near Parsley played a three-minute video on the effort to save Ohio, including the institution of marriage.

Parsley said he has a three-fold plan: evangelize at least a million people, one in 10 of whom will become converts; help the disadvantaged; and register up to 400,000 new Ohio voters over the next four years.

While Parsley said his organization will be an apolitical, nonprofit organization, the ties to conservative Republicans were evident.

Politics of movement

All the politicians who spoke are conservative evangelical Republicans: Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who is running for governor; state Sen. Jim Jordan of West Liberty; U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas; U.S. Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina; and state Rep. Linda Reidelbach of Columbus.

Reidelbach delivered a resolution from the Republican-controlled Ohio House commending Parsley's effort, which will promote ``spiritual revival and moral reformation'' in the state.

Reformation Ohio's organizational leader, Dan Stemen, will establish offices in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati. He said he hopes to have $20 million to spend during those four years.

Also joining Reformation Ohio will be Youth With a Mission, a Kansas City organization that has committed $10 million to train and mobilize 60,000 young workers.

Stemen said Youth With a Mission chose Ohio because of its importance in the last presidential election. A printed statement said Youth With a Mission is launching a ``major evangelistic thrust in key states, specifically swing states such as Ohio.''

The crowd was racially diverse, with African-Americans making up an estimated 20 percent of the participants. That could be a significant factor in a tight political race in which moral values become an issue.

Co-hosting the event was the Rev. David Parsons Jr. of Ever Increasing Life Ministries, a large, predominantly black church in Columbus.

Parsons will have a seat on Parsley's Reformation Ohio board of directors.

While Parsley said he doesn't care whether the new voters are Republicans or Democrats, some of the voter registration drives will be coupled with the evangelistic events where Parsley says he intends to preach on which values are right and which are wrong.

There were frequent references to Ohio's approval last year of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- a victory that Parsley said Blackwell helped.

But it is those issues that divide the religious community.

Critics voice concerns

A half-hour before Parsley started his event at the Statehouse, an ecumenical group of religious leaders and Democratic state and national politicians met across the street on the front steps of Trinity Episcopal Church to question Parsley's Reformation Ohio.

``They are eloquent, passionate and dramatic,'' the Rev. Grayson Atha, a Columbus United Methodist minister, said of Parsley's coalition. ``But they will try to lead us down a path to take us places we dare not go.''

He said Americans fought in Afghanistan to ``free it of religious zealots,'' and now this group ``is seeking to take us down a path that is contrary to democracy.''

U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon, a former minister and psychologist who is running for governor, said religion ``is being used as a political weapon.''

``As I look at the New Testament, I see no indication that Jesus Christ tried to use the instruments of government to accomplish his kingdom on this Earth,'' Strickland said.

Parsley, who was aware of the event preceding his program, said with a broad smile, ``We will certainly have our critics. Indeed, some have already spoken against us.''

The critics will say it can't be done, or they will attempt to stop the reformation, he said.

``But I've got news for you: Our critics cannot claim to know who we are, who sent us or who empowers us,'' he said.

Conservative religious group offers its message at rally, but some disagree with it

Saturday, October 15, 2005
Mark Niquette THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Encouraged by the crowd, Jerrard Brown shares his enthusiasm before Reformation Ohio’s rally. Yesterday’s event was led by the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church, which Brown attends.

Using the Ohio Statehouse as a backdrop, a religious group launched a movement yesterday to convert thousands of Ohioans to Christianity and register them to vote.

Reformation Ohio, led by televangelist Rod Parsley, senior pastor of World Harvest Church in Columbus, held a multimedia kickoff rally with a boisterous crowd of more than 1,000.

The goals of the four-year effort: present the Gospel message to more than 1 million Ohioans with the hope of converting 100,000; host "compassion projects" to help the disadvantaged; and sign up 400,000 voters statewide.

"It’s an ambitious agenda. It’s a bold agenda. But it’s an agenda demanded by our times and commanded by our God," Parsley boomed to the crowd as he stood at a podium behind the U.S., Ohio and Christian flags.

"Man your battle stations, ready your weapons, lock and load. Let the reformation begin," he said.

Parsley led the crowd, some of whom arrived on buses from his church, in three roaring chants each of "Let the reformation begin" and the state motto, "With God, all things are possible."

On the other side of the Statehouse an hour earlier, a small group of clergy and others gathered to denounce the initiative as an attempt to divide Ohio and to use religion "as a political weapon."

Critics said Parsley, founder of the Center for Moral Clarity, and his followers are intolerant — and that they seek to impose a moral and political agenda that includes opposition to abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and pornography.

"The churches associated with Reformation Ohio have done some good things," said the Rev. Grayson Atha of King Avenue United Methodist Church. "But when their leaders and other religious leaders try to make us all in their image, they are seeking to take us down a path that is contrary to the very heart of our democracy."

Parsley had been meeting with pastors before yesterday’s event and completed a related 11-city tour this year to promote his book Silent No More.

The initiative is similar to the "Patriot Pastors" movement founded by the Rev. Russell Johnson, pastor of Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, which is intended to generate a greater role for persons of faith in next year’s statewide elections.

At a news conference before the rally, Parsley said the initiatives are spiritual, not political.

"We would like nothing more than for Democrats and Republicans and independents alike to embrace the three goals of Reformation Ohio," Parsley said.

He noted that as nonprofit organizations, World Harvest Church and Reformation Ohio are prohibited from endorsing candidates or engag- ing in partisan political activity.

Even so, Parsley has praised Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican candidate for governor next year. Blackwell sat with other dignitaries at yesterday’s rally and addressed the crowd briefly.

U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon and a Democratic candidate for governor, appeared with the clergy and others criticizing Reformation Ohio.

"As I look at the New Testament, I see no indication that Jesus Christ tried to use the instruments of governments to accomplish his kingdom on this Earth," said Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister.

"What concerns us today is that we believe religion is being used as a political weapon to accomplish narrow political means and goals. And that is simply wrong, it is harmful and it is destructive."

The rally was a source of controversy for Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman, who also is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor next year.

Coleman’s wife, Frankie, had agreed to appear at the rally and give a proclamation. But she pulled out, and the mayor issued a statement Thursday opposing the "divisive politics" of Reformation Ohio.

Greg Haas, Coleman’s campaign manager, said Frankie Coleman and Dannette Palmore, Coleman’s political consultant and a member of Parsley’s World Harvest Church, initially thought the rally was to focus on good works such as hurricane-relief efforts.

But Haas said Coleman decided against any appearance or proclamation after learning that the event was to include prominent conservative Republicans U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina.

Parsley noted that Coleman has visited World Harvest Church and said the controversy was a situation in which "a good man got bad advice."

Shantee Tiller, 40, of Columbus, attended the rally and said criticism of Reformation Ohio is misguided. She said supporters strongly believe that they need to speak out and become more active in the face of a culture sliding into moral decline.

"If we sit back and watch and allow this country to go away from God, we’re accountable for that," said Tiller, a World Harvest member.

Dan Stemen, executive director of Reformation Ohio, said the group has received a $10 million pledge from the group Youth With a Mission and hopes to raise $10 million more.

Coalition gets rousing sendoff
October 14, 2005

(Associated Press)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A new coalition dedicated to converting thousands to Christianity and thousands more to voter registration lists got off to a rousing start on Friday with a tightly scripted rally that resembled a revival meeting.

More than 1,000 people gathered in front of a makeshift stage on the Statehouse steps for the launch of Reformation Ohio by its founder, the Rev. Rod Parsley, pastor of the World Harvest Church in suburban Columbus and a television evangelist.

The group's formation comes after last November's election in which Christian conservatives helped pass a gay-marriage ban in Ohio and give President Bush the electoral votes he needed to claim victory.

Speakers included U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican; Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican; and Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican seeking his party's nomination for governor next year. All spoke with the fervor of a preacher during a sermon.

Blackwell, who also won Brownback's endorsement on Friday, praised the efforts of Parsley and others to sign up new voters. Parsley's goal is 400,000 people added to voter rolls.
"Reformation Ohio is about history-making times, reforming the culture," Blackwell said. "We are a government that governs only with the consent of the governed."

Brownback, who has emerged as a leading skeptic of President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, said the nation is engaged in a cultural struggle.
"We need a culture that buttresses our families, not attacks them. We need a society that honors good and condemns what is bad," Brownback said.

Parsley said voter registration is secondary to Reformation Ohio's two main objectives: converting 100,000 people to Christianity within four years and providing food, clothing and other necessities to the needy. He sent his followers from the Statehouse on an evangelical note.

"Sound an alarm. A Holy Ghost invasion is taking place. Man your battle stations, ready your weapons, lock and load," Parsley said to enthusiastic applause.

Participants were mostly members of Parsley's church, with many entire families in attendance. A production staff choreographed the event, much like Parsley's broadcasts from his church, with directors huddled inside a tent and cameras throughout the grounds, including one mounted on a small crane that hovered over the crowd.

Nanny Omadjambe, a member of Parsley's church, said she came to support his message of preaching the gospel, helping the poor and registering voters. She didn't see a conflict in the latter goal.

"The church is not trying to harm or change anything," said Omadjambe, 27, a bank loan administrator. "We're just trying to get people to be involved in what's going on, and I don't think that's bad at all."

Tying evangelical gospel to voter registration is a new phenomenon, said Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University who studies political mobilization by religious groups.

"Most of these types of groups don't tend to mix these activities in the same venue, at least not so overtly," Rozell said.

The emphasis on religious conversion for conservative Christian groups pursuing political agendas hasn't been prevalent, but political involvement dates at least to the Christian Coalition's founding in 1989, said Corwin Smidt, a political science professor at Calvin College. Those groups are rethinking their roles, he said.

"This is a manifestation of what has been happening over the past number of years. It's not all that new," Smidt said. "To defend what the person is doing is saying the church just can't be concerned about spiritual values. We're called on to serve the poor and we need to be engaged in the culture. ... In that sense, he (Parsley) is bringing all of this together."

A handful of liberal religious leaders held a news conference at a downtown Episcopal church before the event saying Parsley's message on gay marriage and other issues is divisive. However, Parsley said he would welcome anyone to register to vote.