Volume 54, Number 7 · April 26, 2007

The Evangelical Surprise

By Frances FitzGerald

Last year the Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio, became a regular stop for journalists covering trends in Christian right politics. In 2004 its pastor, Russell Johnson, helped organize a campaign for a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and succeeded in having it put on the ballot for the November elections. It passed with 63 percent of the vote, and many believed that it gave George W. Bush his narrow margin of victory in the state and returned him to the White House. The following year, Johnson launched the Ohio Restoration Project with the goal of recruiting two thousand 'patriot pastors' to register three hundred new voters each and bring them to the polls for 'values candidates' in 2006 and beyond.



Feature, 4764 words

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