"National Get Kicked Out of Church Parking Lot Weekend"
Tuesday October 28, 2008
Catholics should guard their windshields this coming weekend.
Priests for Life held a national conference call on Oct. 27th (posted on their website) where they spoke to volunteers who they had been recruited to flyer Catholic church parking lots with anti-Obama abortion flyers.
On the call they told activists to connect with various state-level groups that could provide them with flyers and lit at the local level.
When I first saw this I was stuck with the brazen approach with which they instructed their volunteers. They jokingly called the initiative "National Get Kicked Out of Church Parking Lot Weekend."
First they let volunteers know that they could be asked to leave the church parking lot as they left flyers, as it would be considered trespassing. They said that if the parish Priest asks them to leave, they should move to the public sidewalk where the could continue to flyer the parishioners.
Finally, they said in the case that the Pastor continues to ask the volunteers to leave, that they should not be concerned, because by the time law enforcement was to arrive, they would have already distributed the lit they came to deliver.
I was struck by this story for two reasons. First, it is an important reminder that the religious right continues to deploy real ground troops. Second, that there is a good reason why many of us, including the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, have stood on principle for years against politicking directly in or around the house of worship.
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About Progressive Revival
Diana Butler Bass and Paul Raushenbush both stand firmly within the Mainline Protestant tradition and, along with guest bloggers of all religious backgrounds are dedicated to the revival of religious progressivism and its influence in American politics.
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Diana Butler BassDiana Butler Bass is a commentator and scholar in American religion. She is the author of seven books including A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009).
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Paul RaushenbushModerator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University.
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For the last two elections my mother and I have been driving around telling the church about the flyers and helping them remove this deceptive literature. Last year we caught some of them in the act and with the request of the church the police told them to leave. My mother followed them, they went in the back door of the local Republican office.
We find it disturbing that someone would use God for their own vain image. Why do they think they can use church as a place to make their political false gods look good? Maybe, they do not care that it hurts the church because they do not go to church or may not even believe in God.
Tomorrow will be a busy morning for a lot of people, I try to remember what Jesus said "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do". They think they are doing Gods work, but I believe they are only spreading hatred.
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