by TChris

The Bush campaign's effort to use churches as field offices (TalkLeft discussion here) is offending members of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Bush campaign defended a memo in which it sought to mobilize church members by providing church directories to the campaign, arranging for pastors to hold voter-registration drives, and talking to various religious groups about the campaign.

"The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate. When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate," [said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission]. "I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors' fur the wrong way."

Others are concerned that the tax exempt status of a church might be jeopardized if it became entangled in partisan political activities. Probably not much chance of that happening if they're able to help Bush get reelected.