Presbyterian minister founded organization using volunteers to monitor conservative preachers
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, July 27, 2004
A liberal Kansas organization called the Mainstream Coalition is sending volunteers to monitor Sunday sermons by conservative preachers with the implied threat that they’ll report the ministers to the IRS if they mix religion and politics.
Robert MeneillyThe volunteers – including many who are not Christians – represent an organization that was founded by retired Presbyterian minister Robert “Bob” Meneilly.
The volunteers have not been well received.
One group, the Christian Seniors Association, has appealed to U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to investigate “harassment” by the Mainstream Coalition’s volunteers.
“Churches in those states are being strong-armed and pushed around because of their beliefs,” CSA Executive Director James Lafferty told Men’s News Daily, a Web publication that describes its mission as “subverting the mainstream press.”
“We want those religious citizens to get the protection they are promised in the Constitution,” Lafferty added. “It is time somebody pushed back at the liberal bullies. This is harassment, pure and simple. Churches in Kansas and Missouri that oppose homosexual marriage go to the top of the coalition’s target list for some ‘monitoring.'”
“Somebody is trying to act like Big Brother when there’s no need for Big Brother,” the Rev. James Conard, assistant pastor at First Baptist Church in Shawnee, Kan., told the Associated Press. “It’s obviously an intent to intimidate.”
The driving force behind the campaign in Kansas is the debate over same-sex marriage. In May, the Kansas House rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Dozens of pastors joined a statewide effort to register 100,000 new voters and elect sympathetic candidates.
The Mainstream Coalition was founded by Meneilly after he served as senior pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kan., from 1949 to 1995. It is one of two like-minded groups that are attempting to muzzle conservative Christians.
The other and better-known group is Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is led by a United Church of Christ pastor, Barry Lynn. Both groups have their own political agenda but they claim they stay within the boundaries on church-state issues.
Lynn typically targets high-profile conservatives, especially Jerry Falwell, in attempts to get the IRS to investigate Falwell’s political activities. The Mainstream Coalition goes after the conservative preachers in Kansas and Missouri.
While both groups decry political lobbying by conservatives, they do it themselves. Both favor unrestricted abortion and tougher gun laws and both oppose government vouchers for private education and displays of religious symbols in public places. Those issues are often the dividing lines between supporting a conservative candidate or a liberal one.
The Mainstream Coalition, which describes itself as politically “moderate” on its Web site, also endorses candidates through its political action committee.
Conservatives in Kansas used another term: coercive. “We are alarmed at such scare tactics,” Ad Hoc Pastors for Biblical Values said in a written statement. “These are the methods of coercive rulers. There is no place for this type of intimidation by ‘secret police’ in our land.”
For tax-exempt purposes, the IRS prohibits charitable organizations and ministers from publicly endorsing candidates. Ministers are not prohibited from privately endorsing them.
Meneilly was the organizing pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kans., in 1949. At one time, Village Presbyterian was the second largest congregation in the Presbyterian Church (USA), with membership peaking at a reported 7,589 in 1992, according to denominational statistics. Since then, membership has declined by nearly 3,000.
Meneilly is a founding board member of The Interfaith Alliance in Washington, D.C., another organization that promotes a liberal social agenda, and a board member of Planned Parenthood of Mid-Missouri and Eastern Kansas.
He is also on the board of directors of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.