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Pastors working to register voters 05:58 PM PDT on Sunday, July 18, 2004 By ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News * SEATTLE - Along with the weekly call to worship at Calvary Fellowship Church, the conservative faithful are getting a liberal dose of politics from the pulpit. The church and more than 800 like it across the state are embarking on a political crusade to register evangelical Christians to vote. The goal is to register some 60,000 conservatives state-wide and win Washington for the Republicans. "If you have a particular conviction and you feel things are going down the drain you should make a stand," said Pastor Wayne Taylor. The galvanizing force behind the movement is gay marriage. Organizers are using it as an example of what they feel is America's continuing moral decline. In May, some 20,000 like-minded folk converged on Safeco Field in Seattle to rally against gay marriage, a heretofore unseen flexing of conservative political muscle. "We do need to exercise the power and influence we do have in voting and there are a lot of us," said Taylor. But Democrats warn conservative churches may be crossing the church-state boundary by preaching partisan politics from the pulpit, something that could get their tax-exempt status revoked. "To form a church line or a party line, I think it crosses where we ought to be going in terms of keeping church and state separate," said Rep. Sam Hunt, State Democratic Campaign Committee. Conservatives are quick to point out that liberals have registered Democrats in churches over the years, and this is no different: Federal law does not prohibit pastors from talking about for whom they plan to vote. But churches that campaign for a particular candidate could be found in violation of tax exemption regulations. RELATED STORY: Pastor's election-year crusade: 60,000 new voters in state By Janet I. Tu THOMAS
JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES "God wants us to be involved in government," says Joseph
Fuiten, senior pastor at Bothell's Cedar Park Assembly of God and
a political activist. The senior pastor of one of the largest churches in the state, who is leading a statewide effort to rally social conservatives to re-elect President Bush, Fuiten believes "God wants us to be involved in government. "Along with the church and family, it's an institution God created which ought to be under the will of God," said Fuiten as he stood before a giant American flag at his Cedar Park Assembly of God church in Bothell, delivering his annual Fourth of July sermon on God and country. Some Americans, said the straightforward 54-year-old pastor, are uneasy about the president and members of his cabinet being openly religious. But America has always been a Christian nation, founded on Christian values that unite us still, Fuiten believes. The problem he sees is that those values are being eroded. "It's not like we're trying to impose our values on the country. We're trying to prevent other people from imposing their values on us." Those beliefs — and his view of the Bible as the infallible word of God — are why Fuiten is heading the Bush campaign's effort in this state to reach social conservatives, who he says are being galvanized by the gay-marriage issue. In addition, through a statewide evangelical Christian lobbying group he leads, Fuiten is heading a voter-registration drive focused largely on evangelical churches. At his own church on the Fourth of July, Fuiten had ushers pass out forms to people in the pews who said they had not registered to vote. Already, more than 800 churches statewide have received registration materials. Fuiten's goal is to register 60,000 people. As an organizer of this spring's Mayday for Marriage rally that drew 20,000 people to Safeco Field, he has a record for marshaling the masses. "If Joe Fuiten is successful in registering 60,000 new voters, the lion's share of those voters are going to vote Republican," said state Republican Party chairman Chris Vance. "That's huge for us." Fuiten's efforts place him in the middle of a larger nationwide debate over whether the Bush campaign is encouraging churches to cross the line into partisan politics, jeopardizing their federal tax-exempt status. The campaign has, for instance, asked religious volunteers for church directories and recommendations for "friendly congregations," and asked Southern Baptist pastors for help in registering voters. "What you're talking about here is a gross effort to politicize evangelicals, to connect Scripture with politics and to lay a guilt trip on individuals to vote a certain way," said state Democratic Party chairman Paul Berendt. "There's a real crossing of the line separating church and state." Cerebral, passionate Pastor Joseph Fuiten, 54
Place of residence: Bothell Family: Married to childhood sweetheart, Linda. Four children and six grandchildren, with another on the way College: Willamette University (served as student-body president), Salem, Ore. Positions: Senior pastor of 5,000-participant Cedar Park Assembly of God church; president of Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government, a lobbying group; state chairman of Social Conservatives for Bush campaign. Free-time activities: Reading, gardening, garage sales, golf, music. A golf-playing garage-sale enthusiast, there is little about him that suggests the more emotionally dramatic expressions of faith often associated with Assemblies of God services. Fuiten's style is more cerebral, reflecting his love of reading, especially about early church history and America's founding fathers. Like other evangelical preachers, he is passionate in talking about personal salvation through Christ. But his sermons also connect politics and current events with passages from the Old and New Testaments and other readings. "My husband and I come away from every sermon with something learned," said 57-year-old Carole Sue Swanson, a sales executive from Mukilteo, who also likes Fuiten's clearly defined, strong sense of right and wrong. Fuiten believes the Iraq war is part of a larger, longer war between Christianity and Islam, instigated by Muslim extremists. Although not all evangelical preachers would agree with him, he thinks Islam is, in a way, a false religion, since the prophet Mohammed took three of the five central pillars of Islam — prayer, fasting and alms-giving — from Christianity. He says Hollywood is "bringing the wrath of Islam on America" because it's portraying the country as a degenerate society. But it's the issue of gay marriage that's become the focus of much of his recent attention. Fuiten says allowing gays and lesbians to marry would change the definition of marriage, an institution created by God to be between a man and a woman. Judges who allow gay marriage are imposing their own will and bypassing legislatures elected by the people, he says. In Fuiten's view, such "extreme individualism" ultimately leads to anarchy. He's making sure state lawmakers are aware of those views. The lobbying group he heads, Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government, successfully pushed for a law in 1998 allowing marriage only between a man and a woman and denying recognition of same-sex unions performed elsewhere. The group continues to defend that law, intervening in a lawsuit filed this year by gay couples who want to marry. "Down-to-earth visionary" Fuiten on the issues
On gay marriage: "All of Christian thought objects to gay marriage. Those pastors who promote it are abandoning not just the Bible, but all of church history." On Sept. 11: "Hollywood bears as much responsibility for 9-11 as Muslims. They've portrayed us as a degenerate society — as all we're interested in is drugs, sex and violence. In (Muslims') view, they want to restrain American culture, which they view as a Christian culture, from coming to their countries." On the nation's future: "I think I want for our country what any American would want: for the country to be successful, for people to do well, be safe, get a good education. Just life — the vision in the Bible of a healthy life." On himself: "I know most of the world disagrees with me. I'm
OK with that." For years, the family lived in the parsonage attached to a church in Butte Falls, Ore., the boys' bedroom separated from classrooms by a curtain. They said prayers before each meal and held a half-hour family devotional each evening. The Fuiten children were given strict rules about what was right and wrong, but "we were always taught to be compassionate about it," said Carolyn Crow, one of Fuiten's sisters. "It's not that the person is a bad person. It's what they do is wrong." Young Joe Fuiten was always religious. Family members say he also had a sense of humor (he used to stay up nights, memorizing jokes from joke books) and loved politics. He got hooked on politics in fifth grade, watching the televised Nixon-Kennedy debates. Shortly after, he drafted a plan that would have him running for U.S. president in 2004. It was at Willamette University, where he served as student-body president, that Fuiten felt called to ministry. After marrying his childhood sweetheart, Linda, whom he met at Bible school, Fuiten arrived at Bothell's Cedar Park church in 1981, taking over a congregation with 150 participants and a $100,000 budget. Fuiten's vision was to create a church that would touch all aspects of its participants' lives. Today Cedar Park is spread among eight campuses throughout Puget Sound. Its 300 employees run everything from a pre-K-through-12 school system (serving some 1,500 students) to counseling centers, an auto shop and a cemetery. Fuiten's extended family also is involved. His father and two of his sons-in-law are pastors there. The growth of the church, now with an operating budget of $13.5 million, illustrates the breadth of Fuiten's abilities, said a friend, state Rep. Skip Priest, R-Federal Way. "He's a down-to-earth visionary who tries to implement what many people talk about." Sheila Shipley, Fuiten's administrative assistant, talks about her first day on the job five years ago: There are no secrets in this office, Fuiten told her. Then he gave her the passwords to his computer and voice mail. "He has nothing to hide," Shipley said. "He sets the standard for honesty and integrity." Even people who disagree with Fuiten respect him for that. "I'm well aware that he has people he's trying to get in the state Legislature," said state Rep. Al O'Brien, D-Mountlake Terrace. "[But] I get along well with Joe. He's a pretty good guy." Crossing a line? Though federal laws don't prohibit pastors from talking about issues and whom they plan to vote for — which Fuiten does unabashedly — churches that actively participate in partisan politics could lose their federal income tax-exempt status. Berendt, the state Democratic Party chairman, contends there's no way Fuiten could persuade thousands of conservative Christians to register to vote without getting evangelical pastors to push a partisan message. "You can't register 60,000 people and not be aggressive," said Berendt. "The only way evangelicals can do that is by getting right in the churches and being political in a way that crosses the line, both legally and ethically, in my view." State Republican Party chairman Vance finds that "unbelievably hypocritical." "The left and mainstream media get all panicky and self-righteous when Republicans turn to churches to get people to vote," he said, when Democrats have done the same for years. In 1996, for instance, the Democratic National Committee spent $15 million to register black voters and to get President Clinton's re-election message into black churches. For his part, Fuiten emphasizes that his voter-registration effort is nonpartisan — the information he hands out does not advocate for any specific candidate or party — and his work heading the state's Social Conservatives for Bush campaign is done as a private citizen. Besides, not all social conservatives or evangelicals agree with him, including a portion of his own congregation. He recalls someone coming up to him after one of his sermons, saying: "You know, not everyone here is a Republican." "I said: 'We can work on that,' " Fuiten says with a laugh. "'We can cast out demons.' " Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com
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