REPUBLICAN REVIVAL

When A PAC held A Partisan Rally And Fund-Raiser At A Texas Church, An Austin Student Blew The Whistle

When William Pate went to the rally at Westover Hills Church of Christ in Austin, Texas, he was expecting a heady mixture of religion and politics. After all, the "Call to Victory" event was advertised as a way to get involved in "the civil war of values being waged in our state and nation."

"Come be equipped and inspired," said the announcement, "by two outstanding pro-life, pro-family Christian leaders to make a difference in 2004, beginning in your neighborhood!"

But Pate, a student at St. Edward's University, was still shocked by what happened at the Feb. 5 event. The rally opened with a prayer by a church elder, but the program quickly went political. The speakers turned out to be top officials of the Texas Republican Party, and an array of two dozen GOP candidates was introduced to the crowd. To top it all off, church collection plates were passed through the pews to collect donations for a political action committee that helps Republican candidates.

That was enough to spur Pate to visit the Americans United for Separation of Church and State website. He wanted to learn whether the church had violated any laws by allowing political fund-raising to occur on its property with its apparent blessing. The donations in those plates would not support any of Westover's religious work, but instead would bolster a political action committee that backs the campaigns of Republican candidates.

Legacy PAC's website might have provided Pate a hint about the tenor the evening would take. According to its Internet advertisement, "Locally and nationally, the right to life and the traditional family are under assault by the vocal and powerful few seeking to radically remake our culture. However, the Truth - that life is sacred and that 'family' cannot be arbitrarily defined - is increasingly being embraced."

The two "pro-family Christian leaders" the PAC invited to the event at the church were Texas Republican Party Chairman Tina J. Benkiser and Treasurer Susan Howard-Chrane. The PAC warned in its ad that the "outcome of the civil war of values currently being waged in our state and nation depends upon whether ordinary citizens will choose to stand for what is right, right where we stand."

Pate told Church & State that the ad, and the fact that the event was opened with prayer, did not "set off any alarms" because we were, after all, talking about Texas, where God, football, and increasingly politics, appear to go hand-in-hand.

"I went there expecting hard-core conservative," Pate said. "I did not know the event would end up looking illegal. I mean, what struck me as odd, was the actual fund-raising, right there in the pews."

Westover Hills is a congregation aligned with a fundamentalist movement that seeks to restore Christianity to its first-century roots. Its website states that members of the church "want to be obedient to God's word and be Christians like the original Christians we read about in the New Testament."

The church's website also notes that church officials seek to use "the financial and physical resources God has blessed us with carefully. We utilize our building every day of the week with special events and meetings...."

Pate, who attended the "Call to Victory" rally for a class assignment, took copious notes that revealed a highly partisan political fund-raiser steeped in religiosity.

The gathering was opened with an invocation by a Westover Hills church elder, but it included appeals for money from a Legacy PAC official. Indeed, Pate reported that the PAC official took to the church's pulpit between the first and second keynote addresses to proclaim that $5,000 was needed to "elect good Republican candidates to office," after which the church collection plates were disseminated throughout the pews.

"I think the PAC is capitalizing on the political atmosphere," Pate said. "The PAC is looking to the churches to help elect Republicans in this political season. It is disingenuous for PAC officials to suggest they just rented the church for space. As far as I can tell, the PAC holds these events only in churches. There are schools and other facilities in the area that could be used."

Following the invocation, 24 candidates, all Republicans, were introduced to the audience of about 150. Then the Texas GOP officials launched into speeches laced with partisan political attacks and religious musings.

According to Republican Chairman Benkiser, America was founded on biblical principles. The nation started lurching toward the left, she said, sometime in the 1960s when liberals - many of whom were "atheists and agnostics or had humanistic worldviews" - gained control of the nation's institutions of higher education.

During those bleak times, Benkiser contended, Christians began to turn away from politics, which ultimately led to federal courts packed with "activist judges who did whatever the heck they wanted." As a result, prayer was barred from public schools, followed by the "systematic removal of everything Christian." A decrease in SAT scores and an increase in the teen pregnancy rate soon followed, she insisted.