Christian Coalition Falling Apart

Over the last 30 years or so we've seen several Christian political organizations come and go. In the early 80's Jerry Fallwell's Moral Majority was big and played a large role in the campaigns of those years. The Christian Coalition came along and was a strong presence in politics for quite awhile.

The Moral Majority has pretty much completely disappeared, and it looks like the Christian Coalition may not be far behind:

Three disgruntled state affiliates have severed ties with the Christian Coalition of America, one of the nation's most powerful conservative groups during the 1990s but now buffeted by complaints over finances, leadership and its plans to veer into nontraditional policy areas.

"It's a very sad day for our people, but a liberating day," said John Giles, president of the coalition's Alabama chapter, which announced Wednesday that it was renaming itself and splitting from the national organization. The Iowa and Ohio chapters took similar steps this year.

Giles said he and his Alabama colleagues have "a dozen hard reasons" for the action but would elaborate on only one _ a perception that the coalition's leadership was diverting itself from traditional concerns such as abortion and same-sex marriage to address other issues ranging from the environment to Internet access.

Giles predicted further defections and said the coalition was now left with only a half-dozen strong state chapters and a weak presence in Washington.

"In our prime, we were rated the seventh-most powerful lobbying organization in the country," he said. "Now, there's not even any blip on the radar screen."

Some of these organizations were a little too self-righteous for their own good, and in some cases, may have done more harm to the cause of Christ than good.