Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 55

COMMENTARY Religious right agenda is basis of new party Episcopalians waffle on sex, may find selves facing liability ANALYSIS Christian Right, serves as organizer of the alliance for Tennessee. McAteer said that the alliance and the proposed new party is an "extension or continuation of the New Christian Right." McAteer said that many conservative Christians have become dissatisfied with the Bush administration and the Republican Party. He said Republicans are "not strongly pro-life" since President Ronald Reagan left office and are too accepting of the gay rights movement. "There's no difference between the two parties on most social issues, except that the Democrats are more honest about their positions," he said. The alliance is not working for an overtly Christian political party, but it would propose laws that are based on values of the Bible and Western civilization, such as making adultery and homosexual acts illegal, according to McAteer.

He added that he is for religious freedom and not in favor of trying to Christianize the government, a position taken by the ultraconservative Christian Reconstructionist movement. In presenting the goals of the alliance to a group of 100 conservative Christian activists and leaders, McAteer said that he found strong interest in such an endeavor. But he added that many Christian leaders involved in politics, such as Jerry Falwell, are too much in awe of the power of the White House and the Bush presidency to consider the alliance's political alternative. Outside observers of the political right and the Christian right were surprised by the proposal of a new party and suggested it may signify a change in conservative politics. Wesley McCune, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Group Research says he has not seen a similar effort to create a third party in his organization's 30 years of monitoring the political right.

He said it is part of a trend toward nationalism that is strong in conservative circles. That Phillips is giving his party a religious foundation does not surprise McCune. "There's been a vacuum since the Moral Majority folded. So it would be standard operation to draw from this group (of conservative Christians)," he said. Building on the ashes of the Moral Majority, the U.S.

Taxpayers Alliance expresses dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and is drafting a Christian nationalist platform. By RICHARD CIMINO Religious News Service Some of the same minds that helped fashion the religious right, a conservative movement that flashed to brilliance and faded in the space of the past decade, are hard at work assembling a new vehicle for delivering their God-and-country message to the '90s. The formation of a political party that seeks to "advance principles and policy consistent with the Bible and the Constitution," is gathering support of prominent leaders of the religious right, a designation that covered a range of conservative political organizations and movements during the 1980s. The new development also demonstrates the depth of discontent that has developed among some conservative Christians toward the presidency of George Bush. One Christian leader in the alliance is George Grant, vice president of the evangelical Coral Ridge Ministries, in the Miami suburb of Coral Ridge, who said he chose to serve on the organization's platform committee out of the "Christian obligation to make manifest (Christ's) lordship." The proposed party is being organized for the 1992 elections through the U.S.

Taxpayers Alliance, an organization launched by Howard Phillips, a political strategist who, though a Jew, helped to organize many of the new right groups of the 1980s that attracted large numbers of fundamentalist Christians. The Taxpayers Alliance, said the organizers, is active in approximately 25 states so far and seeks to turn American politics away from "humanistic, socialist materialism, and back in the direction of biblical, constitutional liberty." The platform for the new organization, which will be called the U.S. Taxpayers Party, includes outlawing abortion, withdrawing funding from the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts, abolishing welfare and replacing it with private charity, opposing President Bush's "new world order" and calling for a "nationalism" that places American concerns first. While supporting the First Amendment's prohibition of any established religion, Phillips, who is also director of the Conservative Caucus based in Vienna, said that "all ideas are inherently religious. Confidence in the state as the ultimate source of justice is a form of religion." For this reason, the alliance favors zero funding for such federal agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts since they give government support to "religious-based" ideas.

The alliance's call for an alternative to the Republican Party and its emphasis on traditional values drawn from the Bible have attracted conservative Christian leaders. Ed McAteer, director of the Religious Roundtable and veteran leader of the New By TERRY MATTINGLY Scripps Howard News Service Attention lawyers: The Episcopal Church remains a sitting duck for lawsuits linked to sexual misconduct by clergy. The church's 70th General Convention, meeting in Phoenix, decided it could not decide what the Bible teaches about the sexual conduct of clergy. This latest Episcopal compromise ensures new bleeding in a flock hurt by red ink and falling membership totals. Postponing a showdown on sexual morality also is a gamble in an era when more sheep are yanking their shepherds into court.

A resolution by Atlanta's Bishop Frank Allan said: "Physical, sexual expression is appropriate only within the life-long, monogamous, heterosexual union contracted in marriage. This Church continues to struggle to resolve the discontinuity between this teaching and the experience of many members." Is the church liable? What if a priest's actions took place amid national-church confusion about limits on clergy sexual conduct? What if a church has no "laws" on such issues, only vague "resolutions?" Each Episcopal parish is part of a regional diocese, which ultimately controls property and assets. Sue a priest, or a parish, and you can sue the diocese. The financial target is larger. Looking for an Alternative? Free Catholic CHURCH of the RESURRECTION ECUMENICAL SACRAMENTAL CHARISMATIC CONTEMPLATIVE Holy Eucharist, Worship Teaching Christian Meditation "Centering Prayer" Scripture Study ACTS OF THE APOSTLES Charismatic 10 A.M.

Service Feather Sound Dr. (off Ulmerton Rd.) 895-4153 ST. ALBAN'S on (T. PETERSBURG BEACH 6451 Blind Pan Road Sundoy StrvKM 9 AM Wtdnndoy 1 0 AM Holy Euihaml Hieling Service Fr. larry W.

Thornton 360-8406 SUN. 10AM M0N.7PM WEDS. 7 PM neaiing service 303 N. MYRTLE CLW 442-3867 ST. JOHN'S in ihc Community of CLEARWATER ST.

ANNE OF GRACE (Anglo-Colholic) 6660-1 1 3th St. Seminole Sunday, Holy Communion 8 a.m. 1 0: 1 5 a m. Nursery 1 0 a.m. Office 392-4483 Rectory 398-1723 SI.

Sun. 7WAM.HC. 9VM.IIC. tl IU Morning Prayer llnlv(ominuniim In Sunday Tun. llhWA HeahnjStrvicc 531-6050 SIJ-MJO 1674 tMm tea1, CkorwoM CHURCHES RFTHFT '8oi 62nj a Js- Lutheran Church DtiinLL.

hA of the Cross iw Worship Service Pastor Terry Kinney 8 1(1. Ill a.m. 8:30 Prayer Service IT Sunday hool MO a.m. 10:00 Worship riwrot( haiKclliir Overlook In Short Acrct HomeolBtH'sChiloVeiiCwIerPre-SfnooliDayCMt Day Silu.ul Asjrs 2-S I'h 52S-K1M tjtim SV Hrni.imt A Frank Vt, tuner GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH E.L.C.A. I II 1 1 If A 4, Summer Worship Service 9:30 A.M.

llllmVJLi rWrTuV' Douglas Langholz 'vjAVji Henry Kirkau Stephen Roepken ICMS.S. ijkmoA 4th Sunday German Worship 3 P.M. 527 1168 SMmHtrt I KIM 1 1 ELCA "First Compassion, fhen Care" D.wn,.wn..40IFhS.r.h.S. Worship 8.30, 1 1:00 A.M., 6:30 P.M. John T.

Interim Pa.to, Sud" 9 A Herman I. Gilbert, Pastor Picw-A-Devotion Pre school Grade 8 Worship 10 am 3030 537 13 Trampof tat.on A ni. Phone 822-3307 Al'n 1 1'IAfl r. zrr OIK lUR lc-ms Garden of Peace, ELCA iih 6161 22ndA.e N.St Pete 384 922l Kri. II.

Iliilllwii SI IVIersl.urK Dr. Carl L. Knitter, Pastor Smm ii-268 1 Sunday Services "Vacation With Jesus" 8:00 A.M. 10:30 A.M. 1:00 Holy Communion 8 00 A every Sunday A SUNDAY SCHOOL 9:15 A.M.

Educational Program 9 00 A 5unday Nunwry During IUlh HervifM Sunday Sfri.n.l Nurvtry Provided 10 30AM CmniM-lin Onlrr Pm-m-HomI Tlh Oath fmmmammg 8800 Starkey Road, Largo 397-1654 ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S J747 J4th St. St. Pettriburg Sunday Holy Communion 8 A.M. 10 A.M.

Nursery With 10 A.M. Service Wednesday H.C. Healing Service 10 A.M. Ph 8677015 rtrtt Ckwtk la it. Petenkarf Crjr Catlircnl Cluirrl) of Saturday 5:00 P.M.

Hoty Communion SUNDAY SERVICES: Holy Communion 8 A.M. Holy Communion 10 A M. Holy Cross WMfcdoy Wvkoh CaH tot iimt. The Vary Rvrnd JEMY R. LANCASTER, Pastor KEITH E.

EfiGHT, Mirnter of Mink 9:30 A.M. Sunday School 10:45 A.M. "THE HEALING POWER OF THE WORD OF COD" 6:00 P.M. TESTIMONIES: PASTOR GRANT ANDKATHY ABE Wednesday 7:00 P.M. Word of Life Clubs i 7:15 P.M.

Prayer Meeting Barry R. How, Dan 2ndAv. and 4th St. N. St.

Petersburg, Flo. Phone: 822-4173 750 93rd Ave. St. Petersburg The Rev. John F.

Higgle, Rector 576-3923 Sunday 8:00 A.M., Holy Communion 10:00 A.M., Family Service Church School Nursery Wed. 10:00 A.M. Holy Communion ond Healing Services "Worship With Us This Week" TIMES SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1991 3E.